Meeta 143782 drew a shaky breath but that seemed to strengthen her. She‘d stopped blinking and now drew herself to her full height, which like the others, was considerable. “I am ready to serve,” she acknowledged. Taking the sarong handed her she casually wrapped it around herself.
“Testing is on floor 122. You may use any of the consoles you find there. After the test report to Meeta-Tik 9807 on the same floor. Her office door is marked with her designation. She will inform you whether you are viable or a discard.” Seeing the new Tik shiver at the implication, the older Meeta pulled her near so their eyes more closely aligned. “Worry not. I am First Tech Meeta 113. I can easily recognize a discard when I see one and you are most assuredly not one of those. The older Tik shuddered. You will be a fine and competent Meeta. When you report to Meeta-Tik 9807 present a confident demeanor and all will be well.”
The new Meeta paused, considering this. There was so much information to process she was feeling overwhelmed. The birthing sac had provided an extensive education of all things scientific and medical relating to her expected functions, but the information had been delivered in a compressed format that would take time to compartmentalize for swift access. Eventually she nodded and produced a thin smile. “Your words lessen my misgivings Meeta-Tik 113. You have fulfilled your task as First Tech most admirably.”
Hearing this the older Meeta beamed. To be told you were good at your function was high praise, and provided her with a sharp endorphin reaction she found quite pleasurable. Such spikes of hormones took the place of sex in their world. The newly hatched Tik turned and stepped confidently down the hall toward the elevator. It would take her to 9807 where she would learn her fate.
◆◆◆
The sky cleared of memories, replaced by two immense eyes that looked down on me. There was power in those eyes. They reached for me. Something clicked; a connection was made but I had to move quickly. Death was near. I reached out with the last of my strength and found a door. I blinked and the door became two doors; one with a wolf's head and the other with a hand holding a miniature sun. I knew instinctively that the right choice could save me. Which door held life? With no time to consider, I choose the wolf. The door opened, dropping me toward a roiling energy flickering below. The flames surrounded and pushed back the cold with warmth and energy. I'd made the right choice! My core was damaged, almost destroyed. Healing would take time and this was the place where that could occur. Without conscious thought I began feeding greedily, slowly renewing myself at the cost of the life I drifted inside. I was a babe in the womb, drinking the blood of the mother.
As I drifted I dreamed. Something clicked and I made yet another connection. Another life opened before me. I lived in a world of struggle and constant death. I was young, just a pup. I looked up with wonder at my mother who moved with graceful force through the tall grass. Suddenly she turned and gave me a bite deep enough to draw blood. In my world noise was death. If I didn’t learn to move silently I would die and any with me would die. I was young, so she only warned me. The next time I made noise she would kill me. She could have more young. That was the way of my world. I followed her steps perfectly, imitated her perfectly because that was all that was allowed. Quickness and silence in everything or death. There were no other choices.
This hunt was important for us. The last had been several days ago and the meat from it had been finished yesterday. You didn't hunt until it was necessary. There were too many dangers. We'd heard a commotion in the distance. Not far. Acceptable risk. Such noises tantalized with the promise of food. Anything that made noise was quick food. Lazy food. Also, noise might indicate a fight which was again promising. Death was almost always a surprise here; life was over in seconds. Quiet. Only hunts between equals were noisy which meant the victor might be injured, unable to defend its kill, or itself. We might get enough meat to keep us strong for another week or more! We had to be quick though, for others would be drawn just as we were, some perhaps more dangerous than mother. I watched the smooth play of her muscles, sensed the power in her heart and felt pride. So far she'd never met anything stronger, but she was young and this world had many hunters.
By the time we arrived the fight was over, the smell of blood thick in the air. Gobs of saliva bubbled over my jaws at the thought of the meat in front of us. Below were two creatures I'd seen before, one dead the other working to get a hold on the carcass so it could be dragged and consumed somewhere safer. The winner was bloodied which implied it was weakened. I relaxed slightly, recognizing it as one my mother had hunted successfully. It surprised me therefore, to see her hesitate. She'd taught me that hesitation was dangerous, so I queried her. She said she'd never seen the same breed hunt one another. The victor here was acting differently from what she knew and different was almost always bad.
She looked at me considering and I saw her note the thick saliva frothing along my jawline. Her baby was hungry and she was a mother. I saw the fierceness gather inside her. Stay, she commanded, which was unusual for I always attacked with her, looking for a tendon to rip while she held our quarry's main attention. How else could I learn to kill? “Not this time,” she directed firmly. “Come when it's dead. Then come quickly. Others will be here soon. Some small ones are already watching.”
Her attack was low and vicious. I watched with pride as a quick flip of her head turned the weakened victor on its back exposing the stomach. Her talons raked across the soft flesh in long parallel lines opening the belly. Then she went for the neck, hoping to break it, finishing the kill. But it recovered more quickly than it should have, dancing back from her jaws with surprising ease, even managing to draw blood from her shoulder. After that they spun and rolled in the dirt, kicking up grass their movements accompanied by low desperate sounds. Then they parted suddenly and I saw something I'd never seen before. The creature she fought had changed, rolled itself into a tight ball protected by skin that had become like armor. Mother had backed away from it and was panting slightly. She was hurt but not seriously. I could see the indecision in her eyes. This was different; different meant dangerous. I watched as she grabbed the carcass from the earlier kill and tossed it over her shoulder. She'd decided to run. Alive with food was the best our world ever offered.
On the rise looking down I watched the ball that was our enemy split open. A bigger, deadlier looking version of my mother emerged. It screamed, a loud arrogant sound stranger even than its metamorphoses for change was not a surprise to me. I changed, mother changed. Many creatures used change in different ways. Here though, all hunted in silence. To betray your presence so carelessly was a call for death. The sound so unexpected froze mother, made her uncertain whether to attack or continue to run. Hesitation is always a mistake. The creature leapt on her back; its jaws finding her neck while its weight pushed her to the ground in a way she could not defend against or recover from. I watched the jaws close and twist and great gouts of blood spray from her neck as it worried the wound, biting deeper and deeper. I screamed my own challenge and raced down the hill to save her. I had been taught to run if this happened but I did the opposite. I buried my own smaller jaws into its back. Blood bubbled in my mouth while I worried the wound, but it shrugged me off and pounced on me, great paws pinning me to the earth while I looked up at death through an angry red haze. Although it had my mother's face, it had another's eyes. On my left my mother stood weakly. She took a step toward us before falling. Her eyes as she lay there too weak to move, stared at me, sad with the knowledge of our deaths this day and slightly admonishing. I should have learned her lessons better. The creature pushed my jaw to the side exposing my neck, then waited. I wondered why, quick kills were expected and the way of the hunt. Fear built in me. My heart pounded and though I tried to be brave like my mother, I began to keen. I was a pup. Life was new and valuable. I didn't want to die even though I'd experienced a lot of death already. Its eyes rolled in their sockets above me, drinking in my sounds. Then its jaws opened and just as I felt
the bite of its teeth, the world disappeared in a white flash that ended all thought.
◆◆◆
Meeta-Tik 943782 separated the two creatures, one large, the other quite small by comparison. The large one was already changing back to its native insectivore form. It now looked like a giant green cockroach with a tail and six legs. She had to hurry because this was a dangerous world that harboured many terrible killers.
“Report 943782,” came a crisp command.
She looked down. “Two successful captures. One type Bragg. Mature but still young enough for training. One type Beliah. Immature. Trainable. The mother is not viable. Too much anterior damage. Transporting back to SHIP momentarily.”
“Very good 943782. SHIP out.”
Before pushing the button to transport, Meeta-Tik 943782 looked around at the hungry eyes already peeking from the foliage around her and shivered. They were very intelligent eyes. She was different and therefore dangerous. For now they just watched. The longer she waited the less different she became. She pressed the button for transport with relief.
Chapter Eight
I awoke to a black and white version of the Grand Canyon and frowned. The craggy cliffs didn't seem real and there was a smudge at the top of the canyon that looked like a fingerprint. I tried to focus my eyes but found the action oddly difficult. I felt detached from myself. Everything felt wrong, distant. Abruptly a huge eye rolled into view obscuring everything else. It stared down, filling me with a paralyzing dread. I wanted to run but my body felt a million miles away. Then a voice shattered the calm while I reflexively put my hands over my ears.
“Listen and be calm, Nicholas. You‘re safe. Everyone is safe if you let me help you.”
Help me? The voice sounded like Meeta's but so much had happened I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. Then something clicked and I realized my eyes had zoomed in on a single point until it had become my whole field of view. What looked like a canyon was actually a chemical stain on the ceiling. I relaxed and the eye became a face, then a body. Meeta. Behind her was the lab: view screens on the wall, counters filled with instruments. There was a clicking sound I thought I recognized.
I looked around and found my vision was much improved! Extraordinary even. How had it become so acute? I concentrated and it was like looking through a pair of binoculars. Nothing wrong with me after all. I was OK. I started to relax then realized I was seeing everything in black and white. No colour anywhere! My heart thumped hard against my chest. There was something wrong after all!
I tried to sit up and my body rolled so that I fell off the table onto four legs covered in a thick white fur. Despite their obvious strength, the legs barely held me. For a perilous instant I hovered between falling and standing. Then I felt that mysterious "click" and was able to take a faltering step forward, then another until I'd regained a measure of control over my legs. I blinked. These weren't my legs. This wasn't my body! My pulse spiked higher causing the pupils of my eyes to expand and let in too much light. I felt the beginnings of a very bad headache which made my skin feel stretched and tight. Then Meeta appeared gripping my head between two long fingered hands so that I had no choice but to look at her.
“You‘ve done something amazing,” she began, “and something …bad. You must listen to me Nicholas. For the safety of those around you, calm yourself.”
There was an edge to her voice I didn't like. She sounded angry and a little frightened. Deep inside I felt my own anger stir. Anger tinged with anticipation. How could I stay calm when I wasn't in my own body? Where was my body anyway? I jerked away from her tight grip effortlessly and backed up. Tables all around me. A room cluttered with distracting bright monitors and noisy equipment. Their sounds pounded against my eardrums. I felt trapped! I needed to see the room, see all the dangers it might contain. I leapt for the top of a counter, only to sail right over it and crash into a table on rollers, spilling its contents in a deafening crash across the floor. Most of what had been on the table was destroyed. Small winking bits of glass rolled around my feet as I scrambled to get my bearings. The noise hurt my ears and the light was too bright! My heart raced faster! My senses were too acute! Everything was too clear, too loud, too near! I was being overloaded with data. Suddenly I saw myself in the glass fragments, but it wasn't me that I saw, it was Belle.
Two hands grabbed me and pulled my gaze to hers. This time I felt Meeta's mind reach for me. “Calm, Nicholas. Calm. Let me help you remain calm.” She pushed her will against mine. I could see it like a wave of heat coming towards me, a wave tinged with a black anger that fed my fear causing it to spike. Reflexively, I defended myself. I lashed out, shattering her calm, sending her my fear in return. She cried out in surprise and hurt, scuttled away on her knees, my terror imprinted on her face. That felt strangely good. I pushed all my fear and worry towards her and heard her scream in surprised anger. I smiled, relieved to be free of the feelings even as they surged back to fill the sudden emptiness.
No time for calm! I wore Belle’s body. I was trapped and I wanted out. NOW! Then I saw my body. It was inside a glass tube. I watched with relief as the chest rose and fell. My body still lived. But I needed to get back. Then I felt IT stir. The animal inside that had to slowly be waking. Belle’s animal. It yawned inside her mind, stretched, rose to the surface while my vision blurred and my body rocked in sudden pain. My back arched as joints popped and my muzzle grew before my startled eyes.
“Nicholas!”
Meeta was in my head again and I could clearly hear her.
“Belle no longer controls her Hunter form. It sees you as an invader. A threat and that has invoked the change. You must stop her from changing. If you don’t she will kill everyone in this room. You must act quickly!”
Control? I had no idea how to control this. Didn't think I wanted to control it. It felt good to let go! Less thinking. Less fear. Give the fear to Meeta. Better to hunt. Fear was for prey! I felt myself growing, getting bigger, and putting on muscle. Teeth slid out of my jaws, lots of long pointed teeth. Sharp teeth. I remembered how well they cut, how well they tore. My heart pounded as I thought of the chase, the moment of victory with the prey in my jaws. My mouth frothed with anticipation.
I turned to Meeta almost fully changed, almost ready for the hunt. She looked different. I felt her fear and knew that if I could get my jaws around her neck I could eat! I took a step closer readying my attack but Meeta was no longer there. Her form was there but another rode behind the eyes that stared down at me. Kat stared down at me, eyes hard, demanding. This time the hands that took my head were less gentle, this time the will that rolled toward me rolled over me and through me. I felt my heartbeat slow and my mind settle. Then I felt like sleeping so I did. I dreamed of Meeta, not Meeta. Kat looked down at me through Meeta's eyes, eyes that were hungry and unhappy. My sleep was restless and tiring.
◆◆◆
I awoke to her voice and a hard slap across the face.
“What?” I sputtered. My eyes wanted to close I felt so tired. She slapped me again, harder. This time my eyes opened and I saw her above me, face pinched in an angry unMeeta like grimace.
“You live,” she spat. Then as if to another, though there was no one there I could see she added, “He lives warrior. Let go. You waste energy I need to save you.” She paused, listening to someone only she could hear. “I will warn him but we've both seen this sickness before and warnings will not help. Let go.” Suddenly she sank to her knees and stayed there.
I was back! I looked wonderingly at my body, used my hands to pull myself up. I staggered towards Meeta, reached out to help only to have my hand knocked violently away. With effort she pulled herself to her feet until she tottered shakily beside me. She looked down at me with little warmth in her expression.
“Foolish human, I thought you better.” There was so much pain in her words there was little doubt about the disdain she held for me now. It was my turn to back away.
I tried to understand what
had happened but couldn’t.
“I've done nothing but what you and Kat asked since my life was stolen,” I stumbled, hurt to the core and confused. “How can you fault me for that?”
Meeta grimaced, leaning most of her weight against the counter. Taking a deep breath she pulled a lab chair to her and sat. Even sitting, her eyes were higher than mine.
“Kat has ordered me to tell you so I must, though the knowledge will do little to help. You‘re Beast is fully awake. When Kailex held you in thrall he may have woken it. Or maybe it was Kat wanting you to survive who brought it to life.” She rubbed her temple and I winced at the obvious indication of how much I'd just hurt her. “Yes, probably it was that.” She shook her head slightly. “But how it happened does not matter. What matters is how dangerous you’ve become to everyone around you.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said softly.
“You and Kat created a bridge to tap my strength. A brave plan but I am not like you, not made for strength. I was too weak to sustain two. The effort was failing. Certain death for one. Kat was stronger. She would live, you would die. It was then you made a choice to live, no matter what the consequence. You slipped past me into Belle like a Hunter, fed on her. Lost yourself in a frenzy of feeding and almost killed her! I’m not sure why you stopped. Maybe you’d taken enough. And now, when you woke, you thought to feed on me Nicholas! My death was certain if Kat hadn't stopped you. You almost killed the both of us.”
“That's ridiculous,” I began but even as I thought to defend myself my mind shuddered and I remembered.
I was actually dying unless I fed. A new path opened in my mind and I found what I needed. I remembered feeding. Tearing at the source. Worrying it like a wolf with a juicy bone, power rolling through me with each bite until I became drunk with it. I remembered thinking I was safe! It was so much better to be the Hunter and not the prey!
The God Hunters Page 12
