Gareth walked into the briefing room expecting to find a mob waiting. Instead, he found an empty conference room with Talyarkinash Liamssen quietly waiting, sipping from what smelled like a glass of juice from here. Gareth blushed slightly as he realized that no human, nor Vanir, should be able to smell that well. Even a Nari like her might be hard pressed to match it.
And yet.
She rose as he entered and stepped away from the big, rectangular table to hug him. Nothing more, just physical contact that she seemed to find reassuring. If Gareth had given up everything in order to stop Maximus, Talyarkinash had come close in terms of cost.
She had lost her entire existence, being arrested at the same time Gareth was and quickly disappeared into police custody. However, she had been a willing witness once everything was explained to her, turning over names and addresses to the two Constables. It was the least she could do to help undo all the evil she had done, unwittingly or not.
She had burned all bridges, but still had a future in front of her. She was still Nari. Still five-foot-eight, approaching six feet at the tips of her ears. Her Imperial Blue fur was still sleek and shiny with gorgeous stripes, complimenting her eyes. Gareth had even gotten used to a woman with bigger and more luxurious muttonchop sideburns than any man he had ever known could grow.
He would have guessed that the Chaa, the Elder race responsible for the Accord of Souls, had taken a Canadian Lynx and transformed it into a woman-like creature. The eyes slitted vertically. The snout was ever-so-slightly prominent. She smiled with teeth that had more points than his did when she smiled at him.
But she had become a friend. And he, hers. She would have gone to prison forever, according to the Constables, but for her willingness to work with them to understand everything she had done to Gareth. And what some greater fool might do, next time.
Someone like Marc Sarzynski.
Gareth took his seat and considered coffee. Or whatever the thing in the silver urn on the side table should actually be called. It was close enough for his taste buds, raised on the instant stuff kept in a big can in the freezer, rather than freshly-roasted beans ground on demand.
Sounded like too much work. Like shaving had turned into as his beard came in. Or getting his hair cut.
Gareth wondered if he was going through teenage rebellion, or a very early mid-life crisis. Being turned into a giant alien creature would probably have that effect on a guy.
The side door opened before Gareth could decide. Eveth Baker and Jackeith Grodray entered, and nobody else. Just the four of them in the room.
He looked around the room at the other three people with an inside giggle. He and the two Constables were all wearing the exact same uniform, the steel blue bodysuit with triangular scales. Grodray had added the outer tunic that made him look more formal, while he and Baker had not.
Talyarkinash was wearing purple. Skin-tight, cheongsam top without any sleeves. Baggy, Samurai pants in a broad straight-leg cut, with a high waist that flared out at the top, almost like a pirate girdle. Everything she wore was embroidered with silver, in some arcane design that almost looked like something he had seen once in a Shia Mosque in Samarkand.
“What’s so funny?” Baker asked as she took the seat directly across from Gareth.
She wasn’t angry. Or it wasn’t at him, anyway. At last not that he could tell.
Grodray had ended up across from the Nari woman, but his face was more closed.
“Wondering if there was any symbolism in fashion,” Gareth replied.
It didn’t make any sense, but she had asked.
Baker looked like she wanted to say something, then looked like she was trying not to roll her eyes at him. Finally, she huffed once and settled.
“Will it be just us today?” Talyarkinash asked in a serious voice, dividing her attention between the two.
Eveth Baker was probably the more dangerous, from a purely physical standpoint, although Gareth had been her match back when he’s still been human. Grodray was still a more interesting foe from a strategic standpoint. He only looked like a Senior Constable, a role he played to mislead watchers. The man was really a Prime Investigator, a free agent allowed by his superiors to go wherever the crime might lead him.
As far as Gareth knew, Baker wasn’t one. Not yet, but she had something like a candidate status, so she probably would be in another year or so, if all went well.
Gareth really didn’t know where he fit into the whole mess. Talyarkinash was at least a scientist, and had been working closely with some of the staff here, but only a few people and most of them were not read fully into the project that was Gareth St. John Dankworth, renegade human, genetically-engineered monster.
Baker paused and looked deliberately at Grodray.
The older man suddenly looked angry enough to chew nails, where he had just been serious before.
“The fewer people that are aware of this operation, the better,” Grodray said ominously.
Gareth heard the echoes of vast, bureaucratic arguments in the background of those words. Complaints taken all the way to the highest authority, rather than being worked out down in the trenches.
When you have a human on the loose, things could get ugly. Two of them doubled the problems.
“How can we help?” Gareth asked the man simply.
That was why they were here. Nothing else would require the two of them to physically travel this far, when they could send a message or a courier.
“I understand from Dr. Liamssen that you have gained better control of your…powers,” Grodray began.
Gareth nodded silently.
“I need to see you in action, Gareth,” the Senior Constable said. “That will tell me what I need to know about how to use you, going forward.”
“Here?” he asked.
“No,” Grodray said. “Too many witnesses. We need to go up-country to the gunnery range. I’ve had it locked down for the next two days, so there will be nobody but us.”
Gareth whistled unconsciously at the astounding display of authority in those words. He caught the slightest flinch in Baker as well. Talyarkinash had never been in part of a major bureaucracy, so didn’t understand that it was almost never possible to simply snap your fingers and just have something happen.
“I can go whenever,” he said, turning to the Nari woman next to him. “Talyarkinash?”
“I suspected that was why you were here,” she allowed. “I have some equipment in my lab that we will need, specially prepared for Gareth when he’s in the field.”
“What kind of equipment?” Baker spoke up now.
“When he transforms, his clothing and anything he is carrying somehow become absorbed into the new form, and then returned to normal later,” Talyarkinash replied. “After a month, I still don’t understand it, but humans have vast, latent psionic powers that might eventually put them on a par with the Chaa.”
“And?” Baker almost growled.
“So the first round of bio-sensors I put on him went perfectly blank for the entire time he was transformed. Constable Baker,” the Nari woman returned the challenge. “I have a new design that I want to try. Hopefully it will work. Science is about attempting and failing until you succeed. I do not know if I am there, yet, but I am getting closer.”
“Oh.” Baker backed off, which Gareth found rather interesting.
She was a big woman. Slender and athletic, but muscular and a whole head taller than the scientist. However, she was apparently willing to learn, and maybe even admit when she was wrong, or maybe pushing a little too hard.
“Gareth?” Baker asked.
Which was kind of astounding, but he hoped he hid it well. Usually, she only called him Dankworth to his face.
“Whatever you need, Constable,” Gareth replied evenly. “Maximus is still out there.”