The Hunted

by Steve Scheunemann

  As Angus slipped the card into the PDT to verify the amount Matt made ready to jump. He was actually using the damn thing!

  “Easy Matty me boy, if I dinnae know how to do this I’d be wasting your time. No?”

  Realizing that what he said was true and not having seen any obvious backup, Matt calmed somewhat. He felt confident he could handle the man, or any five like him, but it paid to be on your guard.

  “You really can pass the damn screening, and not just bypass it somehow?”

  “That I can, Boyo, that I can. Soon you will be able to as well. Maybe.”

  “What do you mean maybe? I thought you could teach me to pass for a legit.”

  “If you’re to pass fer one o’ them, you’ll have ta quit talkin’ outcast slang. Speakin’ wi’ an accent tis one thing, but no legit ever called theirselves such. Few’ve even heard the term. No, ta them they’re citizens, an’ we’re criminals or gene trash..

  “What I was meanin’ was if you’ve got the right type o’ blood I can teach you ta do what it is I do. That is blood near enough ta theirs as makes no difference. Mind you, withou’ what I can teach ya, you’d be as dead as any other outcast who tried, no matter how closely yer blood resembles theirs. It’s merely a matter o’ addin a few strands o’ DNA ta what you already got. Them as make one want to conform. The very ones as will make you, even if you know a thing is wrong, not have the will ta give a damn. Now don’t be thinkin’ what I’ll teach ya will allow you to become one o’ them. It won’t. There are much more intense screenings, hair, saliva, urine an’ all manner o’ others, an nothin’ can beat them. What I teach you won’t take away yer will, either, though.”

  “What now? I mean do you just hand me a disc with the data or what?”

  “Matty, tis not that simple. Besides, if it were, and I handed it over to you, I’d just be creatin’ competition wouldn’t I? What would keep you from turnin’ right around an sellin’ me procedure? No boyo, what now, is that you got a decision ta make. I keep me fee just fer showin’ up. If ya want what it is I got ta offer, ya come wi’ me.”

  Matt hesitated for only a moment, but his desire to get back at those who had taken everything outweighed his natural caution.

  “Lead on.”

  What Matt eventually learned was to mix a serum of microscopic organisms, available on the black market, and inject it into his bloodstream, which, as he knew it would, contained the right type of blood. The result was that artificial DNA filled in the missing gaps in the strand and caused his blood to look like that of any Hunter or soldier, or with a slightly different potion, an artist.

  While it did not take away his will, as Angus put it, it did cause an increase in aggression. He supposed that this was what it felt like to be a full-blooded soldier or Hunter. For the first time he began to appreciate Brother Fidelis’ point. Matt always practiced meditation techniques to calm the aggression before he injected himself.

  “Me own genetic background is fer minin’, mostly. I find that when I mix up my potion, I see better in the dark. O’ course wi your blueprint you probably see even better in the blackest pitch than I do on a cloudy day. Ain’t that right boyo?”

  Matt regretted the necessity of divulging his ancestry to anyone, especially someone he’d only just met, but Angus had demonstrated that each potion, as he called them, must be tailored to the individual.

  “If we put this here stuff o’ mine inta you, an you tried to pass yerself off as a citizen, you’d find yerself arrested on the spot. You might fool a PDT, then again you might die fer tryin’ it. A potion will only last fer about 36 hours before the little buggers in yer blood all die off. It happens sudden like an you’ll feel as if you’ve been hit by a train, so be someplace safe, cause you’ll be helpless as a newborn pup wi’ no mamma to suckle you.

  “Never take more than one dose at a time an be sure you rest fer at least a full day afore you take another. Tis hard, what this stuff does to yer body, Matty, an you want to be doin as little of it as possible.

  “There’s much more to passin’ as a citizen than just the blood though. Before I’m done wi you, boyo, we’ll have you actin’, an talkin’ just like a citizen. Now here’s the real trick to it, many’s the outcast who has no idea that there is any difference among the citizens. There’s those as think that every citizen is as arrogant and cruel as the Hunters. Well, I’ll tell you that ain’t the case. The factory worker, the janitor, the lad drivin’ the truck, all o’ them know their place an’ know their betters. At least those as position is better, for whatever your position, a man is what he makes o’ hisself.”

  When Matt had been living with and learning from Angus for more than three months the older man again took up what Matt was learning was his favorite subject.

  ”O’ course the real problem wi’ the world today an those who would act as gods wi’ all mankind is, not one o’ them citizens out there will ever know what he might have made o’ hisself. Every one o’ them from top to bottom act as they are made to act. When you make a man stronger, or eliminate a disease, or make us all live longer, these can be good things. Start messin’ wi’ a man’s mind an now I ain’t so sure. I know, they started by eliminatin’ just those genes as caused some o’ them who had it ta become axe murderers an such. Boyo, did you know that when they found that gene only twenty four percent o’ those wi’ the gene had ever even been in trouble wi’ the law, an only about a half o’ one percent became killers? Now I ask you was messin’ around wi’ people’s minds a good thing or no?

  “What you need to know is most o’ the citizens know right from wrong, an’ that the world is a mess. They just have ingrained compulsions to toe the line. They know the world is unjust but can’t stir theirselves to do anything about it.

  “What’s more, they have been bred and raised to feel that the system works, so even when they do agree about a wrong thing, they think the government will fix it. It’s seein’ it’s the government itself that is evil, that they just can’t do. Tis a leap they’re incapable o’ makin’, so don’t you be holdin’ it against them.”

  Angus was a puzzle to Matt. He had every bit as much reason to hate the world at large as Matt, but he didn’t seem to do so. At first Matt suspected that it was due to the genetic manipulation, and maybe Angus was closer to being a citizen than he knew. As he spent more time with the man he came to realize that Angus had a passion that was every bit as strong as Matt’s. What Angus desired most of all was for the masses to awaken to what had been done to them, and change things for the better. Matt thought this a naïve attitude.

  “Tis a pipe dream I have an I know it. Tis just that if ever it came to pass that they could be motivated at the same time as they came to know how cruelly they had been deceived, ah well, a man must have a dream.”

  As much as he had come to like Angus, hearing him talk like this was always uncomfortable for Matt. It always left him feeling uneasy about his own goals. Angus knew of Matt’s desire to punish the world, and never condemned him for it, but much like Brother Fidelis, Angus wanted to save the great horde rather than punish the oppressors.

  With thoughts of his dead friend came a renewal of the pain of losing him without even being able to say farewell. Matt was not sure he believed in the God that had sustained his lost teacher in this horrible world, but nevertheless, he said a silent prayer that the monk had found peace at last. He was unable, however, to bring himself to ask forgiveness for abandoning the plans the Abbot had made, and instead starting on the path towards retribution.

  Matt again began his daily routine. Fueled by his anger, he performed his killing techniques flawlessly. Two hours later, covered in sweat, his chest heaving, as angry as when he’d started, tears fell in burning tracks down his cheeks.

  2

  MAY 12, 2080

  TOKYO, ASIAN TERRITORY

  Matt had been living and traveling with Angus for almost three years now and the affection he had felt for the man from the beginning had grown. W
hile Matt had never had a family he believed that the love he felt for the older man was much what a younger brother would feel, if anywhere in this messed up world there existed a real family.

  The growing trust he felt for Angus scared him a great deal, but the thought of living again with that great empty void where he kept his heart scared him even more. Matt finally admitted to himself that he loved Angus. He had longed for some sense of attachment, some feeling that somewhere on this world there existed another human being who cared whether he lived or died, who would feel that the world was just a bit bleaker without him in it.

  Angus had told him he had business to take care of and left Matt in the room they had acquired in government transient quarters. They were traveling in the guise of a bureaucrat in training and his mentor. Angus had long since taught Matt to forge the required documents. Matt had decided to stay in the hotel, because he was due to crash in about two hours and, as in everything, he took no unnecessary chances. The last thing he wanted was to be caught on the street when he came down. Oh, he had all the necessary papers and he could act the part well enough, but if he was obviously sick he would be sent to the hospital. Of course, if he argued the point he would find himself arrested. A good obedient citizen would remove himself from public view if he were sick. The mere sight of a sick person could almost cause a panic. Citizens didn’t normally get sick and on the exceedingly rare occasions when they did it might be contagious.

  It did happen. From time to time a new virus would show up that the doctors had not tailored a gene to fight. People would get sick, people would die, and the government would find more reason to justify its controls. When a sick person appeared on the street it would cause a panic, if the people had been capable of panic. As Angus said ’no will’.

  At the hospital, of course, all would be lost. Not even the chance to go out in a white-hot blaze of righteous anger as he battled it out with a Hunter. No, just a quick injection from a BGP deletion squad if he were lucky, if not torture and interrogation, and of course they’d soon discover where he was staying whether he talked or not, and then they’d be on to Angus too.

  No, far better to stay here in seclusion than to risk that. While it was unsafe to inject again before twenty-four hours of recovery time, the weakness, nausea, and dizziness that came with the crash only lasted about 6 hours, usually. After that he could venture forth as he had before he hooked up with Angus.

  If he stayed in the hotel he should be all right. Wandering down the marble floored hallways Matt wondered anew at all he had learned from Angus. He’d learned to recognize all the various types of screening equipment the government employed in its attempts to weed out and destroy Matt and his kind. He’d learned which ones would tell the operator what the genetic specialty of the blood donor was and which merely told whether the person was a citizen or outcast. The first kind, thankfully, was extremely rare.

  If they’d had one at the hotel Matt would have had to pass himself off as a soldier on leave. He was still too young to be a soldier on any kind of duty but in a garrison somewhere.

  On the flight from Sydney, Australian Territory, they had had to fly separately. In fact, they hadn’t even taken the same flight or traveled on the same day. The airports as they had been for a hundred years now were tightly controlled. Of course now, as then, those controls were not as tight as the airport administrators believed, or Matt and Angus wouldn’t be able to fly at all.

  As it was, good forged ID’s and flying as their blood dictated were about all that was required. This meant that he had, for the flight, had to be a soldier on leave. The airports did have the better equipment that most locations lacked.

  Matt had also learned how to behave as almost any class of person. Ironically, this was a skill employed by Hunters to catch those such as Matt, as much as Matt and Angus used it to avoid the Hunters. What this meant was that Matt was learning to act as a Hunter, by not acting as a Hunter. He supposed that if he were ever to openly present himself as one of his hated enemies, most people would be too terrified to notice if his act was not perfect anyhow.

  He’d learned that even the most law abiding citizen had been bred and conditioned to fear the Hunters as nothing else on earth. In fact, those who had least to fear from them probably feared them most. Matt, at least, was able to conceive of someday striking back. He lived for that opportunity. It was what gave him a purpose in life. Although Angus would not agree with his purpose, he would agree that not to have one meant that a man was already half dead.

  Even as he’d been learning from Angus he’d been teaching his friend in return. He had instructed Angus in many things, but as always devoted the most attention to the fighting arts. Angus had explained that he’d acquired a small amount of skill among the outcasts, this skill quickly grew until Angus, while no real match for Matt, was at least a good sparring partner.

  Matt found himself in the pool area and glancing at a clock on the wall decided that he still had an hour and a half before he needed to be in his room with the ‘do not disturb’ sign in place. Entering the locker room, he stripped and placed his clothing in a locker, then walked out to the pool.

  Diving into the brisk water Matt was grateful for the effect the cold had on him. When he had first gone to a pool after he began traveling with Angus, he had been shocked by the absence of clothing. Matt had never in his life seen another human being without clothes. The brothers in the monastery were always clothed and no outcast would place themselves in so vulnerable a position around another.

  Now three years later he was able to resist the urge to stare almost as well as the urge to hide. He always felt that being naked invited a level of intimacy that he thought unsafe in casual acquaintances. He’d had to school himself not to stare.

  Today he was not doing too well at not staring, but then, neither was any other male in the pool. Even some of the women were staring with obvious lust in their eyes. She was not just beautiful, she was magnificent.

  She moved with the fluid grace of a dolphin as she cut the water, her long black braid flowing behind almost to her buttocks. There was not an ounce of fat, but generous breasts, nipples erect from the cold water, drew the attention of all who watched her. Long legs and tawny skin, she was the essence of athletic beauty. Her face had an exotic look with full sensual lips, a straight nose, and as always and forever Matt would see in his mind, those eyes.

  Her eyes drew Matt’s attention to the point where the rest of her faded to a pleasant backdrop for their beauty. They were a brilliant blue that Matt had last seen in the sky from the Abbot’s window the last time they had spoken.

  She performed dive after dive, one and a half’s, two and a half’s, a reverse two and a half, and an inward one and a half. All of them flawless. Surfacing she looked his way and when their eyes met, she smiled at him. For a moment he even forgot her eyes, in the brilliance of that smile, as his stomach did a few flips of its own, and he felt himself stirring below his waist despite the temperature of the water.

  In an attempt to avoid the embarrassment that was sure to follow, should he continue to watch, Matt began to swim laps furiously. Like a machine he sliced through the water. Fifty meters, touch the wall, flip-turn, and swim fifty meters the other way. Back and forth, not daring to look up, lest he find her watching him as he had watched her. He pushed himself to his limit. For forty minutes he swam as fast as he could. When his lungs and muscles began to burn with the strain, he reached down to that wellspring of hate he possessed and pushed harder. Striving for another lap, then another. Reaching for more speed, faster, then faster still.

  When he felt he could do no more, when his hate had carried him as far as it could, his mind was filled once again with a vision of the girl smiling at him and he found a new desire that was able to push him for one more lap, then another.

  Gasping he clung to the edge of the pool and looked around. She was gone. He didn’t know her name, had never heard her speak; yet he knew he would never vie
w another woman the same way again.

  Realizing that he’d swam far longer than was wise; Matt hurriedly got dressed and started for his room. He was almost there when the shakes began. He had trouble getting his entry card into the reader, but on the third attempt he got the door open and, staggering across the room, collapsed into oblivion on the bed.

  Awakening ten hours later, Matt gratefully realized he’d slept through the worst of it. He had managed to vomit all over himself in his sleep, and he tasted blood from where he’d bit his tongue.

  Usually he forced himself to empty his stomach before sleep and bit on a dowel to avoid both of those problems, but usually he was smarter than to push his body so hard right before a crash he knew was coming.

  When he attempted to get up he realized that while the worst was over, he was far from recovered. The wave of dizziness and pounding that erupted in his temples drove him back to the filth-covered mattress, where he lost consciousness. Another four hours passed before Matt again opened his eyes. Still weak he was at least able to crawl to the bathroom and clean himself off. Staggering back, he fell into the bed Angus had chosen for himself, noting that his friend had not yet returned. Not overly concerned, Matt was used to Angus’ occasional long absences. The last thing he considered before again slipping into oblivion was to hope that Angus had found a place to recover from his own injection.

  Angus was surprised with himself. Surprised that he’d come to care so deeply for Matt. Something about the tortured yet, noble soul the young man possessed called to Angus. Matt could be part of what was coming, he knew this, because from what little he had learned of Matt’s past he felt certain that his friend had been meant to be an important part of it.

  Angus did not know the totality of the plan. He was a senior field agent, not a strategist, and the very nature of the conspiracy meant that one knew only what was necessary about details like that.