There comes a moment in everyone's life where action or inaction fall into a focus so clear and precise that there is no gray space between them.
For some it is a once in a lifetime occurrence, an instant frozen in time that they look back on as years put distance and wisdom between themselves and the moment and still, there were only two options, no gray.
For others, the calling of their lives dictates that there be very little gray at all, that many times over the days, weeks, months and years of their lives they are faced with the binary, 0 or 1, yes or no, act...or do not.
The latter is true of Tera
............
Tera keyed the microphone on the headset again. "Recon this is roost, do you copy my message, foxes in the henhouse, over," Sitting there at the window, feeling the sweat slowly slide down the small of her back, the skin raising in goose flesh as it passed, she knew, as she always did, that something bad was happening. And as always, she was right.
..................
The thing good so often forgets about evil, is that evil has no conscience. There is never a moment when true evil hesitates.
Good will take a winding path to its goal; evil prefers a straight line.
...............
Nicolas stared out the window of the Hawker 800X as it flew through the silent starless night.
The plane was headed for Paris; from there Nicolas would then travel to the coast and be taken on into England by boat. The British had...little tolerance for Nicolas.
It had taken a few hours to get operators into position to take down Mr. Dane.
'The man is luckier than Midas,' Nicolas thought absently as the geography of central Europe passed beneath the jet as it moved through the thin air, taking Nicolas closer to his perceived destiny.
'Should never have sent the weak fools,' Nicolas thought to himself, mulling over the deaths of his acolytes.
'They had some talent but obviously I overestimated their abilities, ah well, better now than in a battle when I really needed them. It must be that old fool Ian, he has always been the strongest of the others, ah well, it's no matter, his mental protections of Mr. Dane will prove useless against a bullet."
The intercom buzzed, the pilot making the announcement that they would be landing in Paris in about 10 minutes.
"Good, a bit of cleaning up to do here and then Ian will understand what it means to get on my bad side," Nicolas said with a thin vicious smile on his lips, as the plane went into a steep turn heading towards Charles De Gaul.
...............
"Trouble," the word brought Tera from a deep sleep to fully awake in less time than it took the word to slip across her consciousness.
It was still dark out, perhaps just the briefest hint of the gray dawn beginning, but still.... night.
Tera had slept in her clothes; the long shift and constant need to be "on" had drained her.
Now sitting on the edge of the small bed lacing up her Haix Airpower boots she had never felt more energetic or felt more of need to be somewhere other than where she was.
"Nigel, it's Tera," she said into the phone, taking the stairs three at a time as she descended to the ground level of the four story building.
"Damn it, do you know what time it is," Nigel knew exactly what time it was, but it was his standard answer after midnight to allow the moment he would need to be fully...there.
"05:13 and something is wrong, check the team around the mark, I am on my way there now, eta 4 min, call me back," Tera snapped the phone shut and slid it into the pocket of her vest as she breached the side door of the small hotel the team was using as a base.
A light mist fell from the black sky as Tera turned the key and the engine of the Ducati 696 rumbled to life. Tera gunned the engine producing a squealing back tire and a front tire that was nowhere near the pavement.
After a controlled slide onto N. Hinksey Ln. she accelerated fast, the sound of the high revving Italian motor reverberating off the fronts of the darkened buildings; the sound following in her wake like a wave, heralding the brief passage of something...dangerous.
The ear bud crackled to life, "Tera, we can't raise anyone on the team," for the first time since she met him, Nigel sounded scared and this did nothing to assuage the feelings of foreboding that had consumed Tera since she was pulled from sleep only moments before.
"I am on my way, will be onsite in 2 min, send back up Nigel, lots of it, I think we may have lost the mark," Tera said as she closed the connection.
Lost the mark, it was rare that she said this phrase; losing was not something that Tera allowed. 'Hang on Michael,' she thought as she switched the ignition off and coasted into Roger Dudman Way.
...............
Michael stood at the window looking out at the deep black of the canal, the light is what had convinced his mind to lease this place, the canal is what had called to his heart.
Michael turned from the window and grabbed his keys, stepping down the stairs in the dark and opening the door he was brought back to other mornings in the dark, walking out into her, having her envelope and welcome him into her opaque and forgiving arms.
The love affair with the water started early. Michael's parent had a small boat and their home was located on a canal that fed out onto the intercostal waterway.
From his earliest recollections the water had always been his friend.
Whether it was swimming in the pool behind the house, learning to dive off the seawall of the canal or feeling the salty spray sting his face when his father would open up the throttle on their Donzi Criterion, Michael always felt at home in the water.
"Just a few more minutes," Michael thought to himself, it was late August, junior high had started a few weeks before and the water in the canal was just too warm and comforting to leave.
The sky was beginning to show the strong pinks and reds of another hot Florida morning as he treaded water in the canal before starting his final lap.
It had become his habit over the summer to swim four or five long laps of the canal in the early dawn, his parents didn't know, as they both got up later than he.
These times in the dark water always seemed to help him feel centered...connected and he was not looking forward to being off the water when, in a few months, the temperature would end this ritual.
Finishing his fifth lap of the canal, which was about 500 feet from one end to the mouth, which opened onto the natural canal beyond, he was not paying attention to anything other than his strokes and the feel of the water when he ran into...something.
Startled but not scared Michael stopped and reached out a tentative hand. The object felt like wet leather but warm to the touch, and then it moved. It was a soft motion, seemingly not caused by his touch but more the natural movement of whatever he had encountered.
'Alligator,' Michael thought as the adrenaline started to pump full force into his system.
Looking around, the dock behind his house and the stairs down to the water were about 30ft away.
'Not fast enough,' he thought.
Then, in the growing pink light, he saw a reflection in the water; it was an eye that was looking at him with a curiosity that projected...intelligence.
The manatee moved slowly around Michael, its nose breaching the water now and then giving off a small spray as the 800lb animal breathed.
Michael breathed as well, manatee's are herbivores and not known for a propensity to drown small boys in canals.
Michael's hand played over the warm back of the creature as it moved in a slow circle but maintained a distance that would not break the connection. Closing his eyes Michael saw the animal with his fingertips. It was an odd sensation, sometimes smooth, a hard barnacle, the deep soft crater of a scar, probably from a propeller.
As the light increased the two stayed there, different creatures joined in an instant of communion.
And that is how Michael's mother found him, as she walked out of the house in her robe holding a warm cup of coffee, swimming in the canal with a manatee.
For Michael the moment was...evolutionary.
Finding and grasping the recognition that while not human, another animal could communicate feeling and emotion that could be recognized and appreciated by another.
The morning swims in the canal however, came to an end.
Michael's mother was furious, his father thought it amusing, which did not bode well for his sleeping arrangements in the near future. However there was a firm new rule in the household, no swimming in the canal.
It was a few weeks later as Michael turned onto his street and saw his grandfather's truck parked outside his house that the river once again became a refuge and a place of simple wonder.
"Michael, come out back," his father called as he closed the garage door and entered the kitchen. Looking out through the sliding glass doors at the rear of the house Michael could see his father and grandfather standing on the dock beyond the pool.
"Oh you should have seen her face, I didn't get laid for 2 weeks," Michael heard the whispered end to his fathers conversation with his grandfather.
"Your grandfather found something you may be interested in Michael," his father said as Michael moved between the two men to see what they were looking at.
There in the water was perhaps the most beautiful thing Michael had seen in his young life
If floated lightly on the water, close to the surface but appearing to hover just above it at the same time. One long oar was extended into the water, the other lay along the boats chine allowing for entry from the dock.
