Page 4 of Tooth and Nail

Brown looked slightly embarrassed. “I-I…ah—”

She held up a hand, chuckling. “I’m kidding. Let’s continue. I want to be out of here before employees come to open up the observatory.” She walked away from the exhibits toward a row of telescopes and held out her hand. “This mezzanine level where we’re standing is called the Edge of Space and as you can see, it overlooks the other public level called the Depths of Space, down there.” She stopped them at the railing beside the three telescopes. “There are over two million stars, suns, and galaxies depicted on the wall mural in front of you and before you ask, you’ll understand why I mention that very soon as well.”

Eoghan watched her point to the huge photograph which was organized in panels mounted on the wall opposite the telescopes. If he had to guess, it was well over a hundred feet wide, and more than fifty feet tall, appearing almost like an IMAX movie screen. They stood at the railing and looked down to the level below the mezzanine where they stood. There were models of planets as well as a separate area for each of the nine celestial bodies, including Pluto.

“The door to our office is downstairs,” the chief said, proceeding to the stairs. They went down to the lower level and Priest led them to the farthest end of the large wall mural. To the naked eye, the planetary mural seemed to abut the side wall, but Eoghan knew looks could be deceiving. He watched the chief pull out a remote about the size of a car’s key fob and point it at the mural’s far right corner. A second later, a hidden panel the size of an average door slid silently open. Personally, he’d only entered their offices this way the first time he’d been introduced to the unit six years before. The chief turned back to them as florescent lights clicked on, illuminating a set of cement stairs leading downward.

“Follow me,” she said before turning back. The hidden door slid closed behind them as they took the stairs. The remote opened a door marked I.S.R. in subtle lettering.

“You know, Chief, I never asked you what I.S.R. stands for?” Brown asked.

She nodded and swept out a hand as they stepped into the stark, white space filled with desks, screens, and their coworkers who all seemed to be too busily engaged to notice their arrival. “Deputy Aristotle Brown, welcome to the U.S. Marshals Interspecies Response Unit.”

“What?” Brown asked, frowning hard as he clearly tried to decipher what she’d just said.

When she didn’t immediately answer, Eoghan watched his new partner turn and look at the massive, rectangular glass screen imbedded into the far wall. It projected a holographic image of a herd of buffalo. The animals were tearing through a vast prairie landscape, leaving clouds of dust swirling in the air behind them. In the background, a vast blue ocean stretched between the prairie and what appeared to be coastline beyond. As the three of them watched, a small flock of what must look like birds to the untrained eye, suddenly appeared on-screen. Their appearance was followed by a small, silver drone. As the drone sped up, chasing the flock, it began a divebomb into the midst of the winged creatures, looking as though it was attempting to disrupt their trajectory.

It worked. The flock scattered, banking first right and then left as a group, finally separating before soaring up and out of the camera’s lens’ reach. An intense flash of red light suddenly lit up the sky as concentric rings spread outward from the drone itself, filling the entire screen. A split second later, the flock reappeared, this time, dropping lifeless straight to Earth as each and every creature crashed to the dirt. As Eoghan watched, the unaffected herd reached a hillside,topped it, and disappeared down the other side, vanishing from view somewhere off-screen.

“Threat neutralized. Threat neutralized,”a robotic voice announced.

Everyone in the room stood and clapped as Chief Deputy Priest grinned widely. She lifted both hands and clapped.

“Well done!” she shouted.

Several others turned to see them standing there before retaking their seats.

“What the heck just happened?” Brown asked. “Where is that?”

“That’s Catalina Island and what you just witnessed was yesterday’s footage of one of I.S.R.’s drones taking down a flock of buffalo raptors,” the chief replied.

“A what?”

“Those weren’t birds, Brown,” Eoghan said, looking into the confused hazel eyes which watched him. “They were buffalo raptors, a species of prehistoric bugs—well, mosquitos really—who feed on American bison and other bovine shifters.”

“I’m sorry?”

The man looked incredibly lost.

“Let’s take this into my office where we can be more comfortable,” the chief said.

“Yeah, okay,” Brown muttered under his breath.

Eoghan bit his lip to stop the smile that threatened. He was pretty sure his new partner was freaking out right about now. He felt almost sorry for the guy. Any man would probably feel the same. His own reaction to learning the existence of life other than what he’d always known had been much the same, if not worse. At the time Eoghan was recruited to the I.S.R., he’d been a young man with his whole future ahead of him. He'd had no experience in law enforcement.He certainly hadn’t expected to learn that humans, fish, and animals weren’t the only breathing creatures on Earth, much less finding out that there was life on other planets. Brown was about to get an education of his own and for everyone’s sake, Eoghan hoped he’d be good with it. His own future depended on Aristotle Brown accepting what he’d long ago learned about the new norm.

Priest’s office was at the end of the room. They walked down white tile in the center of the vast office. Several people busily working away on their computers and devices turned and nodded to them, curiously watching the bright-eyed newcomer who was keeping his head on a swivel as he tried to take in everything he could. Eoghan liked his coworkers for the most part. There were some highly-trained people working here. The unit ran like a machine and Eoghan had long ago learned that his boss was the primary reason for that. She was the queen of delegation and made sure that everyone knew their responsibilities. After all, the nature of their job was serious, and she had expectations that everyone would work together to meet their goals and keep the public and her marshals safe.

Arizona Priest also answered to the U.S. government. She was the person who had to meet with the higher ups once a month to keep funding going for the I.S.R. Eoghan didn’t know a whole lot about where their funding came from since it wasn’t as if those sorts of expenditures were made public, but she always managed to keep the lights on and the monsters at bay. He suspected whatever she shared with the people holding the purse strings just so happened to scare the ever-loving shit out of them every month. The smug look on her face every time she returned from a meeting with them, said as much.

The chief stopped at the closed door to her office and lifted her palm to the reader on the right. The moment she placed it there, a horizontal, turquoise light appeared across the top and ran down and then back up again, scanning her palm. The laser reader didn’t only read the grooves and ridges of her palm but also the tiny capillaries, tendons, and muscle structures within her hand before giving a quiet chime and going dark. A millisecond later, the chief’s door slid open and the three of them stepped inside. It slid silently closed behind them.

“Okay, that’s cooler tech than our Lexington office was equipped with,” Brown said, following them to her desk. The chief’s office, like the outer one, was stark, white tile with minimal splashes of color. The glass desk was clear, its chair padded with white leather and chrome fittings. Her matching white leather couch, though, had two large, orange throw pillows of a plush fabric. A clear glass table was positioned on a white shag rug, a single cactus in a red vase making a statement. And their chairs sat on a narrow strip of white shag as well. Framed black and white photos of the beaches and rainforests were hung on the walls. They sat beside the chief’s certifications and a diploma from a university Eoghan had never taken the time to pay attention to until now. He didn’t know why, but he tried to picture the room from Brown’s perspective.

What is it about this guy that interests me?

“Have a seat, deputies,” Priest said, clicking across the room in high heels and sitting behind the desk. She smiled at them once they were settled. “I know you have questions, Brown, so let’s clear those up. You asked me about the name of our unit. I’ll get to that in a minute. The I.S.R. branch of the U.S. Marshals Service is tasked with the same job as any other Marshals division with some expanded duties as well.Our primary duties are fugitive recovery, prisoner transport, and witness protection but we also handle jail duties of our particular brand of fugitive until they are processed and turned over to our sister agencies.”

“Our sister agencies? You mean like the FBI or something?” Brown asked.

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