by Ike Hamill
“I’m not afraid of him,” Jacob said.
“That’s why you should be,” Madelyn said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jacob said.
Elijah put up his hands to stop the argument. “How about a compromise? I know a safe house that’s not used anymore. We’ll stay there tonight and then tomorrow half of us will go to the meeting and the other half will get the truck ready to leave. If we have to, we’ll have a quick way out.”
Madelyn nodded. “Okay.”
Jacob and Harper nodded as well.
“Good,” Elijah said. “We’ll take the long way around, in case anyone is watching.”
Chapter 24
{Plans}
RYAN SAT ON A rock. His legs were crossed to create a platform for his notebook. He was making a list and then composing detailed notes on each item. He didn’t look up as the man shuffled through the leaves.
David cleared his throat.
Ryan finally put down his pencil and flipped his notebook shut. He looked up and gave David a tight-lipped smile.
“Why am I meeting with a different person every time?” David asked. “You people are very unprofessional.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan said. “I won’t be meeting with you again.”
David raised his hand. The thing he pointed at Ryan was clearly some kind of weapon.
Ryan put up his hands and gave a laugh. “Don’t shoot! I come in peace.” He reached back down and set his notebook on the ground. Ryan uncrossed his legs and stayed seated. “I just mean to say that my trading will conclude after this meeting. I’ll take what you have today, and I’ve brought you more than enough to compensate you for your troubles, but I won’t need any more of this product.”
David tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as he studied Ryan.
“Why?”
Ryan shrugged with another smile. “The market has dried up. My people were doing some research. That research came to its natural conclusion.”
“Caleb seemed to think he would need this stuff for months. Where’s Caleb now?”
“You’re an inventor too, right? You must know how wrapped up inventors can get. Caleb and the rest are far too busy. Sometimes, shit rolls uphill,” Ryan said. “So you have the…” He gestured with his hands.
“Substrate,” David said. “That’s what Caleb calls it. Where’s my food?”
Ryan pointed up.
David looked and finally saw it. Hanging from a tree branch, a giant mesh sack held a big crate of vegetables. The rope holding it up was looped over the branch and tied at eye-level a few trees away.
“Lots of bears around here,” Ryan said. “Didn’t want them to get into your reward. And I brought the extra twenty-five percent that you negotiated. I’ll take the substrate and leave you to the greens.”
David looked back to Ryan. He appeared confused by the arrangement.
“What if I just shoot you and take the vegetables?” David asked. He pointed his device at Ryan’s head.
“Then we’ll never have a chance to do business again. I said we don’t need more of this product, but a man like you surely has more than one thing to trade. For example, I’ve heard good things about the weapon you’re holding. It’s quick and quiet, right? And it can stun or kill? A weapon like that would be a good thing to have. Could you produce more?”
“Of course,” David said. “I can build anything.”
“See? It seems we will have future business. Let’s finish this trade and leave that for another day.”
David studied Ryan for a minute.
“I don’t have all day,” Ryan said.
“You’ll find the substrate a hundred meters back that way,” David said, pointing.
Ryan nodded.
“Do you need help getting that down?” Ryan asked.
David shook his head.
“Until next time, then,” Ryan said. “When we’re ready to deal again, we’ll leave a note in the same place.”
David nodded.
Ryan stood, tucked his notebook under his arm, and headed the direction that David had pointed.
For several minutes, David simply stood there. He kept his weapon pointed at the trees and waited for something to move. Eventually, long after the sound of Ryan’s footsteps had disappeared, David moved to the tree where the rope was tied. He looked at the rope and then followed its course up and over the branch. After studying it, he took one last look around and then clipped his weapon to his belt.
David began to untie the knot.
“David?” a voice asked from behind him.
He turned to see Ryan standing there. The man had crept up without making a sound.
Ryan shot before David’s hands even left the rope. The bullet went through his brain, dropping him instantly. Ryan adjusted his pack as he bent next to David. He took the weapon from the man’s belt. After turning it over in his hands, he added that to the pack.
Ryan produced his knife like a magic trick. One second, his hand was empty. The next second, he was slicing through the rope. The crate crashed to the ground behind him.
Ryan walked away.
# # # # #
“You know what the most interesting thing about this building is?”
Caleb opened his eyes.
He blinked against the light and waited for his eyes to focus.
“Where am I?” Caleb asked. He faced a window. His view looked across open space to the tops of tall trees. Beyond those, the sky was growing purple in the dusk light.
“Ninety-nine percent of this building is inside Kappa Three’s safe harbor.”
Caleb finally recognized the voice. It was Ryan. He wasn’t normally so talkative.
“Just this one corner is outside,” Ryan said.
Caleb felt his chair jolt. He was secured firmly. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. The chair spun on its bearing and Caleb saw that Niren was bound to a chair right next to him. The wrap had fallen from Niren’s eyes. They looked better, but not exactly complete. Niren’s chin was on his chest. He was either unconscious or dead—Caleb didn’t get the chance to form an opinion before his view spun away.
Ryan swung into view. Behind him, a dozen screens were lit up with video feeds. Caleb recognized his lab in the basement, shown from every possible angle. The equipment was all rearranged.
“I know most of it,” Ryan said. “But there’s one thing you did back in the old building. I need to know how you did it.”
“What’s happening? I don’t understand,” Caleb said. “You’re the one who asked me to do this research.”
“Right. Now I just need to know how to reproduce the first step,” Ryan said.
Caleb blinked at the screens as he put it together. Back in the old lab, they had moved downstairs to test out the coils. That’s why Ryan didn’t know what to do. It was likely the only information that made Caleb remain valuable to the man.
“Listen,” Caleb said. He talked slowly to make sure that Ryan understood. “I’m not sure what you think we accomplished, but we didn’t achieve anything. All we did was nearly get Niren killed, and fail to disrupt the artificial Hunter we created. The experiment was intended to disconnect it from its power source, but it didn’t work. The Hunter attacked Niren and nearly killed him.”
“That’s not what he says,” Ryan said. He pointed to Niren’s slumped form.
“He’s injured and in shock. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Okay. Let’s just say that I want to try to reproduce your experiment for the sake of intellectual curiosity then. Why don’t you tell me about the first step and let me fail in the same way that you did?”
“You don’t have the people or the supplies. We were able to find someone who could get us this substance from the wild. We actually don’t have any idea how he gets the stuff, but he does.”
“Oh?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” Caleb said. “He’s a trader. We stumbled on him because Amelia’s meter showed that his vehicle w
as creating a shock wave in the ehter. After talking with him, I found out that he knew how to collect the stuff that we had theorized is the substrate on which the Hunters form.”
“Fascinating,” Ryan said.
“So you would have to get that guy to collect substrate for you,” Caleb said. “Only I know how to get in touch with him. I can show you.”
Caleb watched as Ryan smiled and nodded. Then, he followed Ryan’s eyes. Over on a bench, he saw two jars like the one David had used to deliver the substrate. His heart sank and he looked at the monitors again. With a flash of understanding, he realized that the safe house must have cameras as well. Ryan probably knew everything that Caleb had discussed with David, including how to get in touch with him.
All the pieces fit together. Ryan knew everything except this one little piece.
“You can do your worst to me,” Caleb said. “I won’t tell you how to do it.”
Caleb saw movement on the screens behind Ryan. Once he realized what it was, he locked his eyes on Ryan and prayed that the man wouldn’t turn to see.
“For what it’s worth, I believe you. I believe that no amount of incentives or punishment would sway you. At least for now. There’s no telling how our opinions might change in a day, or a week. I don’t really have that kind of time though.”
Ryan scratched his chin. He turned, almost casually, and glanced at the screen. Brook and Amelia were making their way through the lab with flashlights. They looked green on the displays.
“I wonder how well you’ll be able to maintain your conviction when it’s one of them in the chair though,” Ryan said. He began to walk towards the door.
“Wait!” Caleb called.
Ryan left him with Niren. A second later, he saw Ryan’s shape appear on the screens. The man held something out in front of himself. When he got close enough to the women, green fire erupted from the weapon. The two women collapsed.
Caleb watched as Ryan dragged them out of view of the camera, one at a time.
# # # # #
“Don’t do this,” Caleb said. “Whatever you hope to gain, it can’t possibly be worth it.”
Ryan dragged Amelia to a chair next to Niren’s. He took the time to bind her limp body to the chair before he left the room again. When he came back, he was dragging Brook backwards, gripping her under her armpits.
“This thing works really well,” Ryan said. He flashed the weapon at Caleb after he settled Brook into her chair. “I got it from that David guy. Have you seen it? I’ve only tried the stun and kill settings, but there’s another one here that looks pretty promising.”
He put the thing in front of Caleb’s eyes. The dial was set in position labeled, “Pain.”
“I’m thinking that of these three people,” Ryan said. “You care about at least one of them. Who is it? Brook? You’ve worked with her the longest, right?”
“Listen,” Caleb said. “You know why we were keeping our research secret. We didn’t want the Hunters to figure out what we were doing. That’s how they’re always able to adapt to our attempts to control them. They feed off of collective knowledge and use that to evolve. Even if I do tell you, there’s every possibility that by telling you, we will be destroying the method entirely.”
“You only need to worry about one thing, Caleb—what can you live with? I’m asking for the details on how you began your experiment. In exchange for that information, I will limit my usage of David’s pain device and your friends won’t suffer. This is a fair trade.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I don’t think you understand,” Ryan said.
Niren moaned something. The wrap that had halfway fallen from his face was blocking his mouth. Ryan moved to him and pulled the wrap away. One of Niren’s new eyes looked up at Ryan. The other stared off to the side.
“I’ll tell you,” Niren said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Caleb said. “He’s a liar. He’s not in his right mind.”
Ryan lowered himself down in front of Niren. He squatted next to Niren’s chair and looked at the young man’s good eye. “He’s got a point, Niren. You have been a little squirrelly lately. Why should I believe you?”
“I want you to succeed,” Niren said.
“Interesting,” Ryan said. “Why is that?”
“I’m the only one left who believes in this experiment. I know what it’s for.”
“Enlighten me,” Ryan said.
“The point of this whole thing was to make a pure Zumbido. Caleb didn’t know what you wanted, but I figured it out. We created one that had no alterations or mutations. Caleb thought he was containing it, but he was really activating it.”
Ryan stood and smiled. “See there? He was blinded so he could see. Wonderful. Now tell me the first step.”
“You need a grid of coils, or you’re going to have to flush the one we used,” Niren said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Caleb said. “You’ll kill us all.”
Niren talked, and Ryan listened.
# # # # #
While Ryan captured, and paced, and threatened, a war raged inside Caleb’s brain. His temperature was high. His cells were fighting the foreign infection and losing at every turn. It started in his wrist and his ear. The machines made tiny alterations to his DNA, trimming bad segments and adding in new sequences.
The changes were enough to trigger Caleb’s immune response. Not recognizing the new antigens, his body tried to destroy the altered cells. The invading machines used this response to their benefit. They latched on, and turned his own immune system into their own messenger service. Their goal was to spread and supply Caleb’s cells with the materials they would need to complete his transformation.
For Caleb, these internal battles triggered insane thoughts. He knew he had to stop Ryan. One moment, he wanted to reason with the man. The next, he wanted to tear himself loose from his bonds and beat the life out of Ryan.
Caleb managed to keep his murderous thoughts from crossing his lips. Fortunately, even the most violent part of him agreed that it was best to keep a low profile.
While Ryan dragged the women into the room and bound them to chairs, Caleb’s hand finished its conversion. His tendons thickened and the muscles slimmed down. With the fibers aligned correctly, his muscles needed much less volume to achieve an even greater strength.
The machines worked their way into his forearm.
Inside his head, the converted part of Caleb’s brain achieved a new awareness. It processed the subtleties of Ryan’s movement and told him of Ryan’s physical flaws. It helped him keep his composure and say just the right thing so Ryan wouldn’t suspect his transformation.
As it was colonized, the old part of Caleb’s brain knew what was happening. He wasn’t being improved—he was being colonized. The new intelligence wasn’t a better version of himself, it was a foreign invader.
With the last of his old self, Caleb prayed for death. He didn’t know precisely what the new Caleb was planning, but he suspected that it was terrible.
“Don’t listen to him,” he heard his own voice say. “You’ll kill us all.”
Chapter 25
{Contingency}
ELIJAH TURNED FROM THE window and walked to the other side of the room. After glancing through that window, he headed back for the first one.
“Sit down,” Madelyn said. “Or do something. You’re driving me crazy.”
Elijah stopped and stood.
“I think we messed up.”
“With what?” she asked. She rolled over onto her back. The ceiling had a hole in it. Through that, she could see the rafters above. She wondered if she would feel safer up there, among the cobwebs and crumbling insulation.
“We shouldn’t have said anything in front of Carter. Talking to Cleo was risk enough. But we don’t know who Carter might tell about our theory.”
“Who cares?” she asked. “We’re hidden here, right? They’re not going to find us. And we have an escape plan tomorrow. If things
go wrong in the gathering, we trigger an emergency and run for the hills. Problem solved.”
“If we’re right, it means that Ryan is planning something dangerous. At best, he’s only trying to take over.”
“And at worst?” Madelyn asked.
“At worst, he’s found a way to sacrifice people who he doesn’t consider valuable in order to benefit the people he does value.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“Is it? We know he lied about the last experiment. We know that twelve people died in order to have him set up a safe harbor that he moved his people into, right?”
“The people who died were volunteers, and their efforts paid off. At the very least, there’s now a safe place for a mother to go give birth. Is that so bad? I don’t want to live here under a dictator, but it wouldn’t bother me that much to go live in the mountains while a dictator took over this town.”
“No matter how many people die?”
Madelyn shrugged. “Everyone dies.”
Elijah paced back to the window. He peered down at the street below.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on,” Elijah said.
“Where would you start?”
“I’m going back to the place where Ryan intercepted us. We were on the trail of something he didn’t want us to find.”
“We have a plan, Elijah,” Madelyn said. “It’s a decent plan, you know why? Because it’s your plan. Let’s just stick to it.”
“I can’t,” Elijah said. “You stay here and don’t tell Harper and Jacob that I’ve left. If something happens to me, keep going with the plan. Everyone deserves to know what he’s up to.”
“I’m not going to let you go out there,” Madelyn said.
“I respect you,” Elijah said, “and I envy your independence, but you and I value different things. I’ve invested a lot in the well-being of this community. I need to fight for it.”
