London Wild

by V. E. Shearman

  ‘A few of the throwbacks she experimented on actually became compatible with Herbaht. They didn’t grow tails or anything like that, but the physiognomy of the subjects changed markedly.’

  ‘So?’ Mitsiocaler sat back and folded her arms. She felt she knew where her sister was going with this, but she wanted it to be spelled out for her.

  ‘It’s possible it might work on the human creatures we encounter.’

  ‘Not sure I like the idea,’ Mitsiocaler replied, ‘but I suppose it’s better than nothing, and it’ll be good to have something to fall back on. Tell me, did she tell you how the new D.N.A. affected the host? Assuming it works?’ She idly scratched one of her legs with an extended claw.

  ‘She didn’t say,’ Mitsioni explained. ‘She never had any human subjects to experiment on. It’s quite likely that the drug will just kill the host. She did mention, though, that if it works on humans it’ll take about seven years for the D.N.A. to be fully altered to its new configuration.’

  Slowly the conversation turned away from their future to their past and together they discussed things as they were a thousand, two thousand, even seven thousand years ago. They talked about their reactions when they found out they had been chosen to become Goddesses. Mitsioni discussed the many things she had done with Hatshulosk since he had become a good friend, though she denied they had had any children together yet. The small talk continued late into the evening, and then it was bed time.

  Mitsiocaler had to spend that night in one of the servant’s beds because the master bedroom was her sister’s, but she didn’t mind too much. She hated to think what the throwbacks might have done to her own bed by now, and the idea of returning through the gateway for the chance of the good night’s sleep simply wasn’t a possibility. Besides, what if her sister decided to leave with Hatshulosk during her absence? The space craft was only a two-seater, after all; Mitsiocaler was effectively just in the way. It was thoughts like this that kept her awake half the night; she barely dared to close her eyes in case her sister should decide to sneak off.

  It was early when Mitsiocaler reentered the stateroom the following day. Her sister was already up, though, staring at the riots in the city. In particular, she had her eye on one of her death squads, who were busy attacking the various gangs. She didn’t turn around in the chair when Mitsiocaler entered the room; she simply said, ‘My children are fighting with them; I hope they survive.’

  ‘When do we leave?’ Mitsiocaler asked drowsily. There was nothing left for her on this planet, and though the idea of finding a native mate repulsed her, she would simply have to cross that bridge when she came to it.

  ‘We should probably leave today,’ Mitsioni replied. ‘I’ll contact Hatshulosk quickly and let him know you’re coming, and then we can leave for the launch site.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Mitsiocaler commented. ‘Are you packed?’ There were a lot of things she’d have liked to take from her own Temple, but there was no way she was going to risk going back now.

  ‘We don’t have room. The craft has enough food for two, which we’ll now need to share between the three of us. It’s a two-month journey, and without access to boosters, we will need to find some prey as soon as we arrive before the effects of the elixir wear off totally.’ As she spoke, Mitsioni made her way to the gateway. As the last words left her lips, she tuned the gateway in to Hatshulosk’s Temple.

  The sight was the last thing she had wanted to see: she counted no less than seven of the throwbacks in his main stateroom. They were destroying the furniture and setting small fires. Hatshulosk himself was dead, lying on his back across a gold inlaid marble table that Mitsioni had admired so much. His clothes had been ripped from his body and his tail cut off, currently being worn as a headband by one of the throwbacks.

  Then one of the throwbacks caught a sight of her looking at them and approached quickly. Mitsioni, a tear in her eye, quickly turned off the gateway. ‘I guess it will be just two of us after all,’ she whispered.

  ‘Can you fly the thing?’ Mitsiocaler asked. She gulped in sorrow for her sister and couldn’t look her squarely in the face.

  ‘I’m not really sure we have the luxury of finding out,’ Mitsioni responded. ‘Oh, he showed me the basics and then told me the target planet is already programmed into its trajectory so we’ll find the place all right.’

  ‘Then I guess we’d better get what we need and go,’ Mitsiocaler suggested.

  ‘There are a couple of power pistols over there; get them and their energy packs. They won’t last us long, but they’ll give us a start. I’ll get the phials and the elixir, and then we should go,’ Mitsioni replied, tears flowing properly now.

  Mitsiocaler fetched the weapons and rejoined her sister in front of the gateway.

  Before she tuned the gateway to the launch pad for the space craft, Mitsioni turned to face her sister once more. ‘Hatshulosk and I had made an agreement. Because there would only be the two of us eating human meat, we were sure that our children might think us strange, might even shun us. Now we both need native mates, and once they are injected with the elixir, they too will need regular doses of that same chemical. But that would still only be four. Things could get awkward for us there.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ her sister asked.

  ‘The plan was that we would teach our offspring that they all needed the human meat in order to survive. That way we wouldn’t be alone, we wouldn’t be shunned, and what’s more, we might even be able to teach our children to hunt and gather the food for us,’ Mitsioni replied.

  ‘I can see the reasoning behind it,’ Mitsiocaler responded, ‘and though I dislike the idea of lying to my children, I don’t see any real alternative. But that’s all in the future, and maybe we’ll come up with a solution in time. In the meantime, we probably should get going before the mobs either find us or locate the spacecraft.’

  Mitsioni nodded her agreement, and in less than an hour the two were entering a low orbit and preparing to switch the onboard controls over to the autopilot so that it could take them to Earth.

  Day One

  Release

  For the first few years after the arrival of the Herbaht on Earth, the increase in missing persons was so slight that it took another hundred and fifty-four years before mankind realized that he was no longer the only sentient life-form on the planet.

  1

  The Huntress

  London in the year 2948 was very much a city of lights. Every street in the city where people might have business during the dead of night, including the golden mile and the large shopping districts, was kept illuminated to the extent that it was often difficult to tell the difference between day and night. If that wasn’t enough, there were cameras everywhere, dozens of cameras per street, more cameras than they could possibly afford to hire people to monitor. All to protect the people of the city from the cat-like hunters who prowled the streets of the city and the South-East of the country and who had done so for nearly an entire millennium now.

  The outskirts of the city were less bright. This was where the residential areas were, and the people who lived here had long ago complained of the bright light invading their bedrooms when they were trying to sleep. These streets were still lit, but not to the same extent as the main thoroughfares of the city. There were plenty of other security devices to protect individual homes from the Herbaht, and a self-inflicted curfew meant that most people were home from work long before it began to get seriously dark. If anything, the residential areas of the city had an even higher number of cameras scattered about the streets, some with infra-red lenses to better penetrate the dark. But it was generally accepted that these cameras weren’t monitored properly. They just didn’t have the manpower to watch every one, so they were checked only after something had happened, by which time the hunter would be long gone.

  Also patrolling the residential streets, both during the day and at night, were a small number of UAVs. There were only about fifty for the
entire city, so it was quite rare to see one; however, their cameras always had someone guiding them. If they saw something, they were armed with a tranquilizer gun capable of knocking a subject out for twenty-four hours, plenty of time for the authorities to move in and collect the target.

  February Sivka was seventeen. She had been born in the town of Sou’nd, virtually the east coast of the country, and had moved to Upminster as soon as she had been able, where she now lived alone. During the day she worked as a computer programmer and web designer. She’d usually telecommute from home because of the perceived risk from the Herbaht. During the night she tended to relax with the newspaper or even an occasional book. She didn’t really know any of her neighbors all that well, but she had never given them any cause to be concerned about her occasional trips to the city. Thanks to years of experience and the right combination of make-up, February was able to effectively hide her true race even from those who thought they did know her.

  Every month, sometimes twice a month, February climbed into the driver’s seat of her car while it was still daylight outside (and therefore not too suspicious) and drove to London. A long time ago she had changed the tires of her car to something with a different style of tread, in order to make it harder for anyone to trace back to her. Nevertheless, there was still a little bit of danger, so as soon as she reached the city and found somewhere to park, she would wander a few streets until she felt she had gone far enough and then steal another vehicle, using that to venture further into the residential areas of the city.

  One of the reasons she had chosen to hunt this night was because there was to be no moon. However, she had miscalculated a little, because as she stopped the stolen vehicle opposite a tempting-looking backstreet, the sun was still in the sky, even if it was making its way slowly down behind the houses to the west.

  February preferred to hunt in her natural stripes. She wore no more than a tee shirt and jeans that had been adjusted to make room for her tail and with a pocket suitable for a small laser pistol. She enjoyed the look of fear on the faces of her prey just before she struck, and on more than one occasion the mere sight of her had paralyzed her prey and she had been able to take her time. Then there was also the problem of the cameras. Should she attack someone while wearing a disguise and it was caught on camera, then those hunting her would have a better idea of what she looked like when she was trying to hide. True, she knew how to turn off the cameras, with the right gadget. But any time a camera went down, an alarm was triggered, and such outages were taken very seriously. She would effectively be signaling her position to the watchers. It was better to ignore the cameras and hope no one was currently monitoring them.

  The backstreets and alleyways were veritable gold to the hunting Herbaht. The only light here came from a few small lamps hanging above the back doors of the houses. These were owned by the residents and, as a result, were not always turned on. There was less light here than there would be around the front of the houses. This was a far better place to lie in wait for potential prey.

  February flowed gracefully from the car to the relative darkness of the backstreet, keeping in mind all the time the locations of the nearest cameras and listening carefully for the tell-tale buzz of an approaching UAV. There were eight houses here, four on each side of the street, with the back doors of the houses opening straight onto the road. Outside the third house on the right was a large wheeled skip already full with what appeared to be mainly drywall and wiring. At the end of the backstreet was a line of eight garages, two of which were currently open and empty. The other six were each painted a different color than their neighbors and covered in graffiti.

  Normal practice would be to lie in wait for someone to appear in the street. Maybe to wait in one of the open garages in the hope that it was in use and the owner simply hadn’t gotten home yet. February, on the other hand, had a bit of an advantage, with her background in computers and related technology. She walked straight up to the first door on her right and removed the front panel from the security lock.

  It was going to be easier than she had expected. It was a simple combination lock, and the right five or six key depressions would open the door. She could try to simply guess the combination, but if she got it wrong, on her third attempt the door would likely seal itself to the opening, making it impossible to open. It would be far better to convince the tiny computer that the correct combination had been entered and so open the door.

  As she considered what she had to do to trigger the door, the waft of an unmistakable scent seemed to creep up on her from behind. It was a human male, and he was scared. February wondered for a moment if this was someone on their way home to one of these houses, someone who hadn’t expected to see her standing there and attempting to break into one of his neighbors’ houses. As easy as this lock might be to crack, it would be better and easier still to just grab a victim off the street.

  The scent became clearer. There was intensity about it. This human was armed and preparing to attack.

  She remained calm, pretending to be oblivious to the human. He was very scared and was likely to take his time making sure he didn’t miss. It seemed unlikely, but with any luck, he might even change his mind and decide she wasn’t worth the risk. Not that she was likely to reciprocate if he did.

  Slowly, yet aware all the time that if she took too long she’d be the victim, she removed the laser pistol from her pocket. There was a chance that he’d notice what she was doing, but only a small one because of how she was standing in relation to him. When she grasped the weapon in her hand and realized she was still breathing, she knew she had gotten away with it. Now she had to act fast. Time had to be running out.

  She turned quickly, ducking as she did so and firing wildly at the general location of where the scent was coming from. The sudden movement she made caused the man to fire in panic at the place where February had been. His beam hit the door just above her head, and she was certain that it must have triggered an alarm somewhere. At the moment, though, she had other things to worry about, such as the nature of the weapon he was using. The assailant had kept the beam on and was using it like a targeting laser to trace a line down towards where she now stood. If he reached her with the beam, he could cut her in half easily. As it was, he was cutting through the door as if it was butter and searing the actual interior walls of the house beyond.

  February didn’t take long to realize her danger and dived out of the way of the laser beam, heading as quickly as her feet would carry her towards the garages. As she did so, she tried to take maximum advantage of scattered debris and shadows. At least the sun had finally disappeared below the horizon, casting the backstreet into relative darkness. Once she was sequestered in the garage, she tried to assess her situation and locate the man shooting at her. The beam wasn’t following her. The shooter had turned it off. A laser rifle on full beam would drain the energy cells in under a minute. February had assumed from the smell of fear emanating from him that he was inexperienced at fighting Herbaht, but obviously he knew enough not to waste his energy.

  The rifle spat again; it was on pulse this time. A number of short beams of light hit the far wall of the garage February was taking refuge in. The far wall was slowly torn apart by this barrage, and February could do little more than keep her head down and hope the shooter didn’t get lucky. It was clear that he couldn’t see exactly where she was or she’d be dead by now, but obviously he knew where she was.

  The barrage of laser beams stopped after maybe a minute. There had been plenty of noise accompanying them, and the people living in the houses around the alley had taken an interest. They were looking out of the various barred or energy-shielded windows at the scene below. Some, upon seeing that the action was taking place in the alley behind their houses, quickly sought the relative safety of other rooms, but some insisted on watching the excitement. They would have been easy targets for February, had she not had someone with a laser rifle waiting for her to make a move. She knew sh
e didn’t have long. Even if cutting the door hadn’t set off an alarm, she could see that at least one of the voyeurs was chatting into a mobile link. Maybe they were just calling a friend about the excitement, but it was more likely that they were calling the authorities for help. In a very short while this alley was going to be crowded with the army, and if February didn’t act quickly, her hunting days would be over.

  She kept against the wall of the garage and looked for the figure. At first she could see nothing, but as she looked further and further she saw him. He had retreated to the very edge of the street and was outlined in the light from the next street. He may have felt safer in the light, but it made it easy for February to see him and must also have been making it harder for him to spot her. From where he was currently standing, it would have been impossible for him to have seen February working at the door; he must’ve sought cover there when she had first dived out of the way. That might explain why she had actually reached the garages alive.

  February didn’t have time to make sure; she took careful aim, wanting to end this quickly and be away before anyone else came to join in. She pulled the trigger, and her pistol whined pathetically as it fired. Its beam hit the target dead-on but didn’t have the strength to harm him. She dived to the ground quickly as the wall above her collapsed under another barrage from a laser rifle set to pulse. She then rolled out of the way of the falling masonry after a part of the wall came close to hitting her head.

  She fired the pistol again; this time, nothing. She looked at the weapon in shock for a moment. She had charged its power cells only that morning. Either the power cells were at fault or the laser pistol itself was no longer functioning properly. The problem with weapons taken from the dead was that they rarely carried spare energy cells. If either the laser pistol or the energy cell was no longer working properly, she had no further use for the weapon. She threw it to one side, not caring who might chance upon it.