Sooner Dead

by Mel Odom

His body was humanoid, but the trace of the animal his ancestors had been remained. His arms and legs were thick as tree trunks, his hands and feet massive. Short brown fur covered his entire body except for his muzzle, palms, and the hooves of his feet. A short, shaggy tail hung out of his leather pants.

  He didn't wear a shirt, but he did sport a specially made Kevlar vest with an ammo rack for the huge machine gun/rocket launcher he carried as his main weapon. Twin revolvers, tooled in matte black to fit his hands and fitted with ivory grips, rode his hips in an Old West gunfighter style. He went barefoot, and his shaggy hooves dug into the ground.

  "You shouldn't come up behind me like that." Hella drew her hands back but held them out a little from her sides.

  "If you heard me, it would hear me." Stampede shifted his rifle and tilted his head. "Is it still here?"

  "Has to be." Hella glanced around the woods. Up the hill, Daisy chirped in agitation.

  "That stupid dinosaur's not making the situation any better." Stampede stepped in beside Hella. "Let's find that thing and get in out of the rain."

  Hella nodded and took point, leaving Stampede to guard her rear. Before she'd gone a dozen careful steps, Stampede grunted in surprise, and his machine gun shattered the night.

  Instinctively Hella went to ground then swiveled to face Stampede. He stood out in the open, covered with a stringy layer that closed around him. The sight froze Hella because the stringy mass looked like a huge sprawl of spider's webbing. As she watched, another bundle of the webbing sailed through the air and smacked into Stampede.

  The bisonoid growled in rage and tried to move his weapon, but the sticky strands bound it to him. He released the long gun and palmed one of the revolvers then the long knife holstered near his ankle. He pointed the pistol up into the trees and sawed at the webbing with the blade.

  Following her partner's line of sight, Hella peered upward. The possibility that the coyote-thing could climb had never entered her mind. She lifted her hands to take aim.

  The mutie-coyote scuttled out of the darkness along a branch twenty feet from the ground. For the first time, Hella saw that it had six legs, not four. Mottled in gray and brown, the creature definitely had lupine genes, but—like many things in the world these days—it was much more.

  The mutie-coyote paused and opened its long jaws. Instead of a triumphant bay, the creature vomited another ball of webbing that crashed down onto Stampede. The additional strands caused Stampede to topple over as his hooves got tangled in the webbing. He fired the huge revolver. The tracer rounds smacked into the tree near his attacker and left smoldering miniature craters.

  Silently the mutie-coyote launched itself from the branch and dropped gracefully onto Stampede. The thing's jaws opened wide to expose the serrated fangs. Then a proboscis extended from its throat. Saliva dripped from the end and spattered Stampedes broad face as he struggled with his bonds.

  Hella heaved herself into motion, both hands pointed before her. She was a gun sight, totally locked in on her target and knowing where every bullet would hit. She yelled to startle the mutie-coyote, to let Stampede know she had his back, and to burn off the excess adrenaline that suddenly drenched her system.

  The bullets struck the mutie-coyote and tore through flesh. Blood spurted from the wounds, and the creature staggered back under the onslaught, but it turned to Hella and snarled. In the next instant, it vomited a strand of webbing into the trees and swung away.

  Hella swung her guns overhead and fired, but the beast was a slithering shadow among the branches.

  Beside her, Stampede sliced through the webbing and grabbed his rifle. On his knees, he lifted the big weapon with practiced ease, sighted, breathed out, and fired. A rocket screamed from the muzzle, flashing in and out of sight as the lightning flickered around them.

  A heartbeat later a yellow and white explosion burst in the forest and set several trees on fire. Concerned voices mixed in with Daisy's frantic yowling. If they'd been there before, Hella hadn't noticed them. The detonation echoed in her ears.

  For a moment Hella thought Stampede had missed his target. Then chunks of mutie-coyote, the fur matted and black and burned off in places, plopped to the ground around them. A leg bounced off Hella's chain-mail shirt and left a greasy blood smear.

  Hella kicked the leg away from her. "That was nasty."

  "Yeah."

  High up on the hill, someone cut loose with an automatic weapon. Then laser blasts illuminated the campsite.

  Stampede cursed and reloaded as he kicked free of the webbing. Hella already had the point.

  CHAPTER 2

  You were supposed to be here! We're paying you to protect us! You can't do that if you leave us in the middle of the night and go haring about in the dark!" Klein Pardot, the head of the New Mexico expedition, frothed at the mouth as he declared his displeasure.

  Hella stared at the man and kept her jaw cranked shut. Everything in her screamed to punch him in the face. Maybe she would have too, except Stampede stepped between them and pushed her back. Grudgingly Hella allowed her partner to take over. Despite outward appearances, the bisonoid was the better peacekeeper and more levelheaded in times of stress.

  "Mr. Pardot—" Stampede looked down at the little man.

  "It's not Mr. Pardot." The scientist's voice was shrill and quite possibly the most annoying sound Hella had ever heard, even worse than the mating call of a rabid Arkansas razorback. Over the past few days, she'd grown sick of hearing the man speak. "It's Dr. Pardot."

  "My apologies, Dr. Pardot."

  Despite the more than half a meter difference in their heights, Pardot didn't seem intimidated in the slightest by Stampede. The bisonoid stood his ground with arms folded like he got yelled at in the middle of the night under pouring rain every night. Anything less than a paying client would have gotten pounded.

  The expedition security men looked uncomfortable and even a little embarrassed. A couple of them wore fearful expressions, as if they were afraid they would have to try to subdue Stampede when he'd gotten a belly full. All eight of them had their black hardshells on. The formfitting, protective gear included boots, gloves, and helmets, and all of that contributed to make them look like beetles.

  The hardshells provided a lot of protection from guns, knives, and lasers, even some strength and speed enhancement, but they didn't work well out in the wilderness. Inside cities, Hella thought the security guards could have claimed some advantages. But that wasn't true when all movement in the suits looked artificial. Stronger and faster counted when a firefight was going on, but a hunter/predator's ability depended on being able to flow without a misstep and to vanish in a moment if the chance presented itself. The hardshells stood out.

  The camp weathered the storm fairly well. Microweave tents kept the rain out and the warmth in. When keyed properly, the tents also turned opaque and kept light trapped inside. One of the guards used a small flamethrower to reignite the fire in the center of the camp area. The microweave canopy covered a four-meter-square area and kept it mostly dry.

  Hella held her tongue. Normally after lights-out she wouldn't have allowed any kind of light in camp. Fires kept a lot of animal predators away, but they drew the two-legged kind. The Redblight was rife with brigands and nomadic gangs that preyed on whomever fell in their sights. That night, though, the expedition's anonymity had already been shredded by the gunshots.

  The scientists thought they were roughing it, and the idea—when it didn't irritate Hella immensely due to the chronic complaining—amused her. They had no idea of what hardship in the Redblight was. They'd come with tents, sleeping cots, and supplies, and even had engine-powered ATVs to pull small wagons to carry them in.

  To Hella, roughing it was cutting back to a bedroll and Daisy. Luxury was a spare set of clothing. Everything else she and Stampede could get from the wilderness. Of course, the Redblight remained ready to take back everything from the unwary.

  "When we procured your services, we were ass
ured you and your partner were two of the best." Pardot was wound up. Based on previous experience with the man, Hella knew the scientist could continue in that vein for a while. Pardot didn't sleep like other people. If he took two or three hours of sleep at a stretch, one of his party would go check to see if he was still alive.

  Pardot was one of the oldest men Hella had ever seen. She guessed that the scientist was in his seventies. That age might not be so remarkable in civilized areas, but the Redblight wasn't kind—or even fair—to the young or the old. Pardot had a bulbous, bald head; a thin, pinched face; and thick glasses that made his eyes appear too large. He wore a skeletal support exo that moved him along in a hurried, jerking fashion. Every move seemed to be a twitch and lacked all fluidity. He could never quite manage to stand still while wearing it. As long as the exo was powered, though, he could walk everyone into the ground. The security men had a hard time keeping up with him because of the disparity between the power usage levels required.

  "We are the best." Stampede spoke matter-of-factly, without any hint of pride or arrogance. "We were being tracked by an animal, Dr. Pardot. A predator that was determined to hunt us down. My partner risked her life to make sure that stopped tonight. Before any of you got hurt."

  "You let the other one get through when you abandoned us." Pardot gestured back toward the second mutie-coyote sprawled over the collapsed remains of a tent.

  The scientist had a point. Scouting for one predator had left the camp open to the second. Hella gritted her teeth. Two of the things hadn't been expected. Large predators usually hunted alone.

  "Your men were prepared." Stampede spoke in a level, reasonable voice. "I made sure they were in place. They killed this thing before it could harm anyone."

  "The point is, we shouldn't have to protect ourselves. You people were hired to get us across country without anything like this happening. Either you should have killed it before it reached us, or we should have avoided it entirely."

  "This is the Redblight, Dr. Pardot." Stampede's words held an edge. Even he wasn't without his limits when it came to a scouting contract. "What you saw tonight, it could be a whole lot worse. The protection you're used to, the civilization, you're used to, it all ended days ago. You're in a new world now, and you'd better recognize that. And the decision to settle for just Hella and me was yours. You were the one that wanted a small group."

  Hella shook her head at that. Pardot's idea of a "small" group left a lot to be desired. The expedition was heavy with security people. They were a small army. Stampede had pointed that out, and he'd suggested Pardot let him hire more local bodyguards, people Hella and Stampede had worked with. The scientist had refused. Pardot obviously had trust issues. Hella had to admit that was the most understandable quality about the man. The only person she trusted outside of her own skin was Stampede.

  "Dr. Pardot." The lean scientist walked up to join them. She had mouse brown hair and a severe face. Her pallor and the resulting sunburn over the past few days suggested she rarely, if ever, got out of a lab. She wore thick rain boots, man's pants that didn't fit her properly, and a shapeless sweater. She had on bloodstained surgical gloves. Spots of blood showed on the sweater as well. "If I may."

  Pardot swiveled quickly in his exo, almost looking as though he hopped around to face her. "Dr. Trammell, must I remind you that I am not to be interrupted? Ever?" He somehow made that sound like doing so was tantamount to a death sentence.

  Colleen Trammell stood her ground, though the hesitant expression she wore suggested she'd rather be anywhere else at the moment. "I wanted to point out the possibility that this—these—encounters might not have been something our guides could have foreseen."

  "Dr. Trammell, the last thing I need is for you to manufacture excuses for these people."

  "I wouldn't do that, sir." The woman's expression blanched only slightly in the light from the campfire. "I would like to direct your attention to the nature of the dead beast. I don't believe you've examined it thoroughly."

  Pardot waved the suggestion away. "It's a coyote. Genus Canis. Species Canis latrans. Barking dog. How interesting could something like that possibly be?"

  As always, Hella stood in awe of what their charges knew about the world yet didn't really know about living in it.

  "When is the last time you've heard of Canis latrans having six legs?"

  Without a word, Pardot twitch-walked over to the dead animal. Mud splashed with every step. He switched on a mini lamp attached to the exo's head support, and bright light bathed the bloody corpse. "Six legs. There are six legs."

  "Yes."

  Pardot spun back around without switching off the lamp. The bright beam stabbed into Hella's eyes before she covered them with a hand and looked away. "The other creature had six legs as well?"

  Hella didn't know how that could possibly mean anything to the scientists.

  Stampede nodded. He didn't look into the scientists light either. "It did."

  "This is unusual?"

  "Very."

  "I've heard that the Redblight is home to all manner of strange creatures." Pardot rubbed his weak chin. "Surely something like this isn't all that uncommon."

  "I've lived here all my life. I've never seen anything like these animals. Now and again, you expect a mutation. Every so often, the genetic soup of something gets rattled and you see something like you've never seen before." Stampede held up two huge fingers. "But this is two creatures. Exactly the same. Six legs. The ability to spin webs. More like a species than aberrations."

  The word rolled off Stampede's tongue. Normally he and Hella didn't keep company where words like that would be exchanged. Stampede read a lot, though, and he shared a lot of what he read with Hella.

  Pardot glanced back at Colleen. "You have a theory?"

  "I do. I think they 're from a ripple."

  A chill skated down Hella's back. She didn't know what the event was called anywhere else in the world, but in that part of the world, such occurrences were called ripples. They were a disturbance in the world that opened up brief windows into other worlds of past, present, future, and might-have-beens.

  Several creatures that had been extinct in the world before the collider self-destructed had managed to slip into the real-world present as well. Some of them were flourishing again, and they were threatening the food chains in different areas because they had no natural predators. The Redblight's ecosystems were constantly at war with each other, seeking some kind of balance.

  "Nonsense." Pardot waved the thought away with a twitch. "If there had been a ripple, you'd have noticed it."

  "Perhaps I did." Colleen shrugged and looked perturbed. "It's this world, Dr. Pardot. Things just aren't the same as they were back at the lab."

  Back at the lab. Not home. Those were distinctive word choices—revealing more insight into the tall, angular woman. As a general rule, Colleen Trammel was a closed-mouth person and not at all inclined to gossip. The security men gave her a wide berth as well, but it wasn't out of fear, as their dealings with Pardot were. Rather, her personality was either vacuous or filled with ordinary snobbery for the hired help.

  "Nonsense." Pardot adjusted his glasses and pinned the woman with his harsh gaze. "You're sensitive to these things, Dr. Trammell. You would have known. You would have felt them. That's what you do."

  "There was... something. I felt it three days ago."

  Stampede stepped closer to them. "That was when Hella discovered the predator on our trail."

  Pardot didn't look at the bisonoid. "And you didn't think to mention this?"

  Trammell shook her head. "That wasn't the ripple we were waiting for, Dr. Pardot. Also, I couldn't tell how far away this ripple was."

  "She's a precog." Hella whispered into the comm, low enough that no one around her could hear.

  Stampede gave a slight nod to let her know he'd received the message.

  A shiver passed through Hella. She didn't care for precogs. Anyone with near-mystica
l ability to sense things or do things with forces of nature bothered her. Stampede had powers of his own that came from the same weird genetic cocktail that spread throughout the world. Hella's nanobots were pure, definable science. They were quantifiable and she could depend on them.

  Precog and psi powers tended to be somewhat unpredictable even in the hands of a master. Stampede struggled with his control at times as well.

  Despite everything she'd seen, Hella had never met anyone in tune with the ripples. A skill like that could be worth a lot. Most people avoided the ripples because there was no telling what the time/world holes would vomit out. But she understood why Pardot didn't lash out at the woman.

  "Not telling me was a mistake, Dr. Trammell." Pardot grimaced. "You know how I feel about mistakes."

  "Yes, Dr. Pardot."

  "Don't let this happen again." Pardot spun in a perfect half circle and left Colleen standing there.

  Hella blew out a long, slow breath and spoke into the comm. "Tell me again why we need this job."

  "Because we're no good lying around. We lose our edge"

  Hella snorted. If someone lost his edge in the Redblight, he was dead.

  "And I'm interested."

  "One of these days, your curiosity is going to get us killed."

  Stampede smiled in the rain and the campfire glinted from his golden nose ring. "Maybe."

  Hella tended her wounds in her tent then, unable to sleep because the tent smelled of wet bisonoid fur and maybe because she was still irked at Klein Pardot, took a feedbag to Daisy.

  The mountain boomer slept curled around a tree and was relatively dry. The lizard's multicolored skin still gleamed wetly, though. That was how her hide always looked. She was four meters long, including her prehensile tail, which was half her length. When she stood on four legs, she came almost up to Hella's shoulder. Her scales were mottled gray and green and brown, but black bands surrounded her neck and shoulders. Those distinctive patterns gave her species its name: collared lizard.

  Daisy slept with her head propped on her forelimbs and looked almost childlike to Hella. When Daisy had first hatched, Hella had been able to hold her in one hand. But that was before the wild card mutation gene had kicked in.