His fingers twitch with agitation. Even his thumb, held above the button, spasms slightly. “She’s done the unthinkable: she survived the journey back,” he whispers. “That’s why she’s a problem. She was there. At the Mission. She must have seen the train tracks.”
“How do you know this?” I ask. “Maybe she didn’t even make it to the eastern mountains.” I know this isn’t true. I saw her with my own eyes at the Mission—where I was clawed and almost turned by her—but I’m curious to know how the Ruler got his information.
“Your friend,” he says, calmly, slowly.
“Who?”
“Your friend. He told me.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“The one you designate ‘Epap.’”
“When—”
“A few hours ago. After news first broke out. We got concerned. Perhaps she saw the Mission; perhaps she didn’t. Then we realized—I realized—we had new arrivals from the Mission who might know for certain. So we had Epap brought up.”
“Where is he now?”
“He told us he saw her at the Mission,” the Ruler says, ignoring my question. “And so now we know. That she knows. About the Mission. About the train tracks.” He snaps his wrist, cracking a bone. “Already, she’s called for a big event. At the Convention Center, tomorrow. One hour after the crack of dusk, she’ll disclose something ‘mind-blowing’ and ‘earth-shattering.’ Twenty thousand online tickets for the event were sold out in fifteen seconds.”
“Where is Epap?”
The Ruler doesn’t reply immediately. Fatigue circles his eyes. “There’s no way we can allow the girl to speak. She blabs about the Mission and the train tracks and everyone will connect the dots. Within minutes, five million citizens will be gunning for the Palace. They’ll shred this place to pieces looking for hepers.”
“Where’s Epap?”
But still the Ruler barely seems to notice me. His next words are spoken in a whisper, not with the kind of hushed tone gossipers employ but with the disquiet of disgust. “Let her knowledge die unspoken,” he whispers hoarsely. “Let her be silenced forever.” He looks at me. “We need to kill her.”
His eyes slide across my face. “You are stunned into silence, I see. But I think you’re already one minute along in this conversation. I think you realize why, at last, you’ve been brought to my chambers.” He studies me. “See how your eyes search the walls for a clock, or even an unshuttered window to peer through. See how keenly you seek the time. Because you want to know if it’s daytime or nighttime. Allow me to confirm what you already suspect. It’s three hours past dawn.”
“And it’s sunny today, isn’t it, not a cloud in the sky,” I say in a barely audible voice.
“The most toxic blue sky imaginable.”
I don’t move. The bodies in the tanks drift and float. Their hair swirling, their limbs moving in slow motion.
“You do know, don’t know?” the Ruler says. His voice has regained its timidity, and he asks with genuine shyness. “You know what I’m asking of you.”
Two rows back, the chief advisor stands amidst the staffers, his face cast in shadows. But his shoulders are tense with barely contained panic. He stares at me, at his precious, suddenly precarious Origin.
“An impassable barrier of sunlight, miles long, stands between us and the metropolis,” the Ruler says. “It is an impenetrable wall between us and the girl. Desperate as we might be, try as we may, there is simply no way we can reach her. Not before she appears at the Convention Hall shortly after dusk. Not before she spills to the whole world the fatal secret.” He cracks his neck. “But we are not without our options.”
“I won’t go. Don’t even think about it.”
He gazes at me with apology. “I know how you feel. I know.” His thumb caresses the button. “I’m really sorry how quickly this is coming at you. In an ideal world, it would be dusk and we’d be able to send out our own team of assassins. But we’re not in the ideal world, are we? We’re forced to be practical, pragmatic. The way I see it, the only person who stands a chance of successfully assassinating the girl has two qualities: first, he must be able to withstand the sun, and second, he must know how to disappear in a crowd, even despite his newfound fame. And that,” he says, looking with admiration at me, “is you.”
“I won’t do it. I’m not at your beck and call. Let them come and—”
“I’m really sorry to have to say this, but I can easily depress this button here. If you don’t comply, I mean.”
“Go ahead.”
“Hm-m.” He considers. “I’ll bring up one heper after another to be sacrificed until you accede to my request.”
“Go ahead.”
He pauses. “Okay. I’ll bring up just one. The girl. The pretty dome girl. The one you designate ‘Sissy.’ Once she’s arrived, I’ll push this button. The staffers will have at her.”
“Go ahead.” But my reply comes a fraction of a second too late, the slightest pitch too high. They know. On the other side of the glass, they scratch their wrists.
“Yes, I can bring her up right now. Will take no more than two minutes. Then the feeding will begin. Nom. Nom nom nom.” A chorus of wails sounds from the other side. The Ruler is tantalizing them, egging them on.
“Go ahead,” I say. “We’re all dead anyway.”
“Really? What if I told you that was not the case? What if I make a promise to you?” He gazes at me with an innocence that defies cynicism. “What if I vow that if you successfully assassinate the girl before she reveals the truth I’ll grant you freedom? To both you and ‘Sissy.’ And just to show you I mean well, I’ll throw in the young dome boy as well, if you want. The one who you designate ‘David.’ We’ll release all three of you.”
“Epap as well.”
The Ruler pauses. “Ah, yes. Epap.” He purses his lips. “There might be a slight problem with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“He … well, listen, I’m truly sorry. I am. Please accept my apology.”
Alarm ticks in my throat. “What did you do to him?”
The Ruler pauses. “Well … it’s just that I … This is really hard.…”
With a sudden, horrific realization, I turn my gaze to the tanks around us. Darkened bodies float, some facing me, others away. But none have Epap’s physique. Which leaves one other possibility.
“Did you eat him?” I say.
The Ruler licks his lower lip. “I did not.” He doesn’t say anything more.
“Did somebody else?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so. I don’t know.”
Saliva drools out of the corner of his mouth, sliding down to the tip of his chin. The droplet hangs there, growing pregnant, but does not drop.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he says. “I’d slotted Epap for that tank over there. The tank’s been empty for a week now, been begging to be occupied. Epap would’ve been perfect. We usually don’t get boys that old and tall; he would have been a nice addition to my collection. So different from the usual little runts.”
“Just tell me where he is,” I demand.
The Ruler withers under my berating tone. “We s-s-ent him out,” he stammers. “We thought him a solid choice. Older, more mature, like I’d just mentioned, smarter than all the little boys here. He seemed capable, of course, like he could handle the assignment—”
“You sent him out? You sent him to assassinate the girl?”
The Ruler’s silence is answer enough.
“How could you send him? He doesn’t know the first thing about the metropolis. He doesn’t know how to meld into the scenery, how to remain inconspicuous in a crowd. He’ll be devoured within seconds of stepping into the metropolis, if not before.”
The Ruler flinches at my outburst. “I’m sorry. I am. You were our obvious first choice, but my chief advisor was dead set against it. Said that you, being so muscular and cut, would possess a taste second to none. And that I shouldn’t deny what w
ould be the most exquisite of heper meals for my birthday tomorrow. My chief advisor strongly urged me to send in Epap instead. The boy seemed capable, no?”
The chief advisor. Trying to protect me, his precious Origin, and so he sent out Epap instead. I stare into the crowd trying to locate him, but he’s merged into the dark mass of bodies.
“It looks like he’s no longer viable, so we’re left with no choice but to send you,” the Ruler says. “A more logical choice, really, given your experience living there. You know the metropolis; you’ve acquired all the necessary skills. My chief advisor, bless his heart, is still against it. Can you believe he even volunteered himself to go? He said he would don all the SunCloaks necessary to traverse the sun-scorched land. I scoffed at that idea. It would be suicide to venture out there. He wouldn’t last ten minutes, even with the SunCloaks.”
“When did you send out Epap?”
“It must have been about three hours ago. We gave him a bag of weapons—really cool stuff, daggers, snipers, a Moonlight Visor to hide his face, shotguns, stuff the denizens know nothing about—along with a map of the metropolis, the location of the hospital and Convention Center circled. Then we put him on a horse. And away he went.”
“But you think him dead already?”
His eyes slid off me uneasily.
“We do. I’m sorry.”
“How do you know this.”
“We gave him one other thing. A TextTrans. It’s cutting-edge stuff, really. With it, he was to type messages to us—which we received instantly—and we, him. We were checking in on him every hour or so, and everything was fine. For the first two hours, anyway.” He pauses. “But about an hour ago, we lost all communication with him. The last TT message indicated that he’d just entered the metropolis limits. Then nothing.”
“I’ll go,” I say.
“You will?”
“Contingent on your meeting my demand.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t go in alone. If you want this done right, if you want the girl assassinated, I’ll need help. I need two others to come with me.”
“Two others? Who?”
“Sissy and David.”
He pauses. “No.”
“Then forget it.”
“Understand my reasoning. You’ll all three be spotted in the metropolis almost immediately. Your pictures are everywhere. It’s bad enough sending you in alone, but at least I know you have the skills to go unnoticed. But the three of you together will simply be a screaming signboard.”
“We’ll wear MoonLight Visors. They’ll sufficiently cover our faces.”
He pauses. “We’ve packed only two Visors. So you’re short. In any case, nobody wears those Visors indoors. What happens when you need to go inside a building?”
“Leave that problem to us. But it’s us—all three of us—or none at all. The girl, with her combat skills, gives us a lot more kill options. And she won’t do it unless the boy goes.”
“Like I said, no.”
“Then we can just wait for the millions to storm these walls. In about ten, twelve hours, right?”
The Ruler’s hand on the control tenses. “I’m trying to be accommodating,” he says after a while, “but I’m not a fool. If I let you three go, you’ll simply take off and flee. I’d have lost the only leverage that ensures your commitment and cooperation. Because I know what they mean to you. My chief advisor does his homework, see.”
“You already know it was a mistake to send in one alone,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “Don’t make the same mistake twice. Because you and I know both know: this is your last shot. You don’t get a third chance at this.”
He stares at me with dispassionate, unreadable eyes. He puckers his lips. “Very well,” he says after almost a minute. “We’ll compromise, meet you halfway. We’ll give you one. The other we will keep as insurance.”
“As a hostage, you mean.”
“Let’s call it incentive—for you to return, that is—and leave it at that. We’ll let you have the boy.”
“No,” I say. “The girl comes. That’s non-negotiable.”
“I said we’ll give you the boy—”
“No deal, then.”
He glares at me, his eyes smoldering in their sockets. “Very well,” he says, his voice tinged with resentment. “You can have the girl. But we’ll keep the boy here.”
In my peripheral vision, someone moves behind the glass. A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette—the chief advisor—is rushing to the side, where he picks up a boxy contraption that’s attached by a curly cord to a wall panel.
“Your Rulership?” His voice booms into the room through a PA system.
“Turn down the volume before you blast out my eardrums!” the Ruler yells.
“Sorry, Your Rulership.” When the chief advisor next speaks, his voice is softer yet clipped and anxious. “We ought not send out the girl, Your Rulership. For that matter, let me once again reiterate my advice against sending out either of them.”
“We’ve already discussed this, and the matter is closed. The boy is is staying. The girl is going. Now, don’t try to dissuade me. Simply make all the necessary preparations.”
The chief advisor’s silhouette stands very, very still. “May I suggest an action that will further incentivize them to return?”
The Ruler, his patience running out, says quickly, “What, what is it?”
“Transport the young boy into Your Rulership’s chamber. Keep him in that empty tank until they return. Only then do we release him.”
“No way—” I say.
“An excellent idea,” says the Ruler. “Make it happen.”
“This may have been presumptuous, Your Rulership, but I’ve already remotely programmed him to come. He’s on his way.” The chief advisor’s head bends down to look at the tablet. “In fact, he’s due to arrive here in four, three, two, and one.”
And like clockwork, something starts to happen inside the empty tank. Air starts bubbling out of the submerged face mask. Then the floor disappears and a body is torpedoed into the tank from below. The tank is momentarily filled with a surge of bubbles; only after the floor is resealed does the liquid inside calm.
David is scrambling within, his head snapping from side to side, his arms swinging, legs kicking in panic. I rush over, start slapping the outside glass. “David! The mask, put the mask over your mouth!”
His eyes meet mine, and I see the panic and raw fear swimming in them.
“The mask, David!”
He finally understands. He grabs it, pulls the strap over his head. He sucks in huge, desperate gulps, his pale, thin chest ballooning with need and relief.
The chief advisor’s words, though whispered, blare through the room’s speakers. “The boy will remain in the tank until you return. After you both return.”
“After you’ve successfully killed the hunter girl, of course,” the Ruler adds.
David’s breathing steadies. But not his composure. His eyes are agog with fear. I imagine what it must be like for him: suddenly floating in a glowing liquid, confined inside a tank, a mob of duskers gawking at him nearby, the Ruler bizarrely tied up mere meters from him. No wonder his arms begin to lash about, his legs kicking the curved glass wall around him.
“David!” I shout, not sure if he can even hear me through the glass. When he looks at me, eyes wrecked with despair, a resolve fills me like molten gold. “I’ll come back for you, David. I won’t desert you. I. Will. Come. Back. For. You.”
Bubbles push out of his face mask as he starts hyperventilating. There’s nothing more I can do but press my hands against the tank. He places his own hands on the glass opposite mine.
The Ruler speaks from behind me. “We’re running out of time. You must depart immediately, I’m afraid. Wish we had more time to chat.”
I turn around, face him. Anger brews deep in me.
“We’ve already made the arrangements,” he continues. “You’ll be transported to the out
side via your enclave. There’ll be a horse waiting for you there. It’s been prepped for the two-hour gallop to the metropolis, and loaded with all the supplies and weaponry you could possibly need. A few bottles of water, too, because we know your needs. Oh, one more thing. In a small pouch tied to the saddle, you’ll find a TextTrans. It’s linked up with Epap’s. Just in case.”
“And what about the girl?”
“I’ll see to it that she’s transported outside immediately. There won’t be time to prep another horse for her. The two of you will have to ride double.”
A pounding on the glass behind me. David is kicking at it, trying to get my attention. Then his eyes lock on mine with understanding. But instead of panic, a strange clarity fills them.
“Let me tell you what will happen in the event you fail your mission, or fail to return here,” the Ruler continues. “I will prolong the boy’s existence in the tank as long as possible.”
David reaches up and pulls the face mask off. I shake my head at him, but suicide by drowning is not what he has in mind. He pushes against the glass with both arms, works his body downward until our faces are level.
“I will take my daily sips, of course,” the Ruler says, his voice dreamy, unaware that I’m no longer paying attention. “But I will also take my daily bites, too. Using pincers, I’ll pull off bite-size nibbles of his flesh. I’ve found that after a few days, the flesh gets very soft, simply pries off with only the gentlest of teasing.”
David’s eyes lock on to mine. They once looked at me with sweet innocence under bright blue skies, and I had seen the man this sensitive, tender boy would grow up to be. A man who would learn to laugh with sadness, and cry with joy.
“I will initially partake of the ancillary flesh, of course, avoid the vital areas…” The Ruler’s voice drones on.
The Trap (The Hunt Trilogy) Page 8
