Hunter

by Emmy Chandler

  “If you hadn’t accessed it yet, how did you know the hound was so close?”

  “I heard it.”

  But I can tell from the closed-off look on her face that there’s something she’s not telling me. That shouldn’t surprise me, considering how little we were actually able to say to each other for our first full day in the enclosure, but now that we can communicate, I want to know what she’s thinking.

  “Maci, we have to—”

  “I know.” She stands and slides the finger back into her bra. “West. There’s another cabin, um…” She holds her wrist up, and I get a glimpse of an interactive map, with a point blinking on the left of the screen. “That way.” She points out a trajectory that will lead us slightly north of true west.

  “Any idea how far?” I ask as we take off at a brisk pace.

  “Not yet. I don’t recognize the unit this map measures distance in. But as we walk, I should be able to get a feel for how fast our indicator dot moves.”

  I’ll be the first to admit that beyond my personal com device—confiscated, along with the rest of my things when I was arrested—I don’t know much about technology. There wasn’t much of it to be had on the backwater moon where I grew up. Especially at home, where my pop’s obsessive fear of government surveillance kept us all pretty much unplugged. “Can you tell if there are any guards in the enclosure?” I ask, lifting a branch out of her path. Because her eyes are glued to the map.

  “Um…that’s another filter. Hang on.” She taps through a couple of menus written in words I don’t recognize, then instead of answering my question aloud, she holds her arm out so I can see the screen. With her own finger, she taps at a blinking light in the center, then makes a gesture encompassing us.

  We’re that central dot. And clearly she doesn’t want our live audience—presumably including the warden—to know how much information she’s managed to gain access to, without putting in the work to analyze her digital tracks through their own system. Which is why she’s not speaking.

  She points out another blinking dot, off in one corner, which is moving much faster than our dot appears to be. To identify that dot, Maci makes a fierce face, accompanied by a growling sound. That dot in the corner is the other hound.

  Then she taps a cluster of four dots on the south of the map. Guards. Two teams. They’re moving quickly, but not as fast as the dog, and they appear to have just entered the enclosure from the southern gate.

  With those dots all defined, the last one on the screen, nearly due west of our current position, must be the cabin.

  I stare at Maci in awe. Shaw may have thought he was putting her in here to die, but all he’s really done is arm the little tech-ninja with her weapon of choice.

  My little hellkitten is crazy smart. She’s just used the warden’s own security system against him.

  12

  MACI

  I’m near tears with relief when the cabin comes into view, in a pool of moonlight shining into the clearing. It’s just as small as the last one—virtually identical—and I know we can’t afford to stay long. But I’m so tired, and my legs feel like lead. I don’t know how Callum is even still on his feet. He only slept a few hours during our last stop, and he carried me and all our supplies at a full-out run for several minutes.

  As we approach the front door, I hang back at Callum’s request while he circles the cabin to make sure it’s safe, mostly because I already know from the screen on my wrist that there’s no one else here. Unless the guards have somehow managed to get ahead of us and have disabled their signals.

  Or hidden them.

  My heartbeat stutters, and I glance around the woods in sudden suspicion. Maybe I should have gone with Callum…

  But then he appears around the corner and gives me an all-clear signal.

  For a second, I’m afraid that the wrist com won’t open the cabin door. That the warden has stripped my access, now that Hansen is dead. But the lock panel lights up when I approach, accessing the remote locking mechanism, and when I tap the button with Hansen’s finger, the door swings open on its own. Which kind of makes sense. If Warden Shaw denies us access to shelter, we have to keep moving, and it’ll be harder for his guards to catch us.

  But if he knows exactly where we are, we can’t stay here for long.

  The interior of this cabin is virtually identical to the other one. There’s a small bed, a sink, a shelf of rags and towels, and a food crate, already standing open.

  Hansen was obviously here before he found us. He’s picked through the protein bars and packets of fruit paste, but there are still a few left, along with a couple of bottles of water.

  Callum latches the door, then drops the rifle and supply pack on the floor and sets the helmet on a shelf. Beneath it, his dark hair stands up in sweaty clumps that somehow manage to look rugged and masculine. Which makes me wonder just how terrible I look, after a day and a half without access to a hairbrush, toothbrush, or mirror.

  “Hey, Callum,” I whisper, and when he turns, I point up at the camera in one corner. “Can you do something about that?”

  He considers the problem for a moment. Then he grabs the rifle, climbs onto the sink, and smashes the butt of the gun into the camera. Shattering it. Chunks of plastic, shards of glass, and electronics innards rain down on us. Obviously, that won’t stop the guards from knowing where we are, but at least this way they won’t know what we’re doing or when we leave, if I’m able to do what I think I can with the wrist com.

  Callum cracks open a bottle of water and drains half of it, then he sets it on the edge of the sink while he turns on the tap and wets a clean rag.

  I grab a bottle of water for myself and sit at the window in the only chair, where I’m likely to get the strongest signal.

  Callum looks surprised that I’m not eager to wash off the sweat, as I was last time. “Food?” he offers me a pouch of banana paste, and I take it, but set it on the window sill unopened. I have to authorize my own prints on Hansen’s device, because his finger is cooling off, and starting to smell, and I can’t stand the thought of shoving it between my breasts again.

  “Maci?” Callum gives me a stern look of concern when I don’t open my food. “You need energy.”

  “I know. Give me just a minute.”

  Grumbling too low for the helmet to pick up and translate, he finishes washing, then I hear him tear into a couple of food wrappers while I work my way through the system, trying to give “Hansen” access to the options I need before the warden’s security programmers realize what I’m doing and lock me out.

  “Maci?” Callum calls again.

  “Why don’t you try to sleep?” I suggest. We don’t have much time for that, but this’ll go faster if he stops interrupting me every few minutes. Though I feel guilty about that thought as soon as I’ve had it. He’s trying to help me. To protect me from my own neglect of my body.

  Unfortunately, he truly doesn’t seem to understand that hacking into this device is vital to our efforts to get out of here alive. He may be fast and strong, but this is what I do.

  And even though a phantom clock is ticking in my head, counting down the seconds until we’ll be caught and killed, I have to admit that it’s a bit of a thrill to have my fingers on a screen again. Even if it’s not literally my fingers yet.

  Callum grumbles again, but mattress springs groan behind me—they really went for the rustic feel of this place—and a few seconds later, I hear him lightly snoring. Though I’m sure he had no intention of actually falling asleep.

  I throw myself into the work, taking frequent glances out the window to assure myself that a squad of digitally disconnected prison guards isn’t converging upon the cabin, while I try to ignore the mental countdown toward that inevitability.

  At first, I make precious little progress. I’m unfamiliar with this system, and while I can hack my way into a moderately secure network, if I’m given enough time and the proper equipment, my true medium is viruses. The digital
equivalent of quietly unlocking a window, so the real thieves and vandals can sneak in without being seen. In fact, if I’d stuck to viruses and away from traditional hacking, I probably wouldn’t be on Devil’s Eye right now.

  Ironically, it’s entirely possible that the only reason they haven’t locked me out of the system entirely is that they don’t think I can hack into it, based on the fact that I’m here in the first place because I got caught.

  This would be an entirely different story if I had my equipment. If I could create a special little bug for the Rhodon security system and…

  Wait. I’ve already done that. Not targeting Rhodon specifically, but targeting a popular third-party permissions platform used in custom systems designed for all kinds of businesses, including banks, information storage…and quite possibly prisons.

  If the Devil’s Eye security system uses that permission platform, my virus may already be accessible, my window into the system unlocked and waiting for me to slide it open and climb through…

  Three minutes later, I’m in. I squeal in triumph, and behind me, Callum rolls over on the bed, but doesn’t wake up. He really needs rest. Unfortunately, we can’t afford for him to get much more of it just yet.

  I program my fingerprints into the system, allowing me to control Hansen’ wrist com without needing his finger, which I toss into the corner of the room, for lack of a waste bin. Then, I read a series of sentences that scroll across the screen, programing it to respond to my voice.

  The next part is harder. My voice and prints will now grant me access to everything Hansen had access to, but he didn’t have access to much. It takes me a few more frustrating minutes of hunting to give myself standard level two security permissions. Which includes the ability to turn off all the cameras in the enclosure and to disable both the audio feed and the homing signal coming from the wrist com itself.

  That doesn’t mean security won’t be able to track us. It just means they’ll have to track us through an intermittent outgoing signal when I have to connect to the system for information—as I’m doing now—rather than through the constantly broadcasting homing signal.

  We now have the ability to go dark, without giving up the tech.

  Next, I tweak my permissions system virus, essentially denying everyone’s access to the cameras, so they can’t be turned back on. Even once they’ve realized what I’ve done, it’ll take them days to figure out how to undo it. I make one more adjustment, then I turn toward the bed.

  “Callum.” My chair squeals across the concrete floor as I stand. “Wake up,” I whisper, too low for the helmet to pick up. My hope is that if it’s not loud enough to be translated, it’s also not loud enough to be heard by our audience. “We have to go.”

  He sits up, fists clenched as if he’s ready for war, though his eyes don’t even look focused yet. “Maci?” His gaze finds me, and now he looks awake.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I whisper. Then I make the shhh sign and point to the blinded helmet, while I hand him the supply pack.

  He’s up in an instant, already reaching for the rifle. With it slung over his shoulder, he shoves the remaining water bottles from the food crate into his pack, while I throw my makeshift food bag over my shoulder. Callum gives me an irritated look as he snatches my unopened pouch of fruit paste from the window sill and slides it into his pocket. Which really makes me wish I had pants—and pockets—of my own.

  But there’ll be time to eat later.

  I unbolt the door and look at him with both brows arched, silently asking if he’s ready. He nods, and on his way to the door, he grabs the helmet, but I take it from his hands and set it back on the shelf with a pointed shake of my head.

  Callum gives me a questioning look but leaves the helmet in place.

  When we leave, the door swings closed on its own and locks, sensing that the wrist com—presumably worn by the authorized user—has left the building.

  “Ready?” I ask, and he looks surprised when the wrist com translates for me. I shrug. “I made an adjustment.”

  “I’m always ready.” His answer gives me dirty thoughts we don’t have time to explore, but he’s all business while he scans what we can see of the forest in the fading moonlight. “Are the guards close?”

  “No, but they’re on their way, and I suspect they’re about to start moving a lot faster.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I disabled the homing signal on the wrist com. Which means we just went dark. With any luck, they’ll think I broke the wrist com, but that we’re still here, since the helmet is still transmitting from this location. Either way, they’ll be headed this way as fast as they can.” And, of course, the remaining hound is already on it’s way too. If the enclosure weren’t huge, we would already be dead.

  “Clever.” Callum drops a kiss on the top of my head, and I get the distinct impression that he’s…proud of me. “Do we have a heading?”

  “Yes. The closest shelter is to the southwest, but once they figure out we’re not here, they’ll probably assume that’s where we’re headed. So, we’re going to the only other one in the southern half of the enclosure. This place is huge, by the way, so it’s a bit of a hike. North and slightly east of here.”

  “Won’t they know that, now that you’ve said it out loud?”

  “Nope. I disabled our audio signal, so we can say whatever we want to each other.” And I’ve very nearly gotten used to the constant echo of translation. Which, unfortunately, means we’re no longer learning each other’s languages. We’re just relying on the tech to do the work for us. But for the moment, at least, that’s so much more efficient.

  “Is anyone close enough to hear us if we talk while we hike?” Callum asks as we set off on a north and slightly east heading.

  “Not unless they’ve discovered how to run at supersonic speeds since I checked a few minutes ago. But I’m not going to check again, because every time I access the system, they’ll see be able to see where the signal’s coming from.” I frown. “Wait, that means I should check now, since they already know we’re here. And while I’m at it…”

  I tap on the screen and confirm that the guards, while they are headed in our direction, are still a good bit away. As is the hound. Then I pull up the filter option and choose “enclosure gates.”

  The map zooms out until the entire rectangular enclosure is visible, and on the perimeter, four symbols appear, one on each side of the wall. The one to the south—leading into the back lawn of the Resort—is green, indicating that Hansen’ wrist com will give him access to it. But the other three are red.

  “Look.” I show Callum. “We can go back to the Resort any time we want.”

  He scowls. “In which case, we might as well shoot ourselves in the head.”

  “Yes. But we don’t have access to the other gates, and it’ll take me a while to fix that.” If that’s even possible.

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  Callum sets a challenging pace—I’m not sure he’s capable of anything less—and I struggle to keep up. After about an hour, I have to stop to relieve myself, and he insists that we take enough time for me to eat and for us both to gulp a bottle of water.

  It’s been a day and a half since I was released into the enclosure, and I’m really feeling the physical strain. Even in zone four, where Audra and I were constantly on guard, I got plenty of sleep and food, and suffered much less exhaustion. I definitely need to toughen up.

  I hope I live long enough for that to happen.

  When I’ve finished my snack, I insist we get moving again, and it takes more willpower than I expected to resist checking the guards’ positions. And the hound’s. The very fact that information is available to me makes me want to access it. To constantly assure myself that we’re going the right way. Doing the right thing. But not checking—not sending up a signal that will show them that we’ve moved—is the right thing.

  I think.

  Maybe.

  Though it’s more than p
ossible that the guards have already gotten to the last cabin and know we’re not there anymore. It’s possible they know we’re too smart to head to the closest other enclosure, and they’re already headed our way. Or maybe they split up and decided to hit both cabins.

  I won’t know unless I check.

  “No.” Callum lays his hand over the wrist com before my finger can land on it. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  He’s right.

  The sun comes up to our right as we walk, and I take a moment to notice how beautiful the sunrise is through a gap in the foliage, with both of Rhodon’s sister planets on the horizon. They’re barren, rocky masses, not suitable for human life, but they make for very picturesque scenery.

  By the time we find the cabin, I’m nearing collapse. Callum says he’s fine, but his shoulders are starting to slump, and his steps have gotten slower. It’s possible that’s to accommodate my pace. But I think he’s pretty tired. And I’m so relieved that I nearly run straight in.

  But then I stop as a terrifying possibility occurs to me.

  While Callum scouts out the area around this third rest point, I tap on the wrist com and—without transmitting any data—examine the settings on the device itself. If the signal that opens the cabin door broadcasts through the system, we’ve just wasted hours and hours of walking, and the very last of my energy, because we won’t be able to open the door without telling the guards where we are.

  I sigh with relief when I find the answer. It’s a local radio frequency signal only. An archaic technology that was either intended to add to the rustic feel of the hunting enclosure or to make sure that the hunter has to be within a certain short-rage distance to open the door. In this case, the distance seems to be about two arms’ lengths.

  When Callum appears around the other side of the tiny cabin and gives me the all-clear, I let us in. He bolts the door behind us, and I have to fight not to fall onto the bed and pass out.