Hunters: A Trilogy

by Paul A. Rice

  After a few moments, the old man gently pushed her away to stand holding her at arm’s length, staring into her eyes for a few seconds. Turning to Ken, George said, ‘You are indeed a lucky man, Kenneth, it is no wonder you fought so hard to live, no wonder at all.’

  Ken grinned, saying: ‘Yeah, well…I needed to see those bloody dogs again, didn’t I? And then there was the gardening, and – ouch!’ Wincing as the toe of Jane’s cowboy boot found his shin with great accuracy he knelt forward, rubbed his injured leg and looked at his wife with an expression of feigned horror plastered across his face.

  Mike joined them on the couch, whilst George, smiling softly at their idiocy, propped himself on the coffee table in front of them. ‘So, here we all are!’ he chirped. ‘And then there were three…’ George looked at each of them in turn, saying: ‘I hope you are all now in tune with what it is that we are going to achieve over the next period of our time together. Do you have any questions so far?’

  There were no questions to be asked, not yet. In some strange way, most of the thoughts they’d had were already answered. Deep inside, they felt it was as though they were destined for this. Jane felt a peculiar sort of calm within her chest, it was a defining moment in her life, and she welcomed it.

  ‘Maybe it’s just the dream, or perhaps it’s the effects of the implant…’ That thought alone would have been enough to scare some people witless, she guessed, but here she was, calmly sitting before some dream-induced ‘Destiny Maker’ in the form of a pleasant old man wearing brown corduroy trousers. ‘Weird, just plain weird is what this is, maybe I’ll wake up in a minute and it’ll all be gone. Thank goodness that Ken’s here!’ She looked up as George spoke again.

  ‘I believe that Michael has covered most of the details required,’ he said, ‘so I won’t labour the point. We have seen the error of our ways. We recognise that by adamantly refusing to interfere in the affairs of other worlds, that we have inadvertently allowed rank evil and ignorance to flourish in your parallel!’ He snorted in self-derision. ‘How ironic it is that our lofty stance will be responsible for leading us all on the path to destruction. We need to take some preventative action, and we intend to do so immediately!’

  George reached into the pocket of his coat, fetched out a small, square object and placed it on the floor. Turning back to the friends, he then said something that would remain with them forever afterwards. Rubbing his forehead between his thumb and forefinger, he said, ‘There are those people who may well judge us in the future – perhaps they will say we were no better than our prey…’ That particular word hung in the air like a lead weight and they all sensed the heaviness of its meaning. George was being deadly serious. ‘What we are about to embark upon is in no way a righteous crusade whatsoever, it is a necessity of the utmost importance! Think of it as the amputation of a poisoned limb, if you like,’ he said. ‘We either remove the rotten part, or risk losing the entire body.’

  His face then took on a sorrowful look. ‘I am truly sorry that it is people such as your good selves who have been asked to help, although, from a personal point of view, I am extremely glad that it is you!’ he whispered, smiling softly. ‘This may at times be extremely difficult, but we will do everything to help with that, I promise you. When this is over, we will also give you some assistance to progress in peace for the remainder of your lives.’

  Whilst he let his words sink in, George turned to the object on the floor. Reaching into his pocket again, he pulled out one of the remote control devices they had used to zap the Spears with before. With a quick push of his left thumb, he used the zapper to convert the object on the floor into its correct size. With a liquid shimmer, which only Jane had never seen before, the square object transformed itself into a small, ochre-coloured container.

  The lid sprung open with a slight hiss.

  The old man bade them: ‘Come and see!’

  The three of them obliged, the two men looking on with boyish curiosity. Jane did the same, but with slightly more bewilderment since she was still trying to let her brain catch up with her eyes. The interior of the case was lined with some plush red material and was sub-divided into several smaller compartments. On the right hand side there was a clear plastic container that, when opened, revealed three, one-piece, cloth suits. They appeared similar to ‘long john’ undergarments, but with some sort of finely-woven metallic mesh intermingled within their design. It made the black suits almost shimmer and seemed to give them a strange, mother-of-pearl effect. George removed the suits and passed them to Mike. The Australian rubbed the material between his fingers before leaning over and draping them across the arm of the couch.

  ‘Are they for Shrink Down, George?’ Ken questioned, glancing at the suits.

  George looked up. ‘Precisely, my boy,’ he said, ‘but these are more advanced and specifically designed for this region, they really should not be used to jump to another dimension unless in the utmost emergency.’

  Reaching back into the box, he withdrew three objects, which appeared to be pens, and placed them on the table. Their dull, but expensive-looking metal cases seemed to be totally innocent.

  ‘Perhaps they are just pens and I’m getting all uptight for nothing,’ Jane thought, watching in silence whilst George continued unpacking the case.

  Taking out some more objects, he proceeded to lay them on the table next to the pens. There were three oblong containers that reminded Jane of some fancy cans of aerosol spray, or something. They were about the same size in length and girth, but had an unusual cap. They were of the same, greenish hue as the suits. Not being perfectly round or square in shape, the containers wobbled slightly on the glass table top.

  The items continued to be extricated from their cosy red case, always in threes. There were some things that appeared to be overly-large matchboxes, square, shiny and with a pair of glistening, curved metal teeth at one end. As George stood them on their ends, the teeth, or barbs, glinted in the dim interior light of the room – they were the first items that looked like something nasty. The one common factor, which Mike obviously noticed first, was that all the items had a raised arrow running down their sides. The head of the arrow pointed towards the probable business end of the strange objects, which had begun to litter the table.

  Mike picked up one of the containers. ‘This end towards the target,’ he said, confidently. Ken agreed, saying that it reminded him of the instructions that were embossed on the front of the Claymore mines they had used so frequently in a previous life. Mike nodded and placed the object back on the table.

  The final things to appear from George’s magic case were in complete contrast to the previous items he had extracted. The first was a plastic container, like a child’s pencil case, it had several blister packs of tablets contained within its opaque skin. There were two types of tablets, one set were small, blue and bullet-shaped, whilst the second row of pills were bright red, and round. The pack that held the blue ones said ‘Travel’ in neat black letters across its front, whilst the red ones had the word ‘Emergency’ emblazoned across their own particular wrapper.

  The last items that George laid upon the table, this time there were only two of them, drew a barely concealed intake of breath from Ken. ‘They’re not what I think they are, George, are they?’ he whispered. Rising to his feet, Ken moved towards the table. Mike also stepped closer.

  Jane, noticing that their eyes had become more rounded, felt relieved by the men’s reaction. She had been suffering from that particular emotion, one of almost total disbelief, for the best part of the last twenty minutes or so and it was rather satisfying not to be the odd one out for a change.

  With the case now empty, their mentor rose to his feet and dusted off his trousers, he seemed to use the movement as a delaying tactic whilst he thought about the answer. Looking at them for a moment, he then confirmed their suspicions. ‘Yes, indeed, they are your old friends, except these ones are not ‘old’ as such. They are brand new and have everythi
ng the previous models had, all of that and more.’ Lifting one of them in his hand, he held it out with his palm upwards and then, somewhat dramatically, said, ‘My friends, let me present to you…’ in his head, George must have heard a blast of ‘Dun-dun-daaa!’ because he waited for a few seconds, and then, using his best master-of-ceremonies voice, said, ‘…some brand new Spears, they shall be yours to use whenever you think it necessary!’ With an enormous smile, he held out one of the objects.

  Both Mike and Ken reached forward to grab one.

  However, they were soundly beaten to the punch by Jane. ‘Excuse me, lads,’ she said, sweetly. ‘But I do believe that it’s supposed to be ladies first!’ Smiling at them, she turned to George, saying: ‘Would you be as kind to allow me, George, my dear?’ Jane held out her hand, whereupon, and without hesitation, the old man passed her one of the miniature vehicles.

  Ken roared with laughter. ‘Bloody hell, it’s the Queen of bleeding Sheba!’ he said, prodding her ribs with an outstretched finger.

  ‘Yes, my love, and the Queen still awaits her King!’ Jane replied, eyes twinkling.

  Ken grinned, saying: ‘Just give us a look at it will you, smart-arse?’

  Stooping over her shoulder, he stared at the object. There, in the palm of his wife’s hand, was a perfect miniature of a black, four-wheel-drive, BMW car. Its twin sister remained sitting innocuously on the table less than an arm’s distance away.

  ‘And these can change to full size, can they, like the case did?’ Jane asked, looking in the direction of the dark-coloured container. Seeing George’s confirmatory nod, she passed the vehicle over to Mike and then resumed her position on the red couch.

  The old man nodded, saying: ‘If you would all like to take a seat so that I may show you how to operate these tools…’ George waited as they all budged up in the couch to sit looking up at him, waiting whilst he sorted the devices into some form of order.

  Fiddling with the inside of the lid, he managed to pull a roll of tightly-wrapped material out of the box. With a flick of his wrist, he then did a pretty reasonable magician’s trick. The roll cracked open and gained a rigidity that didn’t seemed possible, a large white screen now floated before them. It seemed to hang in the air of its own accord and measured about four-feet-square. There were several small coloured circles on its surface and a long rectangular box at the bottom left corner. Some red and green bar graphs flickered intermittently within the box.

  Picking up one of the pens, George turned to them. ‘These objects can be used to disable your target,’ he said. ‘We must not leave a single trace of our presence behind as it may cause the authorities to investigate further.’ He looked at them seriously for a moment or two, and then glanced down at the pen. Looking up, he continued. ‘I would imagine you are thinking that this, for instance, is nothing more than a simple pen…’ He smiled at them and Jane knew for sure that George was doing a lot more than just ‘imagining’ their thoughts.

  ‘This device,’ their teacher said, ‘will, when used correctly, instantly disable your victim. It only requires the smallest application and should not be fired for extended periods.’ Leaning forward, he showed them how the rear of the device needed to be pushed towards the front. It was spring-loaded and operated almost like a normal pen. Twisting the rear of the pen to one side, he said, ‘Turn this before operating, once you have turned it then keep the pointed end towards the target and push the arrow down with your thumb.’ He showed them again and they heard the slight click it made as the interior mechanism engaged.

  Holding the device between the first two fingers of his hand, he held it up in demonstration. The pen was gripped between his fingers as though he was holding a sword and was about to stab it forward. Turning away, he pointed the pen at the screen and then pushed the arrow with his thumb. The device emitted a thin beam of energy for about one second. George’s aim was extremely accurate and the ray of green light hit one of the circles dead-centre. As it did so, they saw a burst of energy disperse over the entire screen.

  The wave of power pulsed outwards, like a whirlpool in reverse, until it hit the edges of the screen. In seconds the entire perimeter of the screen glowed, whilst the point of impact did the same. Jane had the idea that the power would have kept spreading indefinitely had it not been contained by the edges of its target, it just seemed to conduct itself to the extremities with ease. Gradually the brightness dimmed and then faded altogether. The horizontal bar graph at the bottom of the screen illuminated to show a row of square green lights that had jumped across to fill about fifty per cent of the rectangular graph.

  Turning the cap to the safe position, George placed the pen on the table and looked at them. ‘One dose of that and the unlucky target will be immobilised for at least thirty minutes,’ he said. ‘We had to do intensive research with this device as it was originally derived from a neutron initiator…’ Seeing the bafflement on the faces of his audience, he shook his head. ‘My apologies,’ he said, ‘I should have used more simple terms. You see, the original item was used to initiate our engines, and, as such, was far too powerful for this task. However, we have modified it to accommodate our current needs.’

  ‘Can we get a shock from it, George?’ Jane asked, warily – she didn’t fancy having anything to do with the weird green light that had spread so quickly across the screen. It looked to be quite horrible.

  His answer allayed some of her fears. ‘No, you cannot, the power will remain within the target and it cannot jump or ‘earth’ to anything else. However, should you inadvertently shoot yourself with the device, well… then you will indeed be in trouble!’ Reaching across, he picked up the packet of red tablets. ‘Place one of these pills under the tongue of whoever was foolish enough to get in the way. Do it within about thirty seconds of receiving the beam and you should be fine within a few moments.’ He looked at them, smiling as they nodded in understanding.

  One by one, George made them use the device. They took turns in learning how to operate its mechanism, and then stood and fired it several times at the target screen. At first, all of them fired the device for too long, the protracted beam causing the screen to flare brightly and the bar graph to jump into the red.

  George chastised them, saying: ‘Ahh, now you will have a dead body on your hands, my dears. No-one will ever be sure exactly how they died, but that alone will cause suspicions, and there must to be no doubt whatsoever as to how these hapless souls met their end!’ He made them practice again and again until they had all managed to master the weapon.

  The second device was far simpler to use and was for ‘close quarters’ only. Picking up one of the square boxes, he showed them how to activate it. George pushed the recessed switch forward and then stepped over to the screen. Leaning forward, he touched the screen with the two barbs and squeezed the box with his hand. With a malicious crackle the machine discharged a jolt of power into the screen. The surface went black and then flashed a deep red before returning to a more normal colour. The graph showed a line of orange lights below.

  ‘This is very similar to the other device but it delivers a much more intense jolt of power,’ he said. ‘The victim will be rendered unconscious instantly and it should only be used in cases of dire emergency!’ George handed the prong-toothed machine to Ken and talked him through the operation of its buttons once more.

  Ken looked at it and said, ‘It’s like one of our stun-guns; you just stick it on the target and zap ‘em – end of story!’ He turned towards the screen and operated the machine. Once more the screen changed colour and the little graph did its familiar dance.

  After about another five minutes of practice, and when he was satisfied with their aptitude for the weapons, George placed the electronic devices back on the table and chose one of the oblong aerosol cans to explain next. ‘This one is far more interesting, unfortunately I cannot demonstrate the effect on a model for you. It is what can only be described as liquid energy, fluid lightning, perhaps,’ he said. R
otating the lid, he exposed a small square nozzle with a silver lever behind it. He shook the can for a while, then turned away and gave it a little squirt.

  A fine mist, just like any other aerosol, was propelled from the nozzle. The big difference was that this mist, as it floated gently downwards, gained a silvery-green appearance to its particles. As they hit the dusty floor, each particle immediately illuminated with an electrical crackle, a fine carpet of microscopic flashes flared viciously when each drop made contact with the ground.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Ken exclaimed. ‘Did you see that? It’s electricity in a can, that’s just totally amazing!’ He was barely able to believe his eyes.

  Jane couldn’t have agreed more. ‘That is unreal, guys, simply unreal!’ she said, blowing out a long, slow breath from her bottom lip. ‘Can you do it again please, George?’ she asked.

  He nodded, and after giving the can a quick shake, obliged Jane’s request by squeezing the lever once more. The trio watched in fascination as the tiny wave of speckled electricity peppered the concrete floor again. After igniting, the drops simply disappeared into thin air, leaving only a strong odour in evidence of their passing touch.

  ‘Now, that is weird, it looks quite horrible!’ Jane said, leaning back in the red couch as a wave of weariness washed over her. The enormity of the situation was draining her emotions and her ear was buzzing as though there was a little bout of tinnitus on the way. She rested and listened as George talked.

  ‘It is more than just that, my friends, much more.’ Looking at the device in his hands, George twisted the cap and sealed the can of liquid fire. ‘It is to be used as an inhaler and must be squirted into the face of the target.’ Before the terrible nature of that description hit them, he quickly continued, saying: ‘The particles also contain a very powerful substance, one that will force the victim to recognise what they have done. It will fill them with remorse and remove any thoughts of selfishness.’ He bent down to place the can back on the table.