Free Supersymmetry by David Walton Page B

sister is, if you wanted to find her, where would you go?”
    Sandra shook her head. “I honestly don’t know.”
    It wasn’t exactly true. She didn’t know where Alex was, but there were places she could look, places from their history. But Alex was her flesh and blood. More than that, really. Alex was her , what she might have been if things had been different. There wasn’t anyone else in the world who shared the same kind of bond that they did. She couldn’t just betray her.
    And yet, Sandra was a police officer. It was her duty to report what she knew, sister or no. She felt angry at Alex for putting her in this position. If she was innocent, why had she run? And if she was guilty, why should Sandra cover for her?
    Fifteen years ago, Alex had very nearly given her life to save Sandra’s. Alex had been in a wheelchair for months, and ever after, Sandra had felt the imbalance between them. Alex had saved the family when the varcolac would have killed them all. In truth, she had always resented Alex a bit for it. For the special bond she had formed with their father during that time, for the hero status she had enjoyed ever since. For the sense of inferiority Sandra always felt. It sometimes seemed like Alex was the real daughter, while Sandra was just a fluke of nature. A mistake.
    Even so, she stayed silent. She owed Alex, and she couldn’t rat her out, not even if it meant her job. On the other hand, she knew the resources the police could bring to bear to track down murderers, and this case would be their first priority. Alex would be caught eventually, whether Sandra helped or not. If she was innocent, it was better for her to come forward and tell her side of the story. If not . . . Well, if she wasn’t innocent, she would have to accept the consequences.
    A sharp knock on the door made Sandra jump. Three men in black suits came in, wearing serious expressions. Two of them were just what Sandra would have expected: tall, well-muscled, dark-suited, with bulges that spoke of lethal weaponry. The third was skinny and balding, with a pockmarked face and an easy, salesman’s smile. Messinger seemed profoundly irritated that they were there.
    The third man introduced himself as Sanford Liddle. “Everything I’m about to tell you is classified and protected under the Espionage Act,” he said. “As a United States citizen, you are bound not to share this information with anyone else, no matter what their nationality. Failure to obey this law is punishable, depending on severity, with sentences up to and including life imprisonment or death. Do you understand this restriction?”
    Sandra nodded numbly. She wondered if that would actually hold up in court, or if it was just something he said to intimidate people. If so, it was working.
    She heard a ping, indicating that Agent Liddle was trying to share a view to her eyejack. She accepted the view, and suddenly she was in a building like a huge warehouse, watching her sister tearing guns out of soldiers’ hands and diffracting bullets around herself. She gasped. She knew that technology, had seen it fifteen years ago, and had thought it destroyed. Was Alex working to revive it? Was she out of her mind?
    Then she saw her sister firing into the crowd. What was she doing? She saw a blur that at first seemed like a problem with the video, but no. She had seen that before. Her sister’s bullets tore into the Secretary of Defense and he toppled, but at just that instant Sandra could see his face in the light reflected from the more brightly lit demonstration area. He had no eyes.
    By the time the clip was over and her awareness returned to the room around her, Sandra was tight with anger. “She didn’t murder anyone. She probably saved all those people’s lives.”
    Liddle held up a hand. “We’re inclined to agree with you,” he said. “But there are two points against her.