Who Hunts the Hunter

by Nyx Smith

  For the good of Hurley-Cooper, not to mention her own career, Mercedes has made use of such resources as she has to delve into the backgrounds of those who work in the most proprietary areas.

  She scans her lists. Drs. Liron Phalen and Ben Hill are about as clean as the average person. Phalen changed corps once in violation of contract. Hill once got drunk and crashed his car into a neighbor’s garage. A few other individuals in the Metascience Group are reputed to have various affiliations, through friends or family, that might be deemed questionable. Mercedes loads a select group of names including those of Phalen and Hill onto a datachip, then jacks out and keys her desktop.

  Two minutes later, Zach Wanger comes in. His official title is Assistant Director for Site Security. His true responsibilities involve more than electronic surveillance, alarms, and uniformed guards. No one would guess it, at a glance. He looks rather like a good-time boy, grown up but still a child, always ready to party. Mercedes puts the datachip on her desk and gestures for Wanger to take it.

  “What’s this?”

  “You’ll find a list of people on that chip,” Mercedes explains."I need background information on every one of them. Pay particular attention to finances. I want to know what they’re worth, where their assets are invested, and where their money comes from. I want any large inflows of funds tracked back to the point of origin.”

  “How large is large?”

  “We’ll say fifty thousand nuyen.”

  “How soon do you need all this?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Crash priorities cost nuyen.”

  “You’ve got a budget. Use it.”

  56

  As she wakes, Tikki hears a murmur of voices too vague and too distant for words to come through clearly, and a soft thump like that of a door slipping closed. The air she breathes stinks of two-legs and something else, some chemical, swiftly fading away.

  Muscles twitch, one massive paw lashes out.

  Someone shouts, “Get out! GET OUT!”

  The bare room of platinum gray has changed. One of the wall panels has become a door and is waiting, not closed, but wide open. A pair of two-legs in long white coats are battling each other to get through the opening. Tikki lunges up and hurls herself across the room. Before she can strike, the two-legs have gone a step further and the door snaps shut in her face.

  She rams it, staggers sideways, abruptly sits. Intense pain. Water floods her eyes. Her rasping breath rises into a throaty rumbling as the fractured bones in her chest knit back together. She sneezes violently. A little blood slips from her nose, splatters the floor. The pain is soon gone, like the water in her eyes.

  The two-legs escaped her this time, but now she knows where the door is. She considers the door, then moves to sit beside it, her flank against the wall.

  Time passes.

  The voice from the ceiling speaks again. It’s strange, metal-toned, computer-modulated, neither female nor male."I know what you are and who you are,” it says."You’re Striper. You’re a killer. You get paid to kill people. You work for the yakuza and the triads. You’re a real chiller thriller. How do you like your room so far?”

  Tikki bares her fangs and roars.

  More noise comes."Sometimes you kill people for free. You must enjoy it. You must like killing. I bet it gives your life meaning. It’s how you know you’re alive, by killing people.”

  Tikki flicks her ears irritably. Listening to this noisy two-leg is like having a cloud of flies buzzing incessantly around her head. She’d stand up and roar again, but she realizes there’s no point. She’s on a one-way comm line. She’s totally in the blind. Nothing she does is going to have any discernible affect.

  “I wonder if you know how many you’ve killed.”

  Tikki bares her fangs, mimicking a human smile.

  57

  As the subway roars out of the tunnel passing beneath the East River, the world beyond the grime-smeared windows of the train changes from black to colors of brown and gray.

  Bandit watches the dark clouds, the passing buildings, the throng jammed into the subway car around him. Everything he sees and hears adds to his concerns. The afternoon has turned dark. The landscape of the city bears the scars and open wounds of decades of careless neglect and violent abuse. The people immediately around him struggle to contain nervousness and fear.

  There is danger ahead. Bandit can feel it waiting, lurking, perhaps around the next corner. Amy’s problem involves far more than ordinary suits scagging their corporate benefactor.

  The train comes to a thundering, shrieking halt at Smith Street. A brief walk brings Bandit to the Brooklyn waterfront. He turns down an alleyway between two ancient brick and mortar buildings. Halfway along, amid mounds of festering garbage and the cast-off remnants of generations past, he comes to a doorway.

  In the shadow of the doorway stands a large figure, an ork. His name is Grinder. He follows Shark. His face is as hard and expressionless as a nail. His coat is long and black. The fetishes hidden in his pockets, but clearly visible on the astral plane, burn with power. He speaks in a flat monotone."Why do you come?”

  Bandit replies, “I must speak to the old one.”

  “There is danger.”

  “Yes.”

  A moment passes.

  “You may enter.”

  The door swings inward on silent hinges grown black with grease and grit. The door and the walls around it are imbued with powerful wards. One step beyond the doorway is another door, and, to the left, a narrow stairway. To enter this place unasked, even for one like Bandit, is to invite certain death.

  Bandit turns and heads up the stairs. He has been here only a few times before, but he knows the secrets of this place are many, the things of interest and of value innumerable. The temptation to investigate these secrets, perhaps take certain things back to his lodge, examine them, and learn what there is to learn is intense, but Bandit knows he must resist. They-Who-Watch would catch him at once, even as he reached out his hand. He will learn far more, in the long run, by practicing patience.

  Four stories up, the stairway ends at a narrow door. Bandit reaches out for the knob, but the door swings open, untouched.

  Beyond the door is the roof, maybe fifteen meters across and twice as deep. At the rear of the roof is a small shack that seems made of panels scavenged from macroplast crates. The shack has only half a roof and three walls. The interior glows with the soft orangey radiance of a small fire. A smoky trail of incense rises from the fire to the dark clouded sky above.

  The interior walls of the shack are hung with hides, drums, knives, wands of bone, masks, and medicine bags. The chests and boxes positioned along the rear wall of the shack are filled with every manner of fetish: minerals, herbs, animal parts, bits of fur and feather and hair, small stones, twigs, crystals, and more.

  Old Man sits cross-legged on a rug, facing the fire from the rear of the shack. His thin gray hair flows over his shoulders; his clothes seem made of natural leather. He wears necklaces and beads and bones and looks vaguely Amerind. The medallion at the base of his neck bears the likeness of a black bird. This is Raven, the transformer, the living contradiction."You again,” Old Man says in a voice as dry as sand, as creaky as old wooden boards, and yet vibrant with power."Let an old man get some rest,” he says."Go away.”

  Bandit pauses at the edge of the rain-and grit-spattered rug that marks the limits of the old one’s medicine lodge. Quietly, he says, “I must speak with you.”

  “I’m just an old man. Don’t come to me looking for answers. If I ever had any, I probably forgot them before you were born.”

  Old Man is sometimes cranky, especially when he wants to sleep. Like Raven, he can also be greedy and selfish. Bandit understands. The shaman must find his own path. It is not Old Man’s path to do what another must do. He offers help where help is needed, but only when it is needed very badly, and only when he desires to offer help. When he thinks it’s right to help. Bandit sits
cross-legged at the edge of the rug and waits. He will wait as long as he must."Come into the lodge,” the dry, creaky voice says.

  By then, it seems like night. The sky is near-black and the dirty lights of Brooklyn gleam through the looming dark, and the fire inside the lodge glows a brooding red. Bandit crosses onto the threshold of the rug and sits facing Old Man from across the fire.

  “You came here to tell me something,” Old Man says."What do you think you want to tell me?”

  “I found something.”

  “What kind of something?”

  Bandit hesitates, then says, “Monstrous evil.”

  The words seem to make the danger real, realer than before. Bandit isn’t sure what danger the evil presents, but he knows it is threatening. He can feel it. Somewhere in the dark. A powerful presence that perhaps watches him at this very moment from beyond the boundaries of Old Man’s medicine lodge."What kind of evil?” Old Man says."What do you think you’ve found?”

  “It’s a book.”

  “What book?”

  “The Roggoth’shoth.”

  A long time passes. The red of the fire grows more intense. The column of incense curling upward swells to fill the lodge. Old Man begins softly chanting, rhythmically tapping a small drum clutched in his lap. Bandit feels the magic happening long before he has any idea of where it’s leading. He feels the world of the medicine lodge changing. He feels the power rising like a tide.

  “What do you know of Roggoth’shoth?” Old Man says.

  "I know the book holds evil,” Bandit says.

  “You know nothing.”

  The smoky incense becomes thick, obscuring all from sight.

  “Open your senses.”

  When Bandit looks, he is in another place, looking down on a large room lined with old books and radiating power. At the center of the room stands an old man with a long gray beard. He wears a hat shaped like a cone and a long daric robe inscribed with mystic symbols. With the glowing tip of a radiant wand, he writes symbols in the air. The symbols speak."I am the mage Penticlese . .. The phenomena described in this text, the knowledge that I now relate, comes to me from the Ancients ... The dark ages of our forebears ...

  “Know that we are doomed ... That worlds upon worlds exist of which mortal man cannot conceive ... That beyond the threshold of darkness lies the greatest horrors ... The Vault of Roggoth’shoth."

  “Do you know this place?” Old Man says.

  “I have never been here,” Bandit says.

  “What do you see?”

  Bandit describes what he sees.

  “What do you see in the symbols?”

  The symbols waver and blur, swell to fill his vision, and then form images. A passageway into darkness, greater and greater darkness, till finally all is black and a pinpoint of light appears somewhere far ahead. As this light comes nearer, it grows. It becomes a brilliant white figure, the image of his sister, Amy."You shamed me,” she says."You and your shaman’s ways. You embarrassed me in front of my friends, in front of our parents. You made me wish I could curl up and die. Sometimes I laid awake all night crying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You never knew the truth. You didn’t care.”

  “Now I know.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Can you say it?”

  It is like the first test of an astral quest. He comes before the Dweller on the Threshold only to be confronted by some secret out of his past. Nothing can be hidden from the Dweller. Not even the most personal, most closely guarded secret.

  What the Dweller speaks of is plain. Bandit knows to what it refers. He knows what answer he must speak. He struggles to get the words out through his mouth."My sister . . . Amy ... She loves me. She has always loved me. She wants only for me to return that love.”

  “And will you?”

  “I will try.”

  The Dweller vanishes from sight.

  Abruptly, Bandit feels himself moving forward, hurtling through places uncounted and unknown. Coming to a place where darkness rules and shadows lurk, where malignant shapes flicker at the corners of his eyes and danger looms from barely an arm’s length away.

  “Where are you?” Old Man says.

  “I do not know,” Bandit replies.

  “What do you see?”

  Bandit describes it.

  “Look into the shadows.”

  When Bandit looks he sees a murky human shape moving toward him. At first, it seems all shadow and dark, but then Bandit sees deeper. He sees the power within, the dazzling power of a thousand souls, all burning with the radiant purity of life energy. And then he sees deeper still. Within the dazzling aura of life lurks a darkness blacker than black, a malignant core, feeding on life itself.

  The horror comes nearer. Bandit feels himself shaking with fear. Abruptly, he’s hurtling away from the core of darkness at a speed beyond comprehension, and still the horror comes, pursuing him to the very threshold of the metaplane, and beyond. Claws reaching out to snare him, tearing at him, reaching inside him ...

  Bandit’s senses dim. He feels himself swaying. He finds himself sitting before Old Man’s small fire, and his head aches, and his heart thumps in his chest. He feels the danger lurking beyond the boundaries of the medicine lodge, and he shivers.

  “What do you know of evil?” Old Man says.

  Bandit considers long, and says, “I know its name. I know it comes from beyond the threshold. That it preys on life. Feeds on life. Steals souls.”

  Old Man closes his eyes."What will you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Old Man nods."The shaman’s path is hard to know. I remember a long time ago I heard two men talking. One claimed that Raccoon shared in the Eagle spirit, just as all men share in this spirit. The other man said that Raccoon is only a thief, just as all men are thieves. I remember my father once told me that nature is very powerful, but sometimes even nature needs help. You decide who’s right. I’m just an old man. I don’t have any answers.”

  Bandit considers, and says."Good and evil are both part of nature.”

  “Maybe that’s your answer.”

  Bandit ponders, and says, “It’s in the nature of good to oppose evil. To fight it. Even to destroy it.”

  “If that’s what you think,” Old Man says, “maybe you’re right.”

  Bandit wonders. Maybe this time Raccoon must bare his teeth and go for blood.

  58

  “Hey. Doobies.”

  Monk opens his eyes. A pair of orks are leaning down into his face and grinning. They have red glaring eyes and really big fangs and they seem kind of amused. Their names are Erin and Paige, two of Minx’s friends. Monk gives her shoulder a squeeze. She lifts her head from his lap, looks up and says, “Oh! Wiz! How’d you find us?”

  Erin says, “Poochie found you.”

  That’s the other name for the Prince of Darkness, the big reddish-black Doberman Pinscher with the red glaring eyes, standing there beside Paige. At the mention of his name, Poochie snarls viciously, like he wants to tear something apart. Poochie makes Monk a little nervous.

  Minx giggles."Which way to the old subway tunnel?”

  "This way.”

  Monk stands and stretches. He’s stiff. He feels like he’s slept for days. Maybe all day. He isn’t exactly sure what happened. things got kind of confusing after ... After ... something or other. He and Minx walked and crawled through a lot of tunnels and kind of got lost. He started feeling really tired and so did Minx, so they sat down to rest and fell asleep. Minx must’ve called Erin and Paige on her headfone.

  Just down the tunnel a ways is a steel mesh that leads to another passage that ends in an old subway tunnel with reddish rusty rails. Erin and Paige stop abruptly. Paige motions with her head back the way they came."We’re going to feed the Master.”

  That’s what it was: the Master.

  “Oh, okay,” Minx says."Kintama, omaes."

  “Sure,” Erin says.

  They walk on, Erin a
nd Paige and the Prince of Darkness in one direction, Monk and Minx on through the old subway tunnel. Once the orks’ footsteps fade away, Monk says, “What does that mean? Kintama.”

  Minx smiles."Oh that means ‘balls.’ ”

  “Balls?”

  “Golden balls.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You booty,” Minx says, grinning at him."Haven’t you ever heard the old saying? Beware the golden balls.”

  “Who said that?”

  “How should I know?”

  Monk scratches behind his ear, wondering, then says, “It kinda sounds like this thing I read once. By this guy Mark Twain. Mr. Bloke’s Item, it was called. It ended with this warning. ‘Beware the golden bowl.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Twain didn’t know either.”

  Minx giggles."It’s just another mystery of our age.”

  “I guess.”

  They come to a rusty reddish door marked UTIL. It squeals as Minx pulls it open. The squarish passage beyond fades into a reddish haze. Maybe twenty meters into the haze, two figures appear. They look like they’re wearing combat armor. Monk puzzles.

  “Oh, no,” Minx whispers.

  “Blast ’em, kid!” one of the figures shouts.

  Minx shrieks, “Run, you booty! RUN!”

  They turn and run. Automatic weapons clatter and roar. Something explodes. Monk feels bits of things like maybe grit and dirt spraying the back of his head and jacket. Minx suddenly seizes his wrist and tugs him across the old subway rails, and the ground beneath them abruptly disappears.

  They fall.

  Maybe two or three meters. It’s more of a surprise than anything else. Monk shouts. Minx clamps her hand over his mouth, tugs him up and pulls him ahead, running again. They’re in a winding passage that seems chopped out of raw reddish rock.