by KL Mabbs
“I knew an anthropologist, Simon Werheald. An odd name, I know. He told me his father was a fan of Shakespeare’s. Cave drawings fascinated him, anything that showed the aspects of therianthropy. That’s another name for animal transformation.”
“Humans, you mean.”
“Yes, of course,” White Bear said. “That’s how Skinwalking works. An animal doesn’t have the intelligence to put on the skin of a human.”
Michael knew an animal that had been intelligent enough.
White Bear muttered the rest under his breath, but Michael heard it, somehow. “. . . and the sacredness of family changes that.” But he stopped there. Not saying any more.
“I killed the black wolf. Didn’t you see it there?”
“The light plays funny here in the valley. Get attacked by a wolf—grey, black—they would look the same under that kind of excitement. Skinwalkers heal fast though. Even faster than you and your fancy Medtech. Lots of blood around, though.”
“That’s not the way it happened.” No body? “That’s not possible; I put three bullets into the animal. Take this splint off, would you?”
“Sure, I should check it anyway. Your elbow was pretty savaged. Almost ripped from the socket. Your hand was badly torn, too. Your Medtech heal things like that?”
The pungent scent was back, pouring from the old man’s body. He was looking for information. The smell—it was emotions he kept scenting. Fear, relief, and . . . What did White Bear want to know? What was he looking for?
“It accelerates the process.”
“Then you’d better hope I set it right.”
“You were telling me a story,” Michael said.
“Right.” The Shaman moved his chair closer, and gently laid Michael’s arm in his lap so he could work on unwrapping the crude splint. “Simon Werheald . . . he was German, at least by descent.” The wrap of bandages grew at the old man’s feet, his hands gentle, and his voice soothing.
Again, the words didn’t smell right to Michael.
The splints came off. He flexed his elbow. It was stiff, but it moved. In a few days’ time, it would be fine.
“Simon studied as many myths and legends as he could. He even studied possession in Iraq.”
“Iraq?”
“It happens a lot there. People guard against it. Look for it. He took them apart, the stories, to find the processes, and then he found me. I was the only practicing ‘Ant’jjhnii of the Navajo left. I don’t have a son, so I . . .”
The scent that went with those words shocked Michael; the Witchery Way was supposed to be dead, extinct.
“The knowledge will be lost, again. Just as well,” said White Bear.
The bandages from his hand unwound more. Michael looked at his hand, waiting for the deformity of the bandages to disappear.
The pile of cloth grew, but his hand . . .
The last wrap came free. Michael looked at the pieces of bark that were stuck to his hand and intermixed with the cloth on the floor, part of the deformity. He tried to make a fist. The same stiffness he had felt before was there. He had thought it the bandages. And the smell, the old man’s scent . . .
“I had to be sure, son,” White Bear said.
“Sure of what?” The rage he had felt earlier crept out again. This time he didn’t try to clamp it down. This man had hurt his mate, driven her away from him. He had done something to make his hand—it hadn’t healed. Not the way it should have. Not like the rest of him. It wasn’t the same as when Faelon cured him of her scratches and the first bite from the black wolf. Or the way his shoulder and elbow had healed because she had stood over top of him and drooled her saliva into his wounds.
“I thought about the myths the anthropologist talked about—that a bite could make a man a wolf. I had to be sure you wouldn’t change. If you weren’t infected, it wouldn’t matter.”
Michael kept looking at his hand, trying to recognize what the Shaman was saying, as he took in the damage the black wolf had done. The way its jaws had ripped between the finger bones. How his hand had healed without the wounds closing together.
“I take it myself. To keep at bay what Skinwalking makes of a man.”
Michael Scott screamed.
Chapter 26 Samantha
Samantha was tight from the grief brought on by last night’s delirium and her lungs felt sand-full, the kind of heaviness that went with too much sobbing. An overworked bellows. She stretched out the sleep toxins that kept her groggy most mornings. Today was worse than usual. While she was in shape, her muscles protested more at the age of forty-eight than they ever had. She moved again, forcing the stiffness from her muscles.
She eyed the watch, as she went to shower, and then as she got dressed. That part had at least been true; she had thrown the damn thing across the room. It hadn’t even shattered, the crystal face still holding the perfect sheen of a reflection.
“What are you, Sammy?” She picked up the watch, put it to her wrist, and watched it fold into place, a seamless band. That hadn’t happened the first time.
“A military P.A.C. unit, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She had never considered herself a ma’am. Not even when used as polite address. But it was proper form for ranked individuals addressing a superior female officer. “What is your rank, Sammy?”
“I have no rank, ma’am. But I have adapted to your son’s level of understanding.”
“My son. Do you know how he died? The real story?”
“I . . . those memories are lost . . . the last few months . . . I’m not sure my software was online.”
Does that mean insane? Can a computer joke? Samantha knew that the Oil Wars had driven a level of technology that made the boost from the World Wars seem minuscule. But it was uneven. Medical tech had skyrocketed, so had weapons, Nano-tech and Biotech. For some of the world, alternative energy research had been left behind. The States and Saudi, as well as the U.A.E. were only now catching up. Africa was always behind. But then, cheap labour was still needed.
China knew that.
The smartest computer she had ever seen, and the smallest as well, had been the size of her palm. The interface had been larger, until hologram and haptic controls came along to reduce that footprint. Nowadays a computer didn’t need to be any bigger.
“What did you do for my son?”
“Communication. Enhanced medical services, and personal protection.”
“That was oblique. I could do the same by telling him to put a bandage on.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I know I failed Ahmed. I will do better with you.”
“With me?” How the hell? Sammy had failed—was that guilt? And how did she just become the recipient of a bodyguard that couldn’t move.
Node Two: Name, Sammy: Updating Emotion files. Guilt: a feeling of culpability for offenses; the state of one having committed an offense, especially consciously. Accessing: previous Primary Interface had emotions. New Primary Interface, General Samantha Ariyan has emotions. Non-protection of former Primary Interface. Response: Not conscious. I did not protect Ahmed. I will do better. Variable parameters overwhelming. Impossible to protect / predict corollary behaviour for all situations. Response: I will do better. Adapt.
Samantha Ariyan stood outside an observation room much like the one that had housed the black wolf. It still did, but there was no four-legged animal in that room any longer. Now it was a two-legged human and as angry as it had ever been as a wolf, possibly more. She’d had Sammy apply an advanced learning technique to the wolf while it was unconscious, one she had used herself, though it had its dangers if used too often. She needed it to talk, and the bloody beast would comply.
For now, though, she watched Kerrigan. While this room had the same protocols as the other, the steel bed had been made comfortable with padding and sheets. There was water and food on a bedside table for when he woke. The medical displays near her waist told an interesting story, and Sammy was tied into the complex readings displayed there. Kerri
gan’s heartbeat, at rest, was forty-five beats a minute. Temperature, forty-point-three degrees Celsius. Normal would be thirty-seven, but none of the fever conditions a human exhibited were present; his skin wasn’t even flushed. Sweat should have been beading up. His brain should be close to mush, but the EEG wasn’t showing abnormal brain activity for a human.
Currently, his muscles twitched with enough violence to jerk his body around, and the moans that came from his lips had the distinction of low-level growls. The massive wounds he had suffered, so savagely, were healed within the day. In hours. She had trouble not admiring the animal that had inflicted them. This was better than the P.A.C. unit she had been hoping for, almost. Michael Scott was still in her consciousness though. He hadn’t left, in fact. Anyone who could survive the way he had deserved her respect. She also knew he was a liability to her plans. She regretted that, but she slipped the emotion aside to deal with what was in front of her.
“Lieutenant Kerrigan.” She spoke into a mike, addressing him with rank in the hopes he would respond, raising her voice when her soldier didn’t react. “Kerrigan.”
The soldier on the bed groaned and turned his head to her. He sat up, impossibly fast, with his eyes open wide, his body showing an alertness that hadn’t been there before. The sheet covering him slipped down, revealing a chest not only well muscled, but well scarred too, though the wounds from the wolf were new pink skin, fast disappearing. The rest of him was just as alert, like most men in the morning. Samantha couldn’t help but stare.
“General?”
Samantha raised her eyes to the cobalt blue of Kerrigan’s eyes. “I’m glad you’re well. I was concerned.”
“I . . .” Kerrigan raised his face and sniffed, he tried different directions within the room, and then he settled, relaxing in a way that seemed too noticeable. “Thank you, ma’am. What happened?”
“You don’t remember.” The general pursed her lips, and looked out from under her emerald eyes, accentuating her femininity. And her doubts.
“Ma’am.”
She lowered her gaze, lingering a moment longer than appropriate. “Look at your chest. Several hours ago, that was a ruin. The sedatives we used on the wolf wore off early. We had no way of knowing. You’re lucky to be alive.” She regretted lying. But the emotions that she had developed for him—she didn’t deal well with love since her son had died. The lie seemed justifiable if the person she cared for survived. And didn't remember the incident.
He placed a hand on his chest and shoulder, rubbing exactly where the wounds had been. “The floor.”
“Electrified, yes. It was enough to keep the wolf unconscious, and fortunately, not kill you.”
Kerrigan’s muscles twitched. He looked at his commanding officer, his stare impervious. Samantha Ariyan returned his look; she had played this game with more powerful men, for much too long, to lose at a staring contest.
In the course of human intimacy, ten seconds is a long time. Thirty seconds is what lovers described as a soulful stare, falling into each other’s eyes. Forty-five seconds was an eternity, but he wouldn’t look away.
Samantha glared at Lieutenant Kerrigan for a full minute, until she hit the button that opaqued the thick glass of the observation room window, and even then she still met his eyes until it blanked out completely.
The laughter that came through the speaker unnerved her though, it was so masculine. And the shiver that went down her spine held more sexual tension than she had felt in many years—from a man she had chanced killing to test her suspicions . . . and maybe release her emotions. Well, she had her confirmation. All from just one look.
Chapter 27 Michael
Captain Scott was running through the new training with his unit. New, because the metabolic increase from the P.A.C. units created a severe enough discrepancy between normal and Para-human that training was needed to compensate. Training that would also keep the army from being aware of the differences in its soldiers. And that would keep his father safe. Or safer. So he hoped.
It wouldn’t do to advertise to the army or the portable media that followed every skirmish or confrontation with a machine-like zeal that was akin to paranoia. Field unit media were the norm for battlefield situations. The war wasn’t any better off for it, or the truth better kept because of it. It usually meant protecting a machine that seldom helped his men.
They were a regulated nuisance. Captain Scott knew he wasn’t going to change the world, but that’s what it meant to have the media in the field. The world wanted their perception of the truth. For a training mission he had the right to turn them off, and of course, PAC could alter them as needed. The ones in range, at least.
“Okay, Ariyan. This should be easy. Just stop showing off,” Scott said.
“”I’m not . . .”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Lieutenant.” His friend was too literal at times. A tendency he got from his mother, the General. “You’re moving the way you always do, but now it’s enhanced. You need to slow that down in public view. If the media pick this up in the field when you use it, we’re all FUBAR. Your P.A.C. was designed to be discrete, at least at first. Once he adapts to you completely . . .”
“I know this, Captain.”
“You read the manual, Lieutenant. There’s a difference.”
“Yes, sir.” Ariyan had the personal concentration of a monk. The moment he was in was all he was concerned with, and his body was just supposed to keep up. It made him a good soldier, just slightly more difficult to train.
Captain Scott sighed. “Okay, for a while we do everything in slow motion. I think Tai Chi would suit for this. Positions, people.”
Node One: Name, PAC. Primary Interface: Captain Michael Scott: Adapting. Primary Systems: Nominal. Organics Engine: online. Behaviour and Emotional files: Updating. Tai Chi. Combat style; inventor, Chang San Feng. Bodily function enhancement through movement and concentration. Discipline. Security Parameters update: Media function, discretion. Behaviour modification files updated.
Recon unit Victor Alpha Bravo one-six. Michael Scott, Captain commanding. Command Structure: Implementing with all nodes: Sammy, Sweet Aire, Marlon. Rank applies outside combat conditions. Discretion: Media, private citizens, army personnel, rank, commissioned, non-commissioned.
Environment: Damn bloody hot. Damn sand—gets into everything. Expletives, private communication only.
Michael Scott screamed out his rage and backhanded White Bear with the club-like thing that was his right hand. The Shaman hit the wall beside the bed with a sickening thud, his head cracking against the wood of the living house. He sank down, knocking the sideboard and spilling the foul-smelling coffee that had resided there.
Michael rose up from the bed and stood over his enemy. “Bastard.” His breath was ragged, and sweat poured from his body. Pain coursed up his arm from the hand he had used as a club. He raised his left hand in a fist. It shook with his rage. White Bear had taken his hand; it could have been healed, by PAC, or even with Faelon’s healing. Oh God, would she want him this way?
A lame wolf didn’t last long in the wild.
The Shaman was still breathing and blood oozed from the back of his skull. That smell pulled at Michael, feeding the rage he felt. He hadn’t felt this way since Ariyan had died. Then, it had been . . . he shook his head at the blank that formed. Why could he remember the emotion but not the memory? Michael took a breath. Slowly, he lowered his hand. Let it relax.
He looked around the room and found what he was looking for in the wall of the kitchen, the tell-tale bump that was the docking power for today’s remote appliances. A few steps and he had his hand against the unit; misshapen, it stared back at him, a lump of useless flesh. A growl rose from his throat and he looked back at the Shaman, his rage still curling up into the room like something palpable. “PAC, suck the power from the room.”
“That will deplete the storage batteries.”
“He’ll have more tomorrow. Take the heat from the room
, too. He won’t die from exposure.”
“That has given me three-quarters power. Resuming full Medical Mode,” said PAC.
Michael started exploring the house. On this floor was the bedroom and a half-kitchen, a bathroom as well. The closets yielded nothing special. He needed his equipment to find Faelon. Would she . . . he put that out of his mind. First things first. Stairs led down to the ground floor, living space, and a larger kitchen. A half-grouse in the fridge that he had to eat one-handed helped assuage his hunger.
The deer smell he had first perceived filled the area. Nothing like his own scent, the musk from his sweat, a separate aroma that was as strong in his nostrils. His nose itched. He scratched at it, but the cudgel that was his hand didn’t even allow that much control. He dropped his hand, a sense of uselessness clawed at his stomach, tried to crawl up his throat. He swallowed, forcing the self-pity away. He had to be sound enough to help his mate. If she would still . . . wounded alphas that couldn’t fight—Michael wanted to scream, but he held the urge back. His emotions weren’t the truth, not yet. Not yet.
A closet on this level showed his pack, still full of what Michael considered survival gear. His rifle as well. It was a start. He found his clothes in the laundry room. Getting dressed one-handed was difficult, but he managed. The curses and growls that came from his throat were another matter.
“My shield function is much like a contracting muscle.”
“WHAT, PAC? Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” Michael closed his eyes, the Oil Wars surfacing behind them. Images he’d forgotten. He sighed. “I’m not in danger here, PAC.”
“That’s not what I meant, Captain.”
Michael stopped trying to maneuver the buttons on his shirt with one hand and a club of flesh and bone. PAC hadn’t called him Captain in years. The steady rage he had been feeling and controlling, with difficulty, subsided. His mind cleared a tad. PAC was more than a research assistant. “You’re talking about my hand.”
