Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) Read online

  ‘Teresa Martins designed her,’ Jason said. ‘Close your mouth, Gaby, you’ll catch flies. Yes, Fox knows Teresa and Jackson Martins. I suppose I do now. We flew in on a MarTech shuttle.’

  ‘You rescued Miss Martins from terrorists in Dallas,’ Pascal said. ‘I didn’t remember until I did a little looking. Had to know who it was that had finally hooked my romance-impaired son.’

  Fox shrugged. ‘It’s public record.’

  ‘Not something you like talking about, I’d imagine.’

  ‘No… It’s easier now. It’s been three years and… Well, if Dallas hadn’t happened, I’d probably be married and I wouldn’t have been free to hook your romance-impaired son.’

  ‘I’d like to change the subject now,’ Jason grumbled. ‘I think I’m being ganged up on.’

  Gaby giggled. ‘Mom’s already done baby pictures, so I think your invisible love life is next on the embarrassment list.’

  ~~~

  ‘Of course, you can’t afford a house like this on a cop’s salary,’ Pascal said. ‘Well, on an honest cop’s salary. Monique did accounting. Had several big-name clients in the media and old-money sets. So, we retired with enough to get ourselves a nice house in a nice area.’

  ‘It is a nice house in a nice area,’ Fox agreed. ‘You’re right beside the park here, right?’

  ‘We are. I take a run there three times a week. Like to keep myself in some sort of shape.’ And, as far as Fox could tell, he had. His hair gave away his age more than anything else.

  ‘What about your parents, Fox?’ Monique asked.

  ‘Farming. I come from Topeka in the Kansas Belt. Mom and Dad got into politics after Dad retired, but Dad still has a parcel of land he tends. They get a lot of their vegetables from it and sell some through the local market. To be honest, they didn’t much like it when I joined the Army and we didn’t talk for ten years. This summer they came to a policing conference in New York and we reconnected.’

  ‘Oh! Wouldn’t you rather have been with them tomorrow?’

  Fox grinned. ‘No. You don’t talk for a decade… Um, we’re still working the bugs out of the relationship. Their politics are a little different from mine and we’d have ended up arguing. Besides, their marriage went through a bit of a rocky patch recently and they reconnected when I was there in the summer. I kind of hope they want to spend Christmas together and alone this year, even if I refuse to think about what they might get up to.’

  ‘I get the feeling,’ Pascal said, ‘that you played some part in fixing their marriage.’

  ‘Uh, well… Yes. I, um, gave them a little jolt.’

  ‘Detective and marriage counsellor. Quite the résumé resume. You said they were in politics in the Kansas Belt. So they are involved in the local policing business?’

  ‘Very. That’s where our politics differ. I voted against it, and they’re involved in setting up their end of it in Topeka. Actually, I will see them early next year. Combined business and personal trip, sort of. Palladium is training their police force and providing investigative consultancy, and I’m taking the excuse to go visit them.’

  ‘I admit that I do not understand how a country can operate on this delegated voting system. It seems far too close to anarchy.’

  ‘Not getting any arguments from me. I think the principle is fine, like with the local policing initiative, but in practice… I think we’ve gone too far. RFQ is still a representative democracy, right?’

  Pascal nodded. ‘West Canada has followed the American model, of course, but we stay with elected representatives.’ He sighed. ‘You are right, of course. Some middle position is probably the right place to be.’

  ‘Europe and Britain have something of a middle-ground system,’ Jason said. ‘Elected representatives to handle the majority of business, large issues handled by direct voting, and individuals free to vote directly on specific issues if they feel the need. No system is perfect, and likely never will be.’

  ‘True,’ Monique said, ‘and since we’ve started on politics and it is almost Christmas Day, I think it’s time for bed. If we’re not tucked up soon, Santa won’t come.’

  Gaby giggled beside her on the sofa. ‘Mom, if Santa existed, he’d have had to move house by now. Too little snow at the North Pole.’

  ‘So you say, but if I can’t have a second childhood at my age, when can I?’

  25th December.

  Fox opened her eyes and remained still, revelling in the warmth of the thick duvet and the warm body pressed against her back. Jason had one arm hooked around her waist and, from the feel of it, his own body had recovered from the bout of lovemaking which had come after the whispered ‘Merry Christmas’ exultations. She wanted him again, wanted his muscled body sliding against hers, his slightly feminine lips teasing her into a frenzy… But it could wait until he woke naturally.

  Someone else was up, and Fox suspected that Pascal and Monique were down in the kitchen. The sound of Christmas music was barely audible, but Fox could hear it drifting up from below. She could not really remember the last time she had celebrated what you would call a family Christmas. It was probably before she had left to join the Army. If things remained smooth with her parents, she decided, then she would be in Topeka for the next one.

  The air in the room smelled crisp, the kind of cool, slightly biting feeling you got on snow days. When coffee scent intruded into it, Fox developed an element of conflict: there was hot coffee downstairs, and a hot man in the bed with her. The dilemma was resolved just before she tried slipping out of bed when Jason’s hand slid over her stomach and cupped her breast. Fox smiled and reached back, finding him hard and ready. Words seemed unnecessary; she tilted her hips back, slid her leg up, guided him in, and let out a slow moan as he filled her…

  Fox’s eyes closed again as he took her, slowly, achingly. Her hips rolled almost of their own volition. She bit her lip and wished he would increase the pace, but at the same time hoped he would not. Lazy, Christmas-morning sex that teased them both, pushing them ever higher until she was whimpering into her pillow and his face was buried against her neck, and there was no way either of them could keep the tension from snapping. She arched, driving him deeper, and his hand tightened, fingers digging into her breast. There was that moment of exquisite denial, a near-painful peak of pressure waiting to break through, and Fox dissolved into the explosion of climax, feeling him release as her muscles tightened around him.

  ‘There’s coffee,’ she whispered when her vision was clear. She could still feel him inside her. The twitches sent shivers up her spine with every little move and she knew that his withdrawal would be a delightful agony.

  ‘Far be it from me to keep you from coffee, mon chère,’ Jason said softly, but his hand remained fixed over her breast.

  ‘I think I need a quick shower first.’

  ‘Then it is most fortunate that all the bedrooms have a shower room en suite.’

  ‘You’ll need to let go.’

  ‘Non. I don’t want to.’ Fox grinned and squeezed her inner muscles around the thickness of him before grinding her behind against his hips, and Jason groaned. ‘You are an evil woman. Torturer.’ He slid his hand away, down her ribs, across her hip – and the sensation of that was almost enough to make her relent – and gave her a pat on the rump. ‘Go then, take your shower.’

  She slid away from him, whimpering at the sense of loss, and then slipped out from beneath the duvet. The bedroom was cool and, on a whim, Fox walked to the window and looked out. ‘Looks like we’ve got… maybe twenty centimetres of snow. If I couldn’t smell coffee, I’d get back in bed, but it does look pretty. No one’s disturbed it yet.’

  Kit appeared beside Fox, looking out at the snow scene. ‘I have seen photographs, of course, but I’ve never seen actual snow.’

  ‘Perhaps a little education is required,’ Jason said. ‘You should take Kit outside, Fox.’

  ‘That would be excellent!’ Kit exclaimed, beaming at Fox.

  Fo
x looked out at the powdery whiteness. ‘Thanks, Jason. Don’t go thinking you’re getting any more sex before I leave.’

  ~~~

  Fox had not brought a lot of clothing for a two-day stay, but she did have something for most of the likely weather conditions. The sweater dress, leggings, and boots combo was warm enough, especially since the outside temperature was just above freezing.

  Wrapping her arms around her waist, Fox stepped up to the edge of the back porch. The sky was a clear, pale blue overhead and the snow was, appropriately enough, deep and crisp and even. ‘It won’t last,’ she said. ‘The sun’ll start melting it when it gets higher.’

  Kit stepped up onto the surface of the gathered snow, not sinking in despite wearing high-heeled boots. ‘It has a sort of grainy quality I did not expect from the photographs. I admit that snow is not something I have extensively researched.’

  ‘I can tell,’ Fox said, grinning, and took a couple of steps off the porch.

  ‘Oh! It makes a crunchy sound and you sink into it.’ Kit dropped through the snow until she thought she was probably level with the ground.

  ‘It’s basically a lot of snowflakes piled up on top of each other, but it changes as it warms and cools. The flakes meld and you get a more solid material after a while. I saw this documentary once about it. Kind of fascinating in a nerdy way. And, look at this.’ Fox stepped back out of her footprints and looked down into the hole so that Kit could see.

  ‘It’s a perfect print. Pythia could easily identify your boots from that.’

  ‘She could, but it changes as it melts, so you need to be careful about foot size calculations and print identifications in snow. I’d imagine Pythia has the software to take that into account, but just using your eyes, you need to be careful.’

  ‘Jason was right. This is educational.’ Fox grinned, reached down, and began compacting snow in her hands. ‘It is cold,’ Kit said. ‘Why are you doing that?’

  Fox held up her snowball. ‘Traditional weapon of children wherever it snows.’

  ‘Weapon?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Pulling her arm back, Fox launched the ball at Kit’s head. Of course, it went straight through and ended up skittering across the snow a few metres behind Kit’s avatar.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice,’ Kit said.

  ‘It would be less nice if you were solid, but that’s never stopped kids from having snowball fights.’

  ‘Children make projectile weapons from snow and then throw them at each other?’

  ‘They’re more like grenades, unless you pack them too hard. They tend to explode on contact and then there’s snow in your hair and eyes, and down the back of your neck, and that last one is a form of torture, believe me.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘It is.’ Amused, Fox collected snow on her fingers and rubbed it on the nape of her own neck, and waited. ‘Ah, Jeezus! Like that.’

  Kit was flinching. ‘Why did you do that?!’

  ‘It’s educational. Had enough? It’s warm in the kitchen.’

  ‘I think I’ve learned enough.’ Kit walked out of the snow and started for the back door of the house. ‘That’s cold.’

  Fox kicked snow off her boots and then stepped through into the kitchen. ‘I’ll take that coffee now, Monique.’ She looked down at the black, knee-high boots and then decided to take them off, just in case. The heat was already taking the chill out of her skin and the tiled floor would probably be warm enough for bare feet.

  ‘Kit has been educated then?’ Monique asked. She was not wearing her headset, so Kit let Fox do the talking.

  ‘She has learned much. Mostly that it’s cold, and that she would rather not be in a snowball fight.’

  ‘Not that we get many opportunities for that, even here,’ Jason commented. ‘Eat something, Fox. We’ll have the main meal around two, I believe, and you can’t survive on coffee alone.’

  ‘True. Actually, I’ve got an enhanced liver so I need the food way more than the fluid. But I’m a sort-of-cop…’

  ‘So coffee counts as a major food group,’ Monique said. ‘Still, there will be toast in a moment, or I can make something more if you wish?’

  ‘How much are you cooking for dinner?’

  Monique laughed. ‘Too much, of course.’

  ‘Toast will be fine. When are we expecting to see Gaby?’

  ‘We’ll give it an hour,’ Pascal said. He seemed to be checking out the news channels or something since he was wearing his glasses. ‘If she’s not down by then, I’ll go up there with a bucket of snow.’

  Kit shuddered and Fox giggled. ‘Yeah, Kit learned that snow is cold.’

  ~~~

  ‘You know, that has to be the most colour I’ve ever seen you wearing,’ Jason said. They were in the lounge, opening presents. Monique would vanish periodically to check on the food, but mostly it was all about watching coloured paper being torn apart and listening to the laughter or other reactions that the contents produced.

  Fox looked down at her sweater. ‘What? I wear colours.’

  ‘Generally black and purple.’

  The sweater was purple in the majority, but with bands of white, pink, and rose. There was a keyhole over her chest, closed below her throat by a brooch. Her leggings were a dark blue. ‘I wear jeans… I’m allowed to wear colours.’

  ‘I am not denying it. I’m simply not used to it. I like the red, personally.’

  ‘It’s rose. I’m not wearing any– Oh, yes I am. Ha, ha, very funny.’

  Gaby burst into giggles and Fox focused her attention on the redhead who was holding up a little baby doll T-shirt with ‘I heart NY’ graphics on it. ‘Is this even going to fit me? Gaby asked.

  ‘Kit found some size preferences for you on a wish list somewhere,’ Fox replied. ‘It’s meant to be tight, but it should fit. I had no idea what to get any of you, so I went for silly.’ She looked across at Pascal as he pulled a bottle of brandy from a plastic tube. ‘Well, silly and alcohol. Jason said you liked brandy and–’

  ‘I do,’ Pascal said, ‘and this is a rather fine one. Expensive…’

  ‘It turns out it’s a lot cheaper if you get it from the distiller and I wasn’t that far away, on business. It was just a quick hop north from Chicago and I’m the pilot so the ship goes where I tell it.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll savour this one.’

  ‘And thank you for this,’ Gaby added. ‘I’ll put it on later to prove Mom’s cooking hasn’t added a size.’

  Fox picked up what appeared at first sight to be a scrap of black lace. ‘Yes, well, I won’t be putting this on later. I don’t think we’re quite ready for me wandering around in flimsy lingerie.’

  ‘You can save it for much later,’ Pascal said. ‘Jason bought it. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’ Fox looked at Jason, who remained tactfully silent, even if his cheeks reddened.

  He was saved from anything more embarrassing by Kit. ‘Marie is calling, Fox. It’s marked as a teleconference.’ The foxy pixie was once again sitting on the floor to watch the unwrapping process and both of the elder Deverauxes had put their wearables on so that Kit was included fully in the proceedings.

  ‘She’ll have Sam in the call with her.’

  ‘Link us all in,’ Gaby suggested. ‘I wouldn’t mind saying hi to your housemates.’

  ‘Well… Let me just check they’re decent first.’

  Marie was wearing a Christmassy green-and-red mini-dress, with illuminated trim. Sam’s avatar appeared to be live, because there was no way the sweater he was wearing was something he would have put in a mask image: it had chunky, comedy reindeer prancing across the chest.

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ Marie said as soon as the images resolved.

  ‘And you,’ Fox replied, ‘but hang on, I’ve got someone else who wants to say hello.’ Kit made the connections and Fox said, ‘Right, Sam and Marie, meet Jason’s parents, Pascal and Monique, and Gaby, his sister.’

  There were m
ore calls of ‘Merry Christmas,’ and Gaby said, ‘That’s a great sweater, Sam.’

  ‘Not my usual choice of garment,’ Sam replied, ‘but Marie decided I should be festive.’

  ‘And he probably wasn’t wearing a shirt before he put it on,’ Fox added.

  ‘Yeah,’ Marie said, frowning. ‘I really didn’t think that through.’

  ‘Don’t I know you, Marie?’ Gaby asked. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you– Oh, you’re M. J.’

  Marie’s cheeks coloured and Fox said, ‘Marie’s not used to being recognised.’

  ‘M. J.?’ Monique asked.

  ‘The female lead in this terrible IB vid based on Jack the Ripper,’ Gaby explained. ‘The vid was terrible, but M. J. was kind of awesome. I watched it because of the Ripper connection, obviously. Not the nudity and the sex scene.’

  ‘Of course,’ Monique said, nodding and grinning.

  ‘Uh, anyway, wow, famous person.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not famous…’ Marie said, going redder.

  ‘Not yet,’ Sam said.

  ‘And I have Terri calling now,’ Kit said.

  Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay, well, talking of famous people… Patch her in, Kit.’

  Three more avatars appeared in the room: Terri had her father and Helen Dillan with her. Fox made the introductions and there did appear to be a degree of awe floating around, especially from Gaby.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you both,’ Gaby said. ‘I mean, virtually. I mean, I’ve got a MarTech implant and half my equipment, more, is MarTech, and–’

  Jackson laughed. ‘You’ll have to drop by the tower if you’re ever in New York. We’ll give you the tour, show you the labs. Teresa’s working on some very exciting projects and I’ve usually got a cyberframe or two in development. The detective assistance systems we’ve built for Fox are well worth seeing.’

  ‘Thanks, Mister Martins. I’ll drop by next time I’m visiting Jason.’

  ‘Jackson,’ Jackson stated flatly. ‘Fox will tell you I’m not one for formality. Did you give them the wine yet, Fox?’