Who Hunts the Hunter

by Nyx Smith

  “I insist that you release me at once.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “You’re making a serious mistake.”

  Several moments pass. Neither of the men seems the least bit impressed by Harman’s statements. They are obviously professionals, security ops or specialists in black operations. Harman feels a queasy sensation enter his stomach. He is obviously in a bad situation.

  “Neil” inclines one eyebrow, and says, “Let’s forego the theatrics, Harman. I’ll tell you very simply that you and I have certain similarities. You might say we’re both corporate men. We have objectives to meet and superiors who rate us on our performance. In this particular case, I’m forced to be expedient. There are certain things I must know. If you cooperate, you’ll soon be back at work and your masters will know nothing of what’s transpired.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “That would be unwise.”

  “In other words, you’ll compel me to speak.”

  “I’d prefer to have your cooperation, Harman, but if that’s not forthcoming I’ll be forced to resort to methods I think you’ll find unpleasant. Ultimately, you’ll tell me what I want to know. It’s really just a question of time.”

  “I will not betray proprietary data.”

  “That’s very commendable, Harman. However, from your perspective, the data I’m primarily interested in is personal, not proprietary. I don’t give a damn what you can tell me about Mitsuhama.”

  Harman hesitates. Only two explanations for this abduction had occurred to him thus far: one, a corporate competitor of Mitsuhama wants to squeeze him for information; or, two, a rival of his at Mitsuhama, perhaps someone with an eye on his job, wants to provoke him into making compromising statements. Neil’s remarks seem to indicate that a third possibility exists."I don’t understand.”

  Neil says, “I’d like you to begin by describing the nature of your relationship with Amy Berman.”

  Involuntarily, Harman gapes."Why is that any of your business?”

  “You’re not here to ask questions, Harman.”

  “I fail to see what this has to do—” Harman stops abruptly. Another explanation has suddenly come to mind."You’re investigating Amy. You’re with KFK International.” Neil shows no response. He glances aside. The Asian steps forward, lays a hand over Harman’s left wrist, presses down with the tips of three fingers. For a moment, nothing happens. Harman frowns, perplexed. In the next moment, his left arm is being seared by a fire that streaks up through his shoulder and into his head like an incandescent spike. His whole body jerks with the shock. He shouts. Colors burst in front of his eyes and for what seems like a brief eternity he’s quivering at the end of a high-voltage wire. The current radiating throughout his body is excruciating pain. Every nerve ending burns with it.

  As the pain subsides at last, Harman gasps and grunts, breathing hard. Vision returns. His left arm is numb, then tingling as feeling returns."That’s merely a sample,” Neil says impassively."My friend understands pain. He can do that to you all night. Your arm may feel a bit tingly, but there’s no physical damage. Not yet.”

  Harman catches his breath, says, “This is heinous."

  "Expedient,” Neil replies."Metahumans can take only so much pain. Then the mind begins to rationalize. You’ve had no training in resistance techniques. I promise you that you’ll soon break down. Save yourself the pain.”

  That would be a good thing to do, Harman supposes.

  What Neil says is probably true. A person can take only so much."What assurance do I have that I’ll be released unharmed?”

  “I’ll leave that for you to decide,” Neil replies."In the meantime, let’s get back to Amy Berman.”

  Yes, of course. That’s the point. And the question is how much can he say without compromising Amy or himself? If Neil is in fact with KFK International, might it not be best to tell everything he knows? If Neil is connected in some way with the audit going on at Hurley-Cooper, might it not be best for Amy, for everyone, for him to expound at length on everything he knows about Amy’s recent activities? to prove that she’s doing everything in her power to further the interests of KFK International?

  Of course, if Neil has been sent by Mitsuhama, then every word Harman says, everything he knows, his very relationship with Amy, could be construed or manipulated to appear treasonous.

  The Asian steps forward and lays a hand on his left shoulder.

  Agony pours through his body.

  51

  The creature on the display screen strikes Dr. Ben Hill as possibly the queen of all tigers, a dark queen, robed in crimson fur with black stripes. Her resemblance to panthera tigris altaica, the Siberian cat, is perhaps only superficial, for she is truly named bestiaforma mutabilis, shapeshifter. But these technical terms convey nothing of her majesty or power. She is larger than the Siberian cat and more massively muscled. Her eyes glint darkly in catching the light. She lies now at one end of the room reserved for her, head erect, eyes searching the dull gray space before her like a queen surveying the cell of a dungeon, with regal anger and ... something more. A resolve.

  Germaine asks, “You want me to tell Dr. Phalen we’re ready?”

  “Yes,” Ben replies, “and warm Mr. Tang we’ll be starting in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, Dr. Hill.”

  “Thank you.”

  Germaine goes out. Ben looks back across the console controls to the figure on the central display screen. His stomach churns uneasily. Coining face to face with primitive creatures can be disturbing. One always wonders just how great a degree of intelligence lies behind the feral mask. With a shapeshifter especially, that question nags. Does not the ability to transform into a humanlike appearance at least imply a human degree of intelligence? Is it possible that he’s participating in the confinement and abuse of a creature that should be regarded as having a stature equivalent to metahumans? The possibility gnaws at him. It’s been plaguing him ever since this most recent project of Dr. Phalen’s began.

  The Were tiger has kept her secrets well. Like her cub. If not for her remarkable crimson fur and reflective eyes, Ben might have wondered if the bountyman Tang had not brought in a mundane animal. She has remained in her fourlegged form since arriving, and shown practically nothing of any intelligence she may possess. She’s demonstrated primarily animalistic behaviors, making her displeasure with confinement quite apparent. The sheer ferocity of that displeasure was shocking to witness, and captivating, and served to apprise them all of just how dangerous a creature they’re dealing with here.

  Ben has no doubt that within moments this dark queen could reduce a man to shredded strands of flesh and bone. They must be very careful.

  The door to the control room slides open and Liron Phalen walks in."Ah, Ben. How is the stomach, my dear fellow?"

  "I’m managing.”

  “I do wish you’d take my advice and go home.”

  “Work’s a better remedy. Did you speak to Amy Berman?"

  "Ben, you’re really worrying yourself to death. I’ll speak to our Ms. Berman later this afternoon. I’m quite sure this little administrative problem will be swiftly rectified.”

  “She had an auditor with her.”

  “Yes, so you said.” Phalen smiles, then leans against the control console, gazing at the central display."What are we calling our new matrix?”

  “Germaine suggested ‘Striper.’ ”

  “Alluding to the subject’s eccentric coloration?”

  “It seems appropriate.”

  “Oh, I quite agree. I’m particularly keen, Ben, to see how this Striper compares metagenetically to her offspring. This could have implications that extend far beyond the immediate focus of our work.” Phalen pauses to smile, then says, “Shall we begin?”

  Ben turns to the console keyboard and taps in several commands. On the display screen, the dark queen is up on her feet and roaring, as if she hears the tapping of the keys and somehow guesses their import. Above
her, hidden ducts are now opening and discharging a gas that is both odorless and colorless.

  Five seconds later, Striper lies on her side, unmoving except to breathe. Telltales on the control console indicate she is asleep."No immunity,” Phalen says."Now we wonder whether the Were’s fabled regenerative ability will foster the rise of a tolerance.”

  “Err on the side of caution, Doctor.”

  “Certainly, Ben.”

  Life signs remain stable. The dark queen sleeps. They set a research assistant to monitoring the console and go into the next room to prepare for the next step. A small metasurgical team is ready and waiting. A technician helps Ben into a gown and gloves and then an air mask. Phalen suits up similarly.

  Ben turns to the two elves, the bountyman Tang and his female associate."Dr. Phalen prefers that you wait here while we’re conducting the procedure,” he says.

  “It’s your show, Doctor,” Tang replies."I’ll warn you again that the gas is not always effective, and the tigress is very fast. If she awakens, she could have you in seconds.” Ben’s stomach churns some more. He doesn’t want to be inside the dark queen’s cell when she wakes. Tang’s weapons seem feeble compared to Striper’s massive fangs and claws."You’re sure you can control her?”

  “We got her here, didn’t we?” Tang says quietly.

  Before Ben can decide how to answer that, Phalen announces he’s ready, then they’re all turning, moving through the door and into the dark queen’s den.

  “All right, my good people. Take your places. Quiet, please.”

  And then they’re beginning the procedure to remove metaphysically preserved blood and tissue samples.

  52

  Candles gleam through a haze of incense slowly curling, rising into the dark. Bandit sits cross-legged, gazing into the astral from the center of his medicine lodge. He has been many hours considering what he will do, trying to anticipate what will come, and making preparations. The time has come for him to begin. He rises with the incense, drifting free of his physical flesh, beyond the boundaries of his lodge, then through the dark fabric of the building around him. He emerges, still seated cross-legged, hovering a few meters above the ground, into the astral twilight at the rear of the building.

  People speak of cities as living organisms, but that is deceiving. On the astral plane, the energies of life are clearly perceptible, but the city itself—the crete, the structures—are all dead. The buildings look like computer-generated pics: flat, artificial, illusory.

  Yet, every building gleams with the life energies of the thousands of people within it. The astral landscape pulses with that energy, sometimes brightly, sometimes only dimly. Even here, in the heart of the Bronx, amid all these concrete and plastic coffins, nature lives.

  Bandit assenses a change in the flowing, fluctuating pulsations of energy, and turns.

  A familiar figure emerges from the dark shade of an alleyway. No neophyte’s idealized self-image, but rather the astral form of a portly man wearing a black beret and an old green army jacket with many pockets. He calls himself Pug. He follows Dog. He possesses great power. Bandit descends to face him.

  “You go to confront a mage?” Pug says.

  Bandit nods."I seek no confrontation. Only information.”

  “And if you must fight?”

  Bandit knows what answer he must give, but hesitates before one as knowing as Pug. Lion is the willing warrior, as is Wolf. Raccoon is not. Bandit forces the words out."Raccoon fights when he must.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “For blood. For my sister.”

  “You speak like Wolf.”

  Bandit shakes his head."Even solitary Raccoon will turn and fight when his own are threatened. It is in the way of things.”

  Pug smiles, but the smile quickly fades."You grow sure in your steps, young shaman. That is well. There is much evil in the plex and you walk a dangerous path. Take care.”

  “I will.”

  Pug nods and waits. It is Bandit who must turn to go. Dog never turns from a friend, or even the friend of a friend. It is part of Dog’s nature.

  Bandit turns and soars high across the skyline. The astral terrain becomes a blur, but he knows where his path leads. He notes the position of the Van Cortlandt Industrial Park and the Hurley-Cooper lab building, then the highway leading north through the sprawl, more or less parallel to the broad expanse of the Hudson River.

  An instant passes and then he’s hovering just above a dull gray road in front of a large dull gray building, reverberating with primitive violence, radiant and seething with colors of hatred, treachery, and death. Oddly, the sign in front of the building is pale with apathy and indifference. Bandit puzzles, and abruptly realizes he’s hovering before the prison for the criminally insane, located in Ossining, just north of Tarrytown.

  Too far.

  Movement through the astral can be tricky.

  The world blurs. Bandit streaks back along his path and stops a hundred meters above a highway interchange. This is where he went wrong. He zips down through the interchange to an exit ramp to local roads that stream toward him in a blur as he rushes ahead, then slow to show him the main entrance to the Riverside Corporate Community, located in Dobb’s Ferry. Now he’s got it right.

  The complex is unusual, flush with the energies of life, an oasis of parkland amid the squalor of the sprawl. Tree-lined streets lead past large houses surrounded by lush lawns. The gleam of life from within the houses is so soft that no more than a very few could dwell within. Only a dean among scientists or a daimyo among suits could rate highly enough to live in a place like this. Amy says that Dr. Liron Phalen has been living here for many years. KFK International provided this place for him as part of the incentive bringing him to Hurley-Cooper Laboratories.

  Bandit approaches Phalen’s house carefully, finding cover among the trees surrounding the property. The house is big, two stories tall with steep roofs and tall chimneys. Watcher spirits wait at the corners of the roofs. These small creatures look a little like sprites, little elves with butterfly wings, but with horns. Bandit summons one of his own, a small spirit in the form of a raccoon that materializes in his lap, looking up at him with big round eyes.

  Bandit gestures at the watchers."Distract them."

  “Yes, Master." The spirit streaks upward to nearly a hundred meters above the house and begins taunting the watchers, screaming insults, cursing, all the while making a noise like somebody banging with a hammer on an empty metal drum.

  The watchers drift upward, exclaiming, gesticulating.

  The astral blurs—Bandit reaches the side of the house in an instant. He slips in through the wall. There are alarms in the wall, sophisticated devices, but they have no life and so no significance to anyone on the astral plane. He enters a spacious room like a living room, so-called, filled with all the usual dead furnishings, but also a number of interesting objects. Vases and bowls and other artifacts, like from a museum, scattered across tables and shelves and the fireplace mantel. All show glimmers and gleamings of magical energies. Bandit considers these artifacts briefly. They are as much a part of the room as the many-paned windows and shaggy carpet, and yet, to him, perhaps only to his aesthetic sense, they seem alien, as if originally from some place unknown to him, a place very far away.

  There is a strange character about the room, too. An alienness that goes beyond mere decor, beyond artifacts. A strangeness Bandit can’t quite identify. It’s like coming to a foreign land, a place beyond the world of the mundane. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the house is occupied by a mage—one of those hermetic types who try to reduce the magnificent of nature to ridiculous artificial abstractions. Or maybe it’s something more.

  Bandit settles down through the floor in search of a basement, but finds only dark, dusty spaces that may have been abandoned for years. He rises again to ground level, passes through an open doorway and enters a broad hall. A stairway leads to the second level. At the top of the stairs is ano
ther hallway, extending off to right and left. Directly across from the top of the stairs is a set of double doors that burn with the energy of a powerful ward.

  Powerful wards protect great secrets. Here, Bandit decides, he will find Phalen’s special place, his hermetic library, his spell books and scrolls and other arcana.

  It’s no surprise when a radiant white figure steps out through the doors. Wards are just one form of defense. This will be Phalen’s familiar or some other allied spirit charged with guarding Phalen’s secrets. Bandit expected this. At first, the spirit takes the form of a woman, a stunning woman in flowing robes, like from out of a fashion vid. Abruptly, though, it transforms into a creature of horror, a monstrous thing with wings and menacing claws, shrieking at him like a bird of prey.

  “You do not belong here!”

  And then, behind one monster rises a second, a grotesque manifestation like a simsense demon, formed of air and smoke. Bandit feels the force of its magic at once. An elemental spirit. It is clearly a powerful spirit. In fact, both familiar and elemental have much power. The danger is clear.

  An ordinary intruder would be doomed.

  Bandit draws a handful of herbs and twigs from his pocket and casts it across the hallway, murmuring a single word of power. There is a puff of smoke, a flash of light. The familiar shrieks and grows brighter than before. The elemental swells, expanding toward him like a thriving cloud. Bandit notices the air around him growing thick, constrictive, and then, an instant later, thicker still.

  New spells do not always work quite right.

  "Watch out, Master!” his watcher calls out, appearing suddenly at his shoulder."They’re attacking!”

  No kidding.

  The familiar screams. Perhaps this is some sort of arcane command. The elemental surges forward, swelling rapidly in size to fill most of the hallway. Bandit exerts his will, breaks free of the elemental’s grip and drops down through the floor, into a broad groundfloor hallway.

  Inanimate objects like floors and walls have no substance on the astral, but they are an obstacle to vision and all the other senses, including the sixth sense of magically active beings. That makes them an effective barrier to all forms of magical attack.