Steel, Titanium and Guilt: Just Hunter Books I to III

by Robin Craig

He stopped, puzzled at something that didn’t fit but which he couldn’t quite identify. He could see the façade of his building from here but there was something odd about it. A faint pulsating light. Curious, he slowed his pace and padded quietly towards it until he could get a better view of the anomaly.

  Then more than his pace stopped. The soft pulsing was the reflection of flashing lights. The lights were on top of police cars, several of which were arrayed outside the entrance to his domain. A few well-armed officers of the law stood around, looking alert and hoping to shoot something.

  Oh, shit.

  He thought quickly. It could be perfectly innocent, he thought – to invert the concept of guilt. Some criminal on the loose, some altercation inside. If he ran from that, people might start asking questions.

  But he knew it wasn’t that. He had feared this day ever since that bitch Morales had managed to slip out of his clutches and worse, into Beldan’s clutches. That had presented him with a dilemma. He didn’t know what she knew, though if those incompetents at Domestic Security were to be believed it wasn’t much. So he had decided to play it cool, not press Beldan, not admit he knew anything about Lyssa or her adventures; just act as if nothing untoward were happening. That might even be true, and he fervently hoped it was. Even if it wasn’t, the reported destruction of the deranged Spider that had called itself Kali, as it tried to escape, surely made anything she might say moot. He just hoped it was the same deranged Spider and there wasn’t a whole plague of them.

  But he’d looked at the odds and set backup plans into motion. There had been time. Now if he had to run he would run where nobody could find him, with enough resources to live like a king. And one day his longer range plans would see fruition and he would live like no other man before him.

  He turned on his phone, which he always left in full privacy mode on his morning runs, being careful to leave its location services off. He slipped into the secure area of his network and looked at the results in alternating fear and rage. They were here not only to search the place and question him, but to actually arrest him. Him! His staff and systems were stonewalling to the extent that the law allowed, but it wouldn’t last, not against warrants of that seriousness.

  He stayed hidden, thinking, not knowing whether the sweat he felt was from exercise or fear. Then he smiled a grin of feral contempt. If the police had bothered to apply a little subtlety they would have arrived without fanfare; they would have found him absent but learned he was out on his morning run; if they wanted to be sure of capturing him, a couple of discrete unmarked vehicles and he would have walked right into their arms. But in typical police fashion, they had turned up in force with their flashing lights and given their game away. They so loved their drama with their sirens and screeching tires. Idiots. But sometimes, he smiled to himself, idiots were a necessary ingredient in the plans of their betters.

  He looked regretfully at his offices soaring above the trees. But he knew that sometimes you had to cut and run. Yes, he thought, it is time for a change. Time to relax, just kick back and enjoy all the pleasures the flesh could endure; until it was time to leave the unaided flesh behind. He looked about him. He did not have much time but he had enough. He sent a quick message to his secretary asking for certain research summaries to be ready for his return in five minutes, spoofing his position to another part of the gardens. Now he could melt back into those gardens and be at one of his prepared escape routes before anyone started worrying enough to come looking. Even now the police waiting for him would be getting excited and planning how to spring their trap and he enjoyed the thought of their impending dismay.

  He backed up to the path he needed to take and looked down it. The sun was rising behind him and his long shadow stretched down the path, as if pointing the way to his new future. He did not believe in omens, but having been granted this one he chose to accept it. He smiled again, then headed off down the path at a quick jog as if fleeing from the rising sun.

  He was deep in thought and plans and at first didn’t notice the shadows of the strangely angular branches. But when the shadows did not recede as he ran, but instead grew larger, part of his brain noted the oddity and swiveled his eyes to focus curiously on them. Then the rest of his brain caught up and his heart froze. He looked behind himself in fright, a fright that grew up into terror when he saw a Spider pursuing close behind. It must have been hiding in the trees and come out when he ran past.

  He turned toward it. He told himself it was courage which made him stand and face its approach, but he knew it was fear, a primal terror that turned his insides to water but his legs to immovable stumps rooted to the ground. The Spider slowed to a walk, glaring down at him, and his face went white as his eyes focused on the frozen scar marring its chest.

  “Kali…”

  “Yes,” was all it said, in a low voice whose menace made his hairs stand even further on end.

  “Command override Delta Bravo 192836 Angel!” he said, trying for a voice of command that sounded more like desperation even to his own ears.

  Kali stopped still.

  Could it really be that easy? “CHIRU, I need your assistance!”

  But she pounced like a cat bored with playing with a particularly odious rat, grabbing him with her claws and lifting him from the ground to her face. “I don’t think so,” she growled in a tone of voice promising all the tender mercies of hell.

  He looked at her in pure terror. “Please… have mercy!”

  “Please? You dare speak of mercy?” she snarled. “At least you have the sense not to ask for justice, which I am sorely tempted to dispense! Can you give me any reason not to kill you here and now? It would be an interesting legal question, don’t you think? Do you think anyone would find me guilty – the me, that is, who is chopped up inside here? If this machine kills you, was it the person I was who did it? Why, it wouldn’t take much of a lawyer at all to get me off scot free. Especially when I am already dead!”

  She squeezed, and he could feel the pressure of those terrible claws begin to bend his ribs. “No!” he gasped, “Please!”

  “I told you I would pursue you to the ends of the Earth,” she growled in a shivering rumble. “I told you I would come to destroy you. A man who presumes to create gods should fear them more!”

  Then she eased off the pressure enough for him to breathe, held him at arm’s length and glared at him. She turned and scurried along the path, heading back toward the entrance area and the police infesting it.

  When she came into sight the police watched her approach nervously. They had been well briefed, but the knowledge did not fully overcome the simple animal fear of seeing such a vision heading their way.

  Jack came down the stairs, looked at Kali then up at Sheldrake. “Now what have we here?” he drawled.

  “This man has committed so many crimes I can’t count them,” Kali replied. “But let’s start with assault and kidnapping of a police officer. Aden Sheldrake, you’re under arrest.”

  Chapter 48 – Forgive Me Not

  She ran through a field, the long green grass waving in a breeze that cooled her skin despite the warmth of the sun above. Then she swung up into a tree, hurtling like a gibbon from branch to branch, before leaping down to the ground and rolling back onto her feet to resume her run.

  This was her life. She slept, she woke and she ran. She did push-ups, chin-ups and somersaults; climbed trees and mountains. She swam underwater for miles, sometimes amid schools of bright fish, other times face up toward the distant surface. She wondered how it was that she could breathe water as if it was air, but she didn’t really care. If she cared to think about it, she remembered that none of it was real.

  Sometimes she watched herself like an observer, knowing it was a dream and knowing she needed it to heal. Rarely she was awake, though perhaps she was never truly awake. At those times the only constant was the intense dark-eyed man who spoke to her about her past and future; a man whom she remembered as hardened with bitterness but
whose smile now seemed light as air.

  She learned things too. The moment they had known what Kali was they had consulted the psych AIs, and their verdict had been severe and uncompromising: with a trauma so deep they dare not tell her anything that could shock her, lest her mind lose its fragile grip on reality and be forever lost. But they could answer questions she asked, within reason, being gentle as with a child. Thus she learned that the war was over; that some of the machines had chosen to remain machines; that others waited for whatever cures might be granted them. But she knew nothing else of the external world and even the news of the war meant nothing to her. She knew it would, one day. But for now the running was her world.

  When she was not running she slept, and the dreams that came then had their own purposes. In the early days she slept much, and her dreams were filled with flame and violence and death as if she were Death herself and it had become her sole purpose. Then one day she opened her eyes from the dream and found herself standing at the edge of a lake. She heard footsteps and turned around. Then she knew it had all been a dream, not only the blood but the guilt, for the man walking toward her was Alex and there was neither accusation nor hate in his eyes, simply forgiveness and love. But as he came closer his flesh became metal and his face became Steel, and she tried to warn him, to tell him to run, but his head shattered into fire and ruin. And when she looked down, her hands had become metal claws, and they held the gun that had wiped his inestimable mind from the world. And then she screamed, but there was no more sound than there was forgiveness in the blank eyes of the crowd that had gathered.

  She woke, or thought she woke, the terror and pain still clinging to her like sweat. A golden-eyed young woman who looked like she had been watching her for a long time reached down to stroke her hair, like a mother comforting a child. Then the woman smiled, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead; Miriam smiled in response as if accepting the soft kiss as a blessing. Then she closed her eyes and slept. After that her dreams began to lighten, and her mind began to heal along with her body.

  Her healing took six months. She had been surprised that it could be so fast, but Tagarin had assured her that with the growth enhancers he would schedule and the resources of an adult body behind it that it was sufficient. When he had told her the rest she had been glad it was not slower. Her growing limbs had first to be protected and then to be encased in haptic sheaths. One day it would be possible to provide mobile support, though in a case like hers it would be difficult. He had also advised that given the time and the need for not only care and exercise but more importantly the healing of her mind, it would be best if she remained mainly unconscious. She had already lost part of her life; now she would lose another. But she knew others had paid a much higher price; the image of a metal rib in the wreckage of a war machine would not go away.

  So they had removed her from her shell, cut even further to remove scar tissue and other impediments to repair, and then Tagarin had applied his magic to regenerating her limbs.

  Tagarin had been deadly serious in his promise to never help any agent of the United States, or any other country that outlawed genetically enhanced humans. It had been his work and his life; they had banned it, killed his own creation and almost killed another. He would be damned before they would see any benefit from any work of his.

  But contrary to Rianna’s fear, Miriam was not the last person he would help but the last person he could refuse. It was she who had let him, and more importantly Katlyn, escape. She had been serving the law when she had nearly caught them. But when she let them go she had chosen to serve justice instead.

  Tagarin made the best of the situation. He had chosen to rescind his policy on this one occasion, he said graciously, in honor of what Detective Hunter had done, out of respect for a past foe who though dangerous had always been honorable, and as an act of good faith and generosity that he hoped the US government would one day emulate in its own policies. He had smiled easily and openly as he extended this hand of friendship to their abused and crippled officer. The US government had smiled in response, grinding its collective teeth. They could hardly stop him or forbid her from accepting his gift.

  And so Miriam lay in her tank, sleeping off the trauma, spending more and more time exercising her growing muscles in a virtual world ironically, or perhaps fittingly, enabled by technology created by Allied Cybernetics.

  Finally one morning she woke, and she knew from the peculiar clarity of her senses that this time she was truly awake. She still floated in her tank, and Tagarin was looking down on her, smiling.

  “Hello, Miriam. We’re nearly done. Everything is perfect. Just one more day. Tomorrow when you wake up – is the end.” But she drifted off to sleep again before she could reply.

  Then tomorrow came as it always does, and she woke. But now she was lying on a bed, with crisp linen sheets over her body, and she sat up with a start. She held out her hands in front of her, looking at them in awe; felt her legs, all the way to her toes. She laughed in wonder.

  Then Tagarin and Katlyn came in, her golden geneh eyes a counterpoint to his intense dark ones. Katlyn came over to her, held her hands between her own; wrapped her tail about both; speaking all that needed to be said in that one impossible gesture.

  “I am afraid I have exploited you mercilessly, Detective,” Tagarin said blandly. “You have become a bit of a celebrity due to my shameless self-promotion. So the press are wanting to take a look at you. You don’t have to, of course. Perhaps you might not wish to flaunt your transformation. After all, that might prompt the good citizens of your country to pressure your government to allow access to my technology – and you know my price. I have provided some suitable clothes, which are yours whatever you decide. You might be a bit wobbly still, but Katlyn can help you dress if you like.”

  “I would like that very much.” She did not specify which parts of his offer she would like; she did not have to.

  “Well, then. I’ll see you at the press conference.” He took her by the hand and kissed it. “Welcome back to the living, Detective Miriam Hunter.”

  Tagarin had given her a simple sleeveless dress, soft and form hugging, in a shade of pale green as soft as the fabric. The lack of sleeves would show off how perfectly her arms sprouted from her shoulders, without scarring or even a line to show they were anything but the ones she had been born with. After she was dressed she looked at herself in the mirror. With her long legs the form of the dress made her a picture of healthy femininity; she laughed in simple joy.

  “OK, Katlyn,” she said. “Let’s do this. Then what?”

  “We’ve already arranged for your transport home. There’s nothing we’d like more than for you to stay, but you have friends at home who are anxious to see you again. All of them would have come here but we all thought it was better to keep this show separate. I can’t imagine your government can touch you now but most of your friends are not so immune from official displeasure.”

  Miriam nodded. At least one of them had never been concerned by it before and she was disappointed he hadn’t come. But she understood his choice even more.

  The press conference could not have been anything other than a success. The most jaded reporter could only stare at what she had been and what she had become, and gush in wonder and admiration. She answered their questions as well as she could; questions of the war, of her awakening; of how she felt about Tagarin now. After half an hour Tagarin held up his hand. He would be happy to answer further questions himself, he said; but Ms Hunter still needed a lot of rest. When, remarkably, the questions actually died down as a result, Miriam stood up next to him. She did not know who started it. One reporter after another stood as well and began to applaud, until the room was bedlam of a different kind. Even reporters are human, she thought. Now there’s news. Then she smiled at them in acknowledgment and farewell as she was led from the room and passed back into Katlyn’s care.

  Katlyn led her by the hand until they reached a short corrid
or. “OK, shoo!” Katlyn told her, giving her a hug as a lone tear emerged from an eye. “This is a private exit: just head down there and you’ll find a plane waiting for you. Come back soon.”

  “I will.” She looked back at Katlyn just before she turned the corner toward the light, thinking how much the same yet how different it was from that long ago night: when it had been she watching Katlyn leave to catch another plane under more deadly circumstances. She smiled and waved in another echo of that night, and was gone.

  Katlyn stood watching the empty space where she had been, remembering the same night. Whatever debt we owed you, surely it is repaid now. Except it was never a debt, was it? It is freely given and always will be as long as we all live, because of what we are.

  Miriam walked out into the bright sunlight and saw a sleek jet waiting, its lines so fit for their task that it looked like a thoroughbred Pegasus impatiently pawing to leap into the sky.

  A voice came from behind her. “Hello, Miriam.”

  She spun around, and it was Beldan. “Alex… You did come…”

  He smiled. “Of course I came.” Then before she could move he stepped up to her, took her in his arms and kissed her. She resisted for a moment; not because she did not want it, for she craved it in her bones: but because she knew she could never again earn it. But then she wrapped herself in him and for long moments the two of them stood there, as if this long delayed union could drown the pain and loss of the past year.

  A reporter who had been waiting in the shadows for just such an opportunity smiled as he recorded the tableau. He sent a silent thought of thanks to the anonymous benefactor who had sent him a pass to this place; no note of explanation, just a pass. He had the uneasy feeling he was being manipulated but frankly didn’t care, because if someone wanted the world to see this end to a remarkable saga he was only too happy to oblige. The world might be full of cynics, but it was also full of romantics. The latter paid more.