Threshold Shift by G. D. Tinnams

not
completely block out the daylight, but it did prevent anyone from
Main Street being able to look in. Roe felt that was the best they
could hope for.
    “They shouldn’t have had an explosive good enough to get
through that door,” Jon said. "Or gas grenades. We were
lucky.”
    “A
little lucky,” Roe conceded. “But we didn’t panic
and we didn’t do anything stupid. Jacob would have been proud.”
    “Yes,”
Jon said, glancing upward.
    “Who
do you think supplied them?”
    “Asher,”
Jon answered sharply. “My beloved uncle.”
    “Or
Hassan, maybe,” Roe said. “Don’t forget about him.”
    “How
could I? But it’s not like we can bring him in. We’re
going to have enough problems just making this place defensible
again.”
    Roe
lifted up Jacob’s leather seat and set it upright. One of the
wheels was missing. “Do you think they’ll try again?”
    “They’ll
try something,” Jon said, examining the remains of the coffee
maker.
    A
display abruptly opened up in the top right hand side of Roe’s
vision, the new Marshal was complete.
    Jon
threw the coffee maker to the ground. “He’s ready.”
    She
walked over and touched his hand. “Are you staying?”
    He
pulled away, lazily punching the wall. “I have to stay. There’s
no case against Paul if I leave. I can’t let this all be for
nothing.”
    “Thank-you,”
she said. “Do you want to go and meet the Marshal?”
    Jon
abruptly backed away into the far wall. “Can you go? It’s
just… I don’t think I can face him right now.
    “I'll
go,” Roe said. She felt the urge to reach out to him, but the
distance was too great. He was in pain but there was nothing she
could do. Experiencing a wave of regret, she turned away and headed
for the stairs. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but there had
been no choice, they needed the Marshal.
    Paul
must have heard her footsteps, his synthesised voice screaming out as
she walked down the staircase towards sub-basement.
    “I’m
going to hurt your family Roe, hurt them so bad they beg for death.
Do you hear me Roe? Do you?”
    She
shivered, but did not respond, preferring to continue her descent.
She had been here many times, but only ever to use the firing range,
sometimes to practice, but mostly to impress Jacob. She realised
belatedly that she had set a lot of store in impressing Jacob. When
she discovered he had been using Jopo H, it had made her so angry, so
disappointed. He had lied to her. All that ability, all that
confidence, hadn’t been real. She had respected a lie, no, more
than that, she had loved a lie. For her it was like he died twice.
But there would be time enough to mourn later. She was the Senior
Deputy and that was the truth she chose to hold onto.
    The
transparent doors of the Regeneration Chamber stood before her, and
within she could see a figure, his back to her, huddled inside a
white blanket beside the chemical bath that had created him. She
placed her hand on the doorplate and felt the familiar stab of cell
retrieval. The doors slid aside. She walked over to him, slowly,
tentatively, wondering how disorientated he would be.
    “Hello?”
she ventured. “Marshal Klein?”
    The
new Marshal's teeth chartered as he struggled to speak. “Who
are you?” Even sat on the floor he seemed taller than the old
Jake, his hair blacker, his eyes bluer, his face thinner. But there
was no mistaking the clear jaw line or the cleft in his chin. This
man was undeniably Jacob Klein.
    “My
name is Roe Jenkins, Marshal Klein. I’m one of your deputies.”
    He
turned to face her, hugging the blanket close. By his feet was an
unopened blue bag.
    “Lucas,”
the sim said, bracing himself against the bath as he attempted to
stand. “Lucas Miller is my deputy, I don’t know you.”
    “Lucas
hasn’t been your deputy for a long time, Marshal.”
    The
sim frowned. “How long?
    “What
year do you think it is?”
    “It’s
3361,” he said, and then looked at her closely, studying