Monster Stalker

by Elizabeth Watasin

  What are the weapon capabilities of the Makepeace? she asked.

  “Now approaching Jifk Spaceport,” the male voice-over said. “Please gather all belongings and maturing progeny and take them with you.”

  The train came to a smooth stop at the departures terminal. It was not too late for Nico to forget about her little foray.

  But that part of her—the one that wished to stay out of trouble—was the side she’d learned to ignore after her fatal mistake in 1985. After two years of stalking her maker, she had given up on killing him, and he’d noticed.

  Pretending doesn’t make me go away, Nicky.

  The bodies of two young women ended up in the morgue she’d been working at, with Nico’s name and lines of poetry carved into their flesh.

  The women rose that night and tried to tear her heart out because he had told them to.

  The train moved on for the arrivals terminal, and Nico rose to exit. When she disembarked, she melded into the crowd, moving with just enough speed to draw out anyone who might be following.

  ***

  Jifk Spaceport’s security was severely lax in Nico’s estimation, but she was used to tighter measures thanks to the plane hijackings of the seventies. No one asked her for tickets or identification—and of course they wouldn’t, since she had a bio-tag—and travellers carried weapons that Nico assumed were surrendered at some point during a flight. Makepeaces and what appeared to be android or automated security units (Nico wasn’t certain if “robot” was an appropriate term) patrolled everywhere. She even saw a public admonition in progress with solemn travellers gathered, compliant witnesses to an inebriated were-person’s admonition by a female Makepeace. He hung his head, chastened, while the Makepeace verbally disciplined him for disorderly behaviour.

  Now I feel bad about lifting Grun’s Id. Nico resolved not to do things like litter or jaywalk. Deadly creatures moved everywhere, yet oddly, Nico never felt safer. Or more watched. She consulted her Id and faded as much as possible into the spaceport’s bustle, and looked for where Grun might be.

  An hour later, Nico stood sucking on a Japanese blood snack bag called Nude and Nice! she’d purchased at the space terminal’s noodle cart. Her other snack pack, courtesy of immigrations, already sat within a trash receptacle, half-eaten. It had had a terrible tomato paste flavouring that even her new toothbrush (with the ultraviolet light setting) could not remove the taste of, so Nico decided to indulge in another snack bag. It was probably outrageously overpriced, but she couldn’t resist something both whimsical and Japanese. She wasn’t certain what the Nude part of her snack implied, except that the blood was simply that and not wasabi or soy sauce flavoured. A snack bag called Fire Butt Good! was next on her list to try.

  She lingered at a railing overlooking a row of exclusive bars and executive lounges. Travellers walked briskly behind her while she pretended to browse virtual lingerie shops on her Id. In reality, she watched the darkened windows of the sports lounge below. Her vampire’s vision could pierce its artificial dark, and she spied Grun within, drinking at the bar top, swallowing live rodents and enjoying a badly lit, gruesome fight on the giant holo display—one with a single individual battling a ravenous horde of unseen night creatures.

  Slaughter Spawn.

  Nico switched from pictures of lacy satin bras and panties and the girls and muscular males who wore them to access the latest spawn battle. She couldn’t get official access (without paying a sum) but an on-site spectator currently filmed the fight and was feeding a public channel. Grun stretched his mouth wide to swallow another tiny beast, dangling it by its tail.

  Grun had been easy to find. Cru’k were not allowed beyond the spaceport, and Grun owned one of the last Cru’k transport vessels allowed planet-side. Nico only had to query the bartender at the captains and pilots’ bar to find where Grun was not yet banned.

  “He’s been in the pit five minutes! He’s—he’s coming back!” the spectator yelled in Nico’s sound-buds. “He’s trying to climb out!” In the grainy dark, shotgun blasts flashed and boomed from a female figure standing at the edge of the pit. “Aw man—his second is— is trying—aw—”

  If the fighter’s not dead already, he’ll wish he was. The spectator’s filming grew erratic.

  Grun hit the bar top, apparently displeased with the fight’s outcome, then rose to depart. He exited, swaggering down the corridor with his ivory-handled pulse pistol on his hip, and Nico put Dorothy away and followed, a shadow pulled along from above. When Grun reached the open terminal for the airfield outside, Nico quickly descended the escalator.

  Once on the field, Grun walked over to parked buggies. He boarded one and zipped away into the darkness. Nico took off running, keeping him in sight. A small ship activated and nearly sucked her into an engine, and she adjusted her course to remain within blue safety lines and clear of bright red indicators. Grun crossed the field and passed hangars, energy depots, the traffic controller’s hub, and maintenance buildings for a far off perimeter structure: Royal Bento Food Packaging Co. Nico spotted a shimmer above the building and wondered if Grun noticed. The levitation orb of a Makepeace crested and landed on the rooftop.

  When Nico reached the building, a concrete bridge arched over the dry water channel and led to Royal Bento’s loading dock. There, Grun’s buggy stood, the Cru’K disappearing behind a metal door that slammed shut behind him. Nico crossed the bridge and skirted the well-lit dock to come alongside the building. She wondered briefly about the hidden Makepeace above. A large vent blew down a hot, familiar smell.

  Nico paused beneath the warm blast and stuck her tongue out. The air had a flavour; the sweaty chemical message of human alarm and fear. She pulled out her Id.

  Do the Cru’K cook humans? Nico typed into her Id.

  The Cru’K do not cook their food as it is considered a cultural offence, Dorothy answered. Ingesting prey live is a religious obligation. Once eaten, yours forever. Prochnyy Kolbasa by Fedotov. Nico spied a drainage pipe leading up to the rooftop.

  Dorothy, search on how trafficked humans for Cru’K consumption are transported, Nico typed. She put the Id away while it worked on her request and checked her harness, then Bear. Whatever she hoped to attempt within the building was made easier by the marvel that was a handheld HAL 9000, despite the constant ads. She would have appreciated a tool like it when she had been stalk—

  Her thoughts hit the blank in her head and skidded across its surface.

  Nico blinked. When she had been, what? Stalking her maker? If the Id had been possible in her era, it would have been her continued death sentence, because he would have had the same technology. And he’d been dead, eleven years. Stalking what, then?

  Her head having no answer to give, Nico crouched, then jumped.

  Her leap surpassed one storey. She grabbed the drainage pipe and braced her feet against the wall. She climbed at a steady pace, hand over hand, stepping up. A spaceship lifted off the airfield and rose into the night sky, its lights pulsing, and Nico thought of the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The movie’s iconic tune played in her head as she surmounted the rooftop’s lip and stepped over. There, near the edge facing the spaceport, the Makepeace stood.

  On closer scrutiny, the Makepeace appeared to be more of the third sex. All the Makepeaces wore significant codpieces (where, Nico thought, a weapon or two might be stashed) that made their gender ambiguity even more intriguing. The present Makepeace had a long, sinuous body with pectorals similar to breasts. And his—or her—mouth was as full lipped and sensual as Shayla’s. It was the pretty, pert mouth European boys tended to have.

  Nico straightened her cardigan and went to stand beside thon—she preferred “he” in thons case, but decided to be respectful—and looked down at what thon was viewing. At the bottom of the dry water channel, the werewolf motorcycle gang waited. Leroy was among them, carrying a length of chain. Nico looked at her Id and scanned the trafficked humans information Dorothy had retrieved. Trafficke
rs transported human cargo by cryonic packaging, similar to Han Solo in carbonite. The warmth that had blown from the vent had been the heat lost from human bodies as they were being blast-frozen.

  Nico secured her Id and looked up at the Makepeace’s collar number: MP-1634. The collar number was high, indicating the Makepeace might be relatively new: a rookie.

  “Hi,” Nico said.

  “How may I help you, potential citizen?” 1634 replied, finally turning thon’s head to acknowledge her. Nico raised a brow at the word “potential”, but sidled closer. Apparently, Makepeaces did not need to scan bio-tags to know to whom they were talking. 1634’s voice was androgynous—and silky. Nico wouldn’t mind hearing a bedtime story from thon.

  “I have a conflict with an off-worlder,” she said. “Can I kill him?”

  “You may not inflict death on any galactic species, except in matters of self-defence,” 1634 answered.

  “Okay,” Nico said. “His friends may be Other-beings, who may threaten me with death. Can I kill them?”

  “Death is permitted in resolving conflicts between Other-beings and Other-beings and their kin,” 1634 said.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  The rumble of arriving motorcycles rose from the channel’s bottom, reclaiming 1634’s scrutiny. The werewolves howled and the sound echoed. Nico went to the roof’s access door.

  She’d hoped when she spotted the Makepeace on the roof, that thon would take care of the Cru’K problem. But even if she’d told 1634 of what was happening within—whether Other-beings were present or not—the Makepeace would simply hold an off-worlder suspect for the regular police. And Grun would walk of course, only to return to Jifk Spaceport and to Lucy’s Diner, flaunting what he got away with, and perhaps take another waitress or two to keep the intimidation in place.

  She broke the door’s lock and entered. Sounds from the channel seemed to indicate the confrontation was escalating. 1634 did not follow her.

  ***

  “Lot six,” a bird-like off-worlder requested, and two vampire thugs pushed frightened and naked humans before a holo cam on a tripod, while the bird female pecked at a projected holo interface with a steel stylus. Each square in the interface represented an obscured bidder who observed the human lots via the holo cam. Nico stood on the girder above and filmed the auction with her Id.

  Bidding was brisk; the bird female would describe the lot, and the vampires would make the humans turn this way and that for inspection. Two vampire thugs stacked six crying infants into a food service cart—a recently won lot for an extraordinary sum—then rolled it into a cryonics food processing machine that vented via a duct leading to the outside. The machine burst into activity and roared, the babies’ cart advancing. One captive female wailed at the sight. The cart exited the machine with whitened, stiff babies suspended in a gelatinous casing.

  Birdseye meals for aliens.

  Cryonics was suspended animation, Nico reminded herself, not cryogenics, where food was frozen too slowly to prevent expanding, destructive ice crystals to form in bio-matter. The babies would still be alive when defrosted. The vampires who’d processed the babies then rolled the frozen cart into a shipping case and shut it. They tagged it with a security and identification lock.

  Nico continued to film as another vampire, female, seated within the operating cage of a mechanical arm, picked up the packaged babies and placed it on a flatbed truck destined for Grun’s ship. Grun himself stood near the auctioneer and her holo camera, participating in the lots viewing. He made bids as well. Three male vampires handled the captive humans. Two stood armed with pulse pistols on either side of the group, and one, who appeared to have no weapons, stood in the back.

  That one. The guard to the left was a tall vampire in a leather coat, his pistol stuck in his belt, and his cool gaze missed nothing. Nico sensed he was the eldest of the vampires, and possibly the leader.

  She’d rarely had the chance to fight another vampire except for her maker. Facing six who all felt older than her, plus one pistol-toting Cru’K, was perhaps horrible odds. However, she only required one death; rescuing the humans was a bonus.

  She counted sixteen remaining, naked shivering humans, and did not see the Sufi family among them.

  I’m sorry I didn’t involve the Makepeace for you, she thought to the huddled, frightened group. But I need to get someone killed tonight.

  Nico sent the footage to her virtual locker and an update notification to Chasca Vasquez and PETH. Then she sent a message to Again NewYork’s emergency contact number.

  She put her Id away and patted Bear.

  Okay, Bear, let’s screw this up.

  She stepped out and dropped down from her girder.

  Her shoes clapped loudly on the concrete floor as she landed near Grun. Everyone stilled.

  “Hi,” she said to Grun. “Can we talk?”

  “What—what is this?” Grun cried, and drew his pistol. The barrel was ornate and long, and Nico held her hands up.

  “I only want to talk.” She indicated the captives. “I’m looking for someone. Maybe she’s in there?”

  Grun aimed.

  “A Lucy’s Diner waitress,” Nico stated clearly, looking him in the eye, and he pulled the trigger.

  She turned aside as the pulse blast shot passed her, rippling along her clothes, flesh, and Bear like a jet engine blast. Nico moved. She grabbed Grun’s gun hand and the nape of his coat. She spun him around to face the vampires and aimed.

  “Bye toilet licker,” Nico whispered to him, and squeezed down on his trigger finger.

  Grun fired at the unarmed vampires near the cryonics machine. The recoil on his huge gun nearly jumped Grun’s fist out of Nico’s grip. The vampires flanking the screaming captives advanced and opened fire. Grun jerked as blasts exploded against his body, driving Nico back. His flesh bubbled and burned. One blast skimmed his neck, bursting a blood vessel. Green blood sprayed Nico’s hair and clothes. She fired high, trying to avoid the cowering humans. No vampires fell from her volleys, and Grun’s dead weight and inert gun arm sagged into her.

  God, I’m such a bad shot.

  She dropped Grun and pulled her knife. She sent it flying into the eldest vampire’s face, driving the blade through his eye. He collapsed to the floor, and Nico dove for where the bird person cowered.

  “No-no!” she cried, as Nico snatched the stylus from her hand. The remaining armed vampire fired as Nico ducked, his shots hitting the off-worlder hard enough to spin her out of Nico’s way.

  Nico’s arm whipped. The stylus stabbed the shooter in the throat, and he clutched at it, dropping his weapon. Nico ran across the floor and reached for her switchblade, stuck in the twitching, elder vampire.

  “You little—” the third guard said, pushing through the frightened captives. He grabbed Nico, swept her off her feet, and roared in her face. His fist came up just as he let go and he punched her hard into the floor. Nico bounced on the concrete.

  Faster, Nicky, her maker said, hitting her. Get faster.

  Stars sparkled before her eyes as her foot came up and she felt it contact the vampire’s male member.

  “Argh,” he uttered, doubling over and clutching himself. Nico pulled her knife out of the inert vampire’s head, and spun on the ground. Her arm swept, slashing the other vampire across the throat. Blood sprayed her chest and Bear.

  She heard a door slide open, the metal grating. One of the unarmed vampires scurried out the door, the others following.

  I need a vampire with intact vocal cords for the police. Nico jumped to her feet and ran after the female vampire, the last to depart, who then spun to confront her. Nico skidded to a halt.

  The woman snarled, her fangs bigger than Nico’s. Nico bared her teeth and snarled back, her blade up.

  “Don’t move!” police suddenly shouted, barrelling swiftly through the open door. “On the ground now!”

  Nico stilled.

  “Do it! Get on the ground now!” the officers shouted
again.

  Nico and the other vampire put their fangs away and slowly dropped to the floor while the police rushed at them.

  ***

  The police cuffed Nico and made her sit with the other apprehended vampires. Even the injured ones were restrained while the police gathered the victims and inspected the cargo.

  The emergency medics arrived and loaded Grun and the bird off-worlder into body bags. The pulse blast injuries had caused Grun’s body to swiftly swell, his trigger finger stuck in his pistol. The medics zipped his bag up, and Nico remained impassive when they rolled the gurneys by.

  Mission accomplished.

  The former captives walked by next, wrapped in blankets as the police led them out.

  “What are you doing?” one woman cried to the police. “The vampire with the bear saved us! Let her go!”

  “Ma’am, just continue out the door and victim services will take care of you,” a male detective with greying temples and curly brown hair said kindly. His blonde female partner regarded the vampires with hands on her hips, revealing the badge hung at her waistband. She was thick and tough and gave Nico a long, measuring stare.

  Look at me all you want, lady. I didn’t directly shoot a gun.

  The captives might talk, but hidden as Nico had been by Grun’s big body, she doubted any had clearly seen who was doing the shooting during the chaos.

  The female detective spoke to an officer in blue. He then came over to Nico.

  “We’re gonna put your bear in safekeeping,” he said with reassurance, reaching for Mr Bear, and she pulled back.

  “You can’t do that. My bio-tag says he’s my conjoined twin,” Nico cried.

  “But he’s detachable. C’mon, he’ll be safer with us than in a cell with these guys, right?” The cop motioned his head to the other vampires. He then added in a lower tone. “You don’t want to be tranq’ed.”