Foster found himself torn between two equally strong emotions. On one hand, he wanted to join Joseph at the retrieval station. But not for the reason Justine did.

  She wanted to marvel at all the different species of aliens. While he was more interested in how this place came to be. Why was every part of this monstrous station so different? Was it just thrown together from different alien technologies as Joseph suggested? Or was there more to the story of how this place came to be? He needed to know.

  On the other hand, he simply wanted to talk to the woman in the healing machine. In the end, talking won out.

  “So, can I ask you a question?” Her voice was surprisingly subdued.

  “Sure.” Foster did his best to match her sincerity. “Fire away.”

  “Funny.” Her tone lightened momentarily before sliding back into a serious groove. “Why did you want me on this investigation? You could have just let Fitz Hume suspend me. Given our current circumstances, you might have been better off.”

  “Why did I want you on this investigation?” Foster pondered the question for a moment before answering. Not that he didn’t know the answer. He just needed to make sure the phrasing was correct. “I wanted you on this investigation because I didn’t trust Fitz Hume. I needed to keep him off balance. And from what I saw of your record, you were reckless. Fitz Hume hates reckless people.”

  He thought back to Joseph’s house and Justine’s decision.

  “Granted, I didn’t know how reckless until recently.” Justine burst out laughing. “But Fitz Hume didn’t trust you. Hardly any of your previous partners did either. Hell, Saunders seemed to be the only one who respected what you brought to the table.” He paused, weighing how best to phrase his next words. “I knew I would need someone who wouldn’t fall in lockstep with the boss to get a fair chance. I needed a wild card.”

  “So, I’m a wild card?”

  “Remind me. Why are we on this mysterious space station?”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “From your point of view.” He felt corny for saying the next words, but Foster pushed through his embarrassment anyway. “But, yes. I needed someone who puts their moral code above questionable orders. Or to be more precise... I needed you.”

  The two were quiet for a second as the only sounds they could hear was the machine humming and Joseph’s fingers frantically pressing on the prisoner retrieval screen. Apparently, the deputy was not having any luck finding his body.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Foster asked, keeping his eyes trained on her unfocused silhouette. “Well, two questions actually.”

  “Of course.” After everything she had put him through, Justine couldn’t see saying no to such a small request. “Are they personal questions?”

  Foster didn’t hesitate. “One of them is.”

  “Only one? That’s ominous.” Justine’s first instinct, when confronted with personal questions, was to shift around uncomfortably. Unfortunately, the unseen gravitational force of the machine kept her firmly in place. Trapped, the most she could do was wiggle her toes. “You better warm up with the easier one. Why don’t you start with the impersonal question?”

  “Alright,” he paused. “Why did you kiss me back at Joseph’s?”

  “That’s the impersonal one?” Almost instantly, it seemed that all the air had been purged from her small stasis pod. “Foster, I know you’ve been away for a while.” Not wanting to come up with an answer right away, Justine answered him with another question. “Why is that the impersonal one?”

  “Why?” Again, Foster didn’t hesitate to explain his reasoning. “Because a kiss can have a variety of different meanings for both the one giving and the one receiving.”

  “And you want to know what it meant to me?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well----,” Unsure of how to proceed, Justine fell back on another question. “What did it mean to you?”

  Foster made sure to laugh softly enough at her response so as not to get her angry. Still, he found the juxtaposition interesting. How could a woman who had no qualms about staring down a horde of alien killing machines be having such a hard time defining the meaning of a simple kiss? “Like I said. I think that depends on how you answer my question.”

  “Foster…” She tried to sound as confident about her half lie as she could. “I was trying to get your attention.”

  “My attention?” He took his eyes off the frosted veil to appreciate all the different ailments the machine was fixing. And there were so many. Hell, from the number of remaining boxes, she looked like she had been through a couple of wars. However, there were also things the machine couldn’t detect no matter how sophisticated the device.

  Things like why a person felt fear and anxiety. And why those emotions would keep a young FBI agent from answering a simple question about an apparently simple kiss. “You didn’t need to kiss me for that.”

  As before, both remained silent because neither one was able to deal with the fallout of that subject any further. Plus, this wasn’t exactly the best time to be nurturing any kind of space romance.

  “Well…” She smiled, even though he couldn’t see her face. “If that’s the impersonal one, I can’t wait to hear the personal one.”

  “Ok… why are you always so reckless?”

  “Reckless?”

  “I don’t think I need to explain that one.”

  She wished she could tug on her ponytail right now because this question was more unnerving than the kissing one. “You mean Hoover didn’t brief you on every little blemish from my past?”

  “Not all of it,” he said sincerely. “Before my little trip to Elmira began, I decided to keep some of your personal business just that… personal.”

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  “Oh… ok.” Justine had prepared stock answers for anytime a supervisor or friend would ask her this question. Usually, her deception began with how much of an adrenaline junkie she was, or how she was just trying to be a good Samaritan. If those excuses fell short, she would fall back to the old ‘no one else would have or could have reacted in time’.

  An example of these deflections revolved around an embarrassing situation involving an ice cream truck and a cockatoo. Standing there, covered in Rocky Road and feathers, Justine had nothing for her Hostage Rescue Team commander except the simple claim that innocent people just needed saving.

  The funny thing though, it worked. So good in fact, that not even the seasoned FBI psychologists dug too deeply into what drove her to do those crazy things for other people. They knew why, of course. How could they not? But like most victims, Justine had always been good at downplaying the things that really hurt her.

  “My dad…” With little experience in telling the truth, the words came harder than lies. “He was the greatest person I ever knew. I know a lot of people say that, but they’re wrong. You see, I grew up in a small town in Florida. One that was nowhere near the ocean.”

  “Nowhere near the ocean?” Foster shook his head in disbelief. “Why live in Florida if you’re not near the water?”

  “Right? Total bummer. But I had salt water in my veins, and he encouraged me to pursue that passion. Surfing, snorkeling, water skiing, I had my scuba certification by the time I was ten. Heck, most weekends my father drove two hours one way just so I could dip my toe in the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “He sounds nice.” Foster thought about his own father. No way Carl Evers would ever go out of his way to do something like that for him. “Way better than my dad.”

  “I don’t know about that. But too me, he was the greatest.” Her voice became abnormally calm and measured. “One summer, I was eleven at the time. We were on one of those trips when our car got rear-ended by a couple of guys in a rusted out El Camino. At first, they were so nice. Offering to pay for our damage, shaking my father’s hand. They even helped pick up our bumper and place it in the trunk of our car.”

  She paused before continuing.

  “It wasn’t until a Highway Patrol Trooper happened by that their attitude changed. You see, they weren’t nice because they were sorry about what had happened. They were being nice because they didn’t want us to report the accident to the cops.”

  Foster’s untrusting brain went to places it shouldn’t. But still, he held out hope for the end of her story. “Makes sense. Insurance is expensive.”

  “Made sense to my dad too. That’s why, once the trooper arrived, they tried very hard to explain that everything was already worked out. My dad even agreed with most of their story. But as you know, an accident needs paperwork.”

  “So,” Foster looked back to the readouts as another two boxes disappeared. “I guess they got angry?”

  “Oh yeah.” She tried not to visualize their faces, but the memory of that day was as fresh as if it was happening right now. “And just like you said. The older guy started yelling about how their insurance would go through the roof. But the trooper didn’t care. I swear to God. This kid was young enough to be in a boy band.”

  Justine wished more than anything that the machine wasn’t holding her arms.

  “Well, his refusal sent the younger man into a rage. He spent the next few minutes pacing around the trunk of his car, screaming about how they were going to be late for a meeting.” Justine’s eyes fought valiantly against their natural inclination to cry. “I can still picture him checking his watch every ten seconds.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anymore, Justine.” Foster placed a hand on the outer shell of the device. “Some memories shouldn’t be relived.”

  “That was when my father pulled the young officer to the side.” She continued like his words never made it through the semi-opaque plastic shield. “He quietly tried to explain that something was off about them. From the way they were acting, any sane person would have come to the same conclusion.”

  “Ok,” he could hear the faintest sounds of sobbing coming from somewhere inside the healing machine. “I guess he didn’t.”

  “Hell no! This trooper couldn’t give two shits about what my dad’s concerns were. No, he was more interested in reporting the accident. He could care less about the criminals staring right at him. You know? I remember my father’s frowning face before telling me to wait in the car.”

  Foster began to picture how this story ended. And for the first time since meeting her, he was glad he couldn’t see her face.

  “And the worst part? The worst part was just before it happened. There was a moment. A moment I thought everything would turn out all right. You know, like after you wake up from a bad dream and realize that it was all in your mind…” Justine’s voice trailed off in a series of muffled sobs.

  “But this wasn’t a dream. No. Because per protocol, this kid told them he was running their tags. And when he said that... well, that’s when the younger one flashed his gun.”

  For the briefest of moments, Foster thought her story would end there with the word ‘gun’. Maybe she would cry for a minute or two. Maybe a little more. But that’s just not how Justine Rushing was built.

  “My dad took two in the chest before hitting the ground. The trooper was a lucky bastard, though. He took one to the head and dropped like a rock.”

  “Justine,” he began, but she blew off his conciliatory words.

  “I was so scared, Foster. Fuck I hate saying that.” She practically spat out the following words. “All I remember is crawling down onto the floorboard and crying. I was so sure I’d be next. That’s when the old guy stepped in and kept the kid from finishing what he started. He even had the nerve to invoke some fucked up moral code about hurting kids.”

  Justine lost it. For the first time in years, tears began to stream freely from her eyes.

  “It wasn’t until later I learned those assholes were middlemen for a local drug smuggling ring. They had been on their way to a marina for an exchange when they hit us.”

  Foster felt his heart tighten up as her sobbing echoed from his earpiece’s speaker and through the machine’s canopy. Trying to be kind, he pretended not to hear her tears when he said, “Given my history with the director, I can relate when it comes to hating someone who ruined your life. And after that, I think I understand why you hate criminals so much.”

  “No!” The 11-year-old screamed out in a mixture of anger and righteous indignation. Her tears dried up almost instantly.

  “I wasn’t mad at the criminals. Because the true bad guys, the real killers, they can’t be rehabilitated. No matter how many get their GED’s or college degrees. In the end, a snake will always bite you. No, it was the cop who pissed me off more than anything. He should have listened to my father, pulled his gun, and arrested those bastards before they had a chance to… a chance to…”

  “Before they had a chance to bite you?” She didn’t say yes or no, but Foster understood her answer all the same. “That’s why you don’t like authority.”

  “Authority is just red tape in a suit. People die every day waiting for someone to make up their minds. They die because the person with power to make the decision won’t.”

  Justine’s anger quickly shifted back to tears. For sixteen years, no one besides her mom knew why that day had hurt her so badly. They all thought she hated the criminals. But that just wasn’t true. “You can learn to live with someone dying, Foster. It’s hard. But given enough time, it’s doable. What you can’t live with is the guilt of not protecting someone you love. Not when you have the power to.”

  With that admission, Justine was quiet again, alone in her cocoon of science fiction wonderment. Sensing a brief respite in this painful confession, someone who had been quietly listening decided to make his presence known at that exact moment.

  “Now you know why I helped her? She’s crazy. But her heart’s in the right place.” Hoover spoke only to his friend. And his friend could see exactly why he had.

  After a minute, Foster wondered if she was waiting for him to say something else, something comforting. But he couldn’t find the words. Instead, he watched the last two active boxes slowly disappear. Then, with more gravitas than he wanted to impart, he said, “The machine’s almost done fixing you.”

  “Good,” Justine forced out a weak laugh. “You did say this thing could fix anything, didn’t you?”

  Foster wished this piece of alien tech had a setting for regret. Though, in his heart, he knew it didn’t. Or to be more precise, couldn’t. “Not everything, Justine.”

  “Figures.” Her voice turned on a dime from sad to sarcastic. “Now you decide to come up short.”

  Neither one knew what else to say in that all too real of a moment. So it was with great relief that Joseph’s unexpected exuberance broke through the somber mood enveloping their current conversation.

  “Guys,” the pudgy deputy shrieked. “I think I’ve got a winner.”