Using his considerable talents, he found that the data was uploaded to a public terminal across the street from the library, and was shocked when he discovered that info was being uploaded at that moment.
Never sure what possessed him to do so, Ralph with watery knees rose from his own terminal, exited the library and crossed to the train station across the street. Locating the terminal, he approached its occupant and attempted to get a look at a genuine real live outcast. He did not realize his danger, and was motivated by scientific curiosity more than anything else.
Ralph was amazed at first that after they took him prisoner, they let him live. After explaining their purpose to him, and to his own amazement, gaining his pledge to join them, he had been released. He was now a member of the conspiracy to topple the government. Why this did not paralyze him with fear he did not know. He was as scared as ever of everything else. Especially Malone.
Ralph knew that Malone was a Hunter, since the fake soldier was the one who received the list that Ralph compiled. He was the only one of the three that Ralph was aware of.
The fear had never gripped him so strongly as when Ralph handed over the list to Malone that first time, after he became a traitor. Every time thereafter Ralph felt sure he was looking at his own personal messenger of death, whenever he saw the Hunter.
The only duty that was asked of him by his new compatriots was to supply them with the same list he gave the BGP. That and, of course, to cover-up his own method of tracing them.
Angus had been kidnapped after the opposition received the list, and held until he finally became convinced of the rightness of the opposition’s point of view. It took eight days.
Eight days in which Malone had been furious, feeling he had lost Angus, and now must report to his superiors on his failure.
Failure among the Hunters was rare. It was rare for a very good reason, the Hunters were the best there was. Before he would accept his failure Malone tore the city apart in his search. Many outcasts died simply because Malone was mad. Oh, if he’d found them, he’d have killed them mad or not; but if he hadn’t been angry, his search for Angus would have been more subtle. His mission was the military. There were Hunters working the city for run-of-the-mill outcasts.
Many outcasts died painfully, unable to give Malone what he wanted. None of them knew anything of a UA soldier. After he’d asked them he’d have had to kill them even if they’d been citizens. No one outside BGP could be allowed to know that desertion was even possible in the military, or that Hunters spied on the military.
Malone finally found him in the train depot. He’d become a full-fledged member of the opposition, and as such was being sent where his talents would be most useful. It had the added benefit of removing him from Malone’s area of operations. Ralph, in a rare moment of bravery, had actually volunteered the Hunter’s identity, so when Angus saw him approaching through the crowd, he figured he was dead.
Preparing himself to die fighting, Angus considered his own combat training, and decided that he was indeed a very dangerous man to tangle with. In fact, he was downright deadly, unless you happened to be a Hunter. He had no chance, zero.
As Malone approached, Angus got his first demonstration of the depth of loyalty among the members of his new family, for family they truly were.
As Malone made his move, and Angus tensed to meet his assault, no less than ten people, several with knives and one with a baseball bat, men and women, actually attacked the Hunter. The leader yelling at Angus to get on the train and get away as he too charged Malone.
Suppressing his genetic desire to join the fray, and dragged by three more people, Angus boarded the train and watching from the window as the train slowly pulled away, he watched them die. They were good, as good as Angus was himself. Several were far better than he. Malone killed them all, every last one of them. They had managed to slow him down long enough for Angus to get away, but only just barely.
More conspirators had removed him from the train, just minutes ahead of the BGP team that swept the train looking for him.
That had been nine years ago, just seven years before he’d met Matt. It often seemed a lifetime ago. Then he’d think of Malone standing on the platform yelling at the retreating train that he’d get Angus if it took the rest of his life, he knew the Hunter was still out there, still hunting, and seemed entirely too close.
Setting about his purpose for being in Tokyo, Angus pulled his PDT from its clip on his belt and began the long and complicated process of contacting the opposition here in Tokyo. He had acquired another room under another false identity, in a hotel several miles from the first.
Several hours later his immediate superior arrived, along with a second woman.
Jane, Angus’s boss, was thirty-seven years old and as such a young woman. However, her body was that of a woman of fifty-seven. Her growth had been sped up in order for her to mature faster. Still, today fifty-seven was also a young woman.
Her life of strife had taken its toll. It showed in the faint touches of gray in her hair and the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. Despite signs of age she should not be showing for at least another forty years, hers was a commanding presence. A woman capable of drawing and holding the attention of any size audience and making each person feel as if there were only the two of them in the entire universe. She was cloned from a general who had desired new organs in order to sustain her life beyond the extraordinary lifetime already possible. The general had been one hundred thirty years old when Jane had been ‘hatched’ in order to provide a complete package of compatible organs.
In the early days before genetic behavior modification became the norm, the opposition had had many more members and was often aided by those not directly involved.
It seemed to Jane that they were fighting a losing battle. Every year their numbers diminished, and the obstacles to a popular uprising grew more a part of the people, as conformity was quite literally a part of their personalities.
She had chosen her course, and with the help of a sympathetic nurse, had made her escape all those long years ago.
Jane’s companion, in contrast, was almost invisible. She appeared to be a woman in her late sixties, also still a young woman, she seemed almost a part of the room rather than an occupant. Almost as if she had been there along with the bed and nightstand, from the day the hotel had first opened its doors. She stood in shadow in the middle of a well-lighted room, and for her it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
“Angus, it’s good to see you, my friend”, began Jane.
“Aye lass, you’re lookin’ as beautiful as the dawn over me native highlands. Though a wee bit tired.”
“Knock it off you old charmer. I know you were raised in the Detroit Military Barracks, until you joined us in ’43. You’ve probably never even been to Scotland.”
“Okay, okay, I forget you know all. I must admit it’s becoming a strain to keep it up with young Matt. The more I’m with him the more relaxed I become, and I have to guard against that or I’ll slip, an’ ferget me accent.
“I really wish I had not decided that the accent complimented my disguise three years ago, now I’m stuck with it until we bring the boy in from the cold. I suspect it’s not even very good. I only wish I could report that he was ready.”
“I take it from your tone that Matthew is still not yet ready to join us?”
“I’m afraid there is still too much anger in the boy. He’d join us to kill Hunters, but we need him focused on bigger things than that.”
“Angus, I know how you feel about him, but perhaps it’s time we moved you on to more promising prospects.”
“There are no more promising prospects, and you know it. Sure there are others who’d join us in a second, but can any of them offer what Matt can? No, and we both know it’s more than all his vaunted combat skills, or any of the other talents the boy has. He’s a natural born leader, more so even than you.
“I’d follow t
he boy into the damn BGP headquarters if he asked me to. I’m only glad he don’t know it, cause that’s just what he’d be likely to do. If we’re to change the world we need him. His is a noble soul, but it’s been sorely bruised, and needs some healing before he can see past his need for revenge to something bigger.
“If I have to stay with the boy another year, or ten, it’ll be worth it when he wakes up to all he can be, all he can accomplish.”
“All right Angus, you win. We’ll stick it out with Matthew a while longer, but I don’t know how long we can afford to let your own not inconsiderable talents remain tied up in an apparently hopeless cause.”
“If Matt is hopeless then there is no hope for any of us.”
“Angus speaks truth,” the woman in shadow rasped in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Angus,” went on Jane, “allow me to introduce Mary.”
Angus could not help but stare at the older woman when he realized just who she was. While there might be many women named Mary, the way Jane had said it left no doubt in Angus’ mind that this was the Mary. The very first clone…. ever. After the minister’s wife had received her new eyes Mary had been scheduled for termination, but the woman’s courage amazed everyone, especially those who’d known the original, who was a shy, retiring thing.
Mary had somehow, with empty eye sockets still bleeding, managed to make good her escape from the hospital. She was, if not the actual leader of the opposition, its spirit, its very soul.
She’d never regained eyes, as, even with all the opposition could accomplish, that remained beyond their capabilities. Angus had not even noticed the empty sockets.
When Mary spoke she was magically transformed from a piece of the background into the entire universe, as if she were all that was, or ever would be. It was said she’d been granted the gift of second sight to compensate for her lost eyes.
“I’ve felt his gentle nature, and he could be the one. But beware Angus, his hate is stronger than any know, even young Matthew. It could well destroy both him and you. It could destroy us all. You must bring him to the realization that killing every Hunter will not bring back his lost friends. Oh, he may have to kill, maybe even many times over, but that must not be the ultimate goal. When he can see that he may well save us all.”
When Mary finished speaking she once again faded into the shadow she somehow brought with her.
Promising himself to heed her warning, Angus asked ”Did you get what I asked for?”
“I have it, though I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” said Jane. With that she pulled a PDT from her belt and tossed it to Angus.
“I’m sure I don’t have to ask but, it’s open?”
“Of course, if I gave you a PDT that already belonged to someone it’d kill the boy. I may think we’re wasting our time with him, but he’s still almost on our side. You know, ‘the enemy of my enemy’, and all that.”
“It’s the boy’s birthday the day after tomorrow. Besides, you know there ain’t a damn thing he can do with this that he can’t do without it. This’ll just make it a little easier for him is all. He’s seen mine so, my legit status notwithstanding, he already knows it’s possible for him to use one.”
“I leave it to your judgment, for now. Check in again in forty five days, plus or minus five days. Oh, and one last thing, our contacts indicate that official interest has been shown in your departure from Sydney. Watch your back.”
3
MAY 12, 2080
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIAN TERRITORY
Malone was closing in on his prey. He’d been a week behind him in Honduras, and missed him by two days in Manila. Now here he was in Sydney, only a day after Angus, had left for parts unknown. The Hunter knew he’d track his quarry to where ever it was that he had fled to. It was just a matter of applying pressure in the right places.
Malone was good, even for a Hunter. Maybe even the best. Only one thing kept him from the recognition he deserved. Only one thing kept him from advancement, the one that got away.
He’d been all set to take him that day back in Detroit. Then his cohorts committed suicide by getting between Hunter and prey. They did so willingly, knowing it meant their deaths.
That experience alone was enough to convince Malone that there was a larger conspiracy out there. The powers that be refused to admit that the outcasts could be so organized. They maintained that clones, and genetic rejects and the very rare rogue citizen, could not band together into any form of organized opposition. Malone knew better; they had read their history and had learned what the American militias never could, and when he brought Angus in, and was at last given the command he deserved, he swore he would root them out like the vermin they were.
Malone thought back on all he’d gone through to get where he was. On the years of training and conditioning. They conditioned Hunters to feel no remorse, to be able to kill anyone, even family, without a second thought.
At six years old all Hunter candidates were given a puppy. Malone’s had been a Labrador, all wagging tail and lolling tongue. For a month he’d been allowed to play with his puppy and train him. He’d named him Wags, with typical six-year-old simplicity. He spent his days laughing and rolling around on the floor with the pup, the very picture of a boy and his dog.
After being allowed, and in fact encouraged, to bond with their puppies, the candidates were closed alone with their dogs in a room at sunset, and told they would not be allowed out, or even fed, until the dog was dead. Most cried for hours, and often cried themselves to sleep, but finally after a long night, they were able to accomplish their tasks in the morning, sometimes they waited until lunch time. Any who waited past dinner the second day were washed out of the program. If this was the only infraction of the rules they might be sent to be a soldier. More often than not they were simply shot.
When Malone was shut in that room Wags was dead before the key had turned in the lock. Afterwards, he went to his own room that night and slept as only those with no concerns can sleep, soundly and dreamlessly. When he remembered Wags it always brought a smile to his face, for he had loved that dog like he’d never loved anything else.
`Later, at sixteen, he killed his first lover, a girl of twelve. She had, after all, been genetic trash, a failed Hunter. It was his first real world assignment.
They met at the dojo when Malone was testing her class in methods of killing quickly and silently while unarmed, something at which he already excelled. She was very intense, and driven to be the best, much as Malone was. He was immediately attracted to her and vowed to have her that day.
He took her in the showers after the lesson, with her classmates looking on, and she had welcomed it. She was very skilled for one so young, due of course to her training in sexual arts. For three months he saw her every day at the end of training. They talked, shared, and loved, for an entire summer.
She had been so full of life, of hopes and dreams for the future. Danielle was proud of her standing at the head of her class, but confessed to Malone the fact that she had had bad dreams for a month after her week as an intern with a BGP deletion squad. He, of course, immediately informed his instructors. When the next day they asked him if he was ready to test for graduation, he didn’t hesitate. When they told him his final exam was to be Danielle, he didn’t bat an eye, but simply asked how long they wanted her to scream before he delivered the deathblow.
Danielle screamed for six hours before Malone drove an ice pick through her ear and into her brain.
Sitting in a bar in the Sydney airport, Malone considered all that brought him to this place. He graduated at sixteen, making him the youngest ever to be granted that singular honor. Not only had he graduated early but he excelled in a rigorous training regime that fully seventy percent failed. Failed, despite the proper genes and conditioning that started in the cradle. He should be in charge of his own sector, or even an entire territory by now. He seethed with anger, but it was anger of the cold, calculating kind, the kind that helps to foc
us one’s thoughts toward a goal. He had never given in to rage. Rage did not allow for thought. Rage did not allow for control. Above all else, a Hunter valued control. He would curb his anger until he had the object of that anger in his control. Then Angus would pay. He would scream until he had no voice left to scream with. He would scream until his silent screams caused his throat to bleed. Malone might then consider allowing him to drown in that blood.
Approaching the ticket counter to begin her shift, Barbara Crowley, the agent who had been on duty when Angus’ plane from Manila had landed, did not notice the average looking man who watched her. If she had noticed she might have seen the above average musculature. Not the massive form of a body builder, but the lean muscles of a very dangerous man. To all appearances Barbara was twenty-something with long blonde hair, and the firm body of youth. Malone knew that she was in fact sixty-three, and spent three hours a day in the gym working to keep her body trim.
Flashing his BGP credentials he said, “Come with me, please, miss” in the kindest voice he could manage.
He did this, not to allay any fears she felt at being questioned, but rather to intensify them. He knew the reaction people had to Hunters and knew the lady’s psychological profile. She would interpret his kindness as not wanting her to cause a scene in the terminal, and believe that he was there to take her away.
In truth he didn’t care one whit whether or not she fell to the ground weeping at the thought of a Hunter’s interest or not. He simply wanted her off balance when he began his interrogation.
With shaking knees that threatened to collapse and a trembling upper lip, Barbara felt a trickle of sweat from under her arm run down her side over her ribs. She was unaware that Malone could literally smell her fear in that sweat.
Half an hour later he knew which flight Angus had taken, and to where, and the ticket agent would need reconstructive surgery on nine of ten fingers.
The Hunted Page 5
