The Hunted

by Steve Scheunemann

  “Give the order, Jean-Luc. Angus has twelve hours to extract himself and his protégé. After that pull them out. Take the girl if you can, lose her if possible, eliminate her if necessary. Jean-Luc, I hope you’re right about Angus, if not, I hope your people are up to their usual stellar performance. If they have to tangle with Malone, a second Hunter, and BGP troops we’re gonna lose some people. While every one of them is important, some of them are vital to our survival.

  “That’s all people, we have work to do. Let’s be about it.”

  The gym had that stale sweat smell that no amount of air circulation can completely dispel. A smell that comes from years of sweat, the kind of sweat that comes from exertion. Sweat and pine-scented cleaner. Those two were obvious, but if a person had a really good nose he could smell the blood that had been shed there too. The four people who worked out there often caused each other to bleed.

  They worked at a very deadly exercise. Fists smacked flesh, kicks drove the breath from lungs, ligaments stretched to the point of tearing. Three men and one woman honed their skills to lethal precision.

  Dexter Maxwell was a big man, 6’8” tall and 330 pounds of hard muscle. His skin was the darkest jet, and gleamed with the sheen of perspiration. Dex, as he was called by all his friends, moved with a grace that belied his size, and was so well proportioned that he didn’t appear nearly so tall unless you had a frame of reference. He was possibly the strongest man on the planet. Dex felt no arrogance because of this, it simply was. He had a kind and gentle nature quite at odds with his deadly daily practice. Dex had grown up as a part of the Resistance, and at 21 years old was the oldest member of his team. He was pressing 500 pounds in a military press as he watched the rest of the team.

  Kitara, at 5’7” and 130 pounds, was the smallest member of the team. This in no way prevented her from becoming the most deadly of the four of them. She would have been beautiful if not for the scar running from her left eyebrow, across the bridge of her nose, to the right corner of her mouth. Her hair was a golden blonde and she posessed a lean, athletic build that was highlighted by small firm breasts and just the right amount of curve to her hips. The scar was a gift from Hank Posterelli, the third member of the team.

  Hank was dangerous, mostly because he was completely amoral. Hank stood 6’ 5” and weighed 285 pounds. The biggest cause of distress in Hank’s life was the daily reminder, provided by Dex’s presence, that he was not the biggest or strongest man on the planet. Hank wasn’t really mean; he just had no compassion for anyone or anything. Hank was 20 years old and was also the second-oldest after Dex. Strangely, his unrest was never directed at the bigger man. Dex was so even-tempered it was hard to get upset with him.

  The last team member was Calvin Wong. Calvin was barely bigger than Kitara. He stood no more than a half-inch taller and weighed in at 154 pounds. What Calvin brought was speed. His hands were blindingly fast whether empty or wielding a multitude of weapons.

  Kitara was working against both Hank and Calvin in an open match. That meant, according to the rules of the team, that there were no rules. Any tactic, any weapon. It had been in a similar match that Hank had delivered the blow that scarred a then 12-year-old Kitara. He had been 15 at the time and had been trying to use his strength to overpower her as she worked against all three of them. She had blocked a blow from Dex, ducked under a swing from Calvin, and had not quite gotten her katana up in time to ward off Hank’s blade. It had taken 6 hours of surgery to put her face back together as well as they had. Were they citizens, the damage could have been fixed without a scar, but the medical technology available in New Zealand had done what could be done.

  Going against Calvin’s speed and Hank’s power was a difficult enterprise. Kitara could afford to take a few blows from Calvin as long as they were not well placed. Even a glancing blow from Hank could have dire consequences. However, she could not afford to discount Calvin. What he lacked in sheer power he made up for in precision and speed. All ‘real’ weapons had been removed. The object was to improvise.

  At the signal to begin

  Calvin had scooped up the broom, removed the head, and begun twirling the handle like a Bo staff. Hank had simply smashed his fists through the wall and ripped out a section of conduit, resulting in half the lights going out.

  Kitara tore the sleeves from her sweatshirt, tied off the ends and placed a 2-½ pound weight in each sleeve.

  Hank suddenly moved in, swinging 10 feet of flexible metal conduit over his head to come whistling in towards her head. Ducking low, Kitara allowed the tubing to pass overhead, then swung her left hand out in an arch. Releasing at just the right moment, she sent the weight hurling into Hank’s left knee. There was an audible crack, followed by a chuckle from Hank.

  “Didn’t hit much but my knee guard there Kit. One broken knee at your hands is enough.”

  While Hank tried to distract her verbally, Calvin had attempted to circle behind her. He had her this time. She had this uncanny knack of, well, of just not being where your blows were landing. Calvin knew he was faster; they had tested it time and again. Yet somehow he was rarely able to land a really telling blow, and worse, at least in one-on-one matches, she seemed able to strike at will.

  Aiming a blow at the backs of her legs in an attempt to sweep her off her feet, Calvin was stunned when he felt an elbow smack into the base of his neck. Knowing the blow could easily have been deadly had Kit intended it, he fell to the ground and lay still.

  Later, when they viewed the tapes of this session, he would see Kitara doing a back handspring over the broom handle, then stepping in and delivering the blow to Calvin’s neck, something Hank and Dex had no trouble seeing. This was not new, and the doctors and other big brains had been studying the phenomenon for a few years now, since it had manifested at puberty. Kit was one of a handful, who for various reasons, had the scientist types all excited.

  Watching Hank circle closer, Calvin had no trouble seeing her slip under another swing that whooshed through air she had occupied a full 2 seconds earlier. She rose up inside Hank’s defenses and wrapped her sleeve around his neck. Clutching both ends in her right hand, she placed her foot in the small of Hank’s back and hauled back on the sleeve.

  Hank toppled, but with a surprising agility, he twisted, landing ready to regain his feet. Unfortunately for him, Kitara had slipped the weight from the sleeve and now used it to tap Hank lightly on the bridge of the nose.

  “Damn. How’d you get behind me? One minute I’m facing ya square on, the next I’m goin over backward. Kit you’re good, but so am I. I think maybe I’m better, but I can’t seem to keep you in my sights. I saw you take out Cal, and no matter how many times you do it to me, I can’t believe it when one of the others just stands there and lets you take em out. How do ya do it?”

  “Hank, we’ve been over this before. I just react to you guys. Whenever I feel really threatened by one of you, I seem to disappear off your radar for a couple of seconds. It doesn’t work if I don’t know you’re there. Beyond that you’ll have to ask the docs.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re one of us,” said Calvin, as he slowly got up from the floor rubbing his neck.

  Walking over from the weight bench, rubbing a towel over his shaven head, Dex said, “It’s the DNA. The more the government played with our DNA the more the unexplained 3 percent comes to the fore.

  “They thought they could control mankind’s destiny in a test-tube. God had other plans, so he stuck a little wild card in the deck. They were so arrogant when they said they had decoded the entire human genome. 97 percent they said was all that mattered. The last three percent was un-sequenceable and irrelevant. Irrelevant, except that that is why we are seeing all kinds of special abilities. Telepathy, extra sensory perception, clairvoyance, it’s appearing more and more. I wouldn’t be surprised to see telekinesis.

  “I have heard that our missing team member also displays some unusual abilities. You also know that I am an empath, able to
sense unusually strong emotions in people. The human race is changing, and in ways no one can predict. The people will not stay slaves to their overlords forever. Freedom is too essential to our nature. Sooner or later mankind will be free. It’s our job to make it sooner.”

  12

  May 14, 2080

  Tokyo, Asian Territory

  Abbey was in turmoil. She wasn’t sure she could trust her feelings. By rights she should have killed Matt after what he’d revealed. He was everything she’d been raised to hate. He was genetic trash. Worse, he’d admitted to his plan to destroy the BGP and all Hunters. Did he know what she was? She hoped not. Partly she was disturbed because she had not yet decided what to do, and partly because the thought of his disapproval bothered her.

  She had another problem. She’d figured out who Matt’s teacher was. Angus. If she could kill or capture Angus her future was made.

  Malone was a legend in the Bureau. He had been tracking Angus for years now and had failed to bring him in, and now here he was falling right into Abbey’s lap.

  She should kill Matt, and go wait in his room for Angus. She could call in for support, too. A final exam was supposed to be solo, but any sighting of one of the BGP’s ten most wanted required she report it.

  Of course, if she could stay close to Matt and Angus she could get close to the Resistance; possibly even gain entrance to the rebel territory of New Zealand.

  Telling herself that these were her reasons for not killing him as she should, Abbey rode at Matt’s side as the sun set behind them. She’d told Matt after his confession that it didn’t matter. That she thought she loved him too. That no matter what she would stand by him.

  The lie had come easy to her lips, and been convincing as she would have expected after all her training. The only thing was she was not really sure which one of them she’d been lying to.

  Angus was in a state as close to panic as he could ever remember. Matt was out riding with the Hunter, Angus was convinced Malone was on the island, all his planned exit routes had been blocked, and he had just received notice that an extraction team was assembling to get both him and Matt out. The message had been a coded flash message to his PDT, and that came with dangers of its own. They could hide the contents of the message from the Government but not the fact that a message originating on New Zealand had been received in Tokyo. Normally they used so many cutouts and double blinds that tracing the message was all but impossible and so time consuming that it didn’t matter. Of course, that meant that it took time to receive the message too. A flash message was instantaneous, but also dangerous.

  The situation was precarious enough that even with his doubts as to Matt’s readiness Angus was glad of the opportunity. Still, the risks were astronomical. They would use one of the precious few submarines they had. Even with modern sensors it was possible, barely, to sneak a submarine past the defenses. This was only true because the existence of the Resistance’s subs was a secret. If the Government ever discovered them, they would soon all be lost.

  It was an indication of just how much Matt was valued that one of the four submarines on this side of the globe was being used.

  The good news was that since the Government did not suspect the existence of the subs, and New Zealand’s surface navy was negligible, they didn’t maintain any subs of their own. Their ships were not equipped with any depth charges, either.

  This made the subs an irreplaceable asset when the invasion they all knew was coming finally arrived. They would use the subs to sink the invading ships, thus denying a beachhead to the enemy.

  If, however, their existence was discovered early, the Government forces would counter the advantages the subs conferred, either with subs of their own and depth charges or by airlifting troops.

  The subs were a hole card that they’d only get one chance to play. They would not win any wars, but they would buy the only free nation on the planet some priceless time.

  Angus knew they must have forced the Colonel’s hand. There were many colonels in the army and naval corps of the Resistance, but there was only one ‘Colonel’ as far as any of Jean-Luc Thibodaux’s men were concerned. Angus was one of the two operatives in Special Operations with more field experience than his boss, and knew that without Angus requesting extraction, the Old Man would never have ordered it on his own. One of the Colonel’s hard and fast rules was not to second-guess his men. They were all highly trained and had been selected from among the best people in both the military and police forces.

  The only person who was likely to call for early extraction over Angus’ stated objections was Colonel Rawlson. Angus had known Vicki Rawlson since she was Captain Rawlson and Angus had been a Major.

  While he never thought about rank since he operated outside normal channels, he’d been pleased to see Vicki’s rise to the rank of colonel. She was one of the good ones. He did not always agree with her, but the fact that he was grateful for the extraction now didn’t mean that he thought it was the best idea, but he could not fault her for it either.

  As much as the thought of premature discovery of the subs scared Angus, the thought of losing Matt was infinitely worse. Worse for the resistance, and far worse for Angus.

  The extraction made getting back together quickly with Matt vital. Angus sent a message to Matt’s PDT that had nothing whatsoever to do with Abbey. Of course, the Hunter might see through that and take direct action anyway, but Angus had to take that risk. The message he sent said only when to meet for dinner.

  This was a long established code phrase for “Hunters inbound” and Matt would make his excuses to Abbey and rendezvous with Angus as soon as possible. Angus hadn’t done this earlier because Matt and Abbey had intended to be gone all day and for Matt to suddenly make excuses and rush to meet Angus might have tipped off the Hunter that she’d been discovered. It still might, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Angus also sat down with his PDT and spent some time making preparations for different contingencies.

  Matt could hardly believe he’d told Abbey about himself. He’d spent his entire life since the monastery hiding who and what he was, and in one afternoon he’d not just told someone about himself, but also about his plans. The only thing he hadn’t told her about was Angus. That was not his secret to tell. Matt reflected on what he knew as well as what he suspected about Angus.

  Angus had told him when they met that he was a nil like Matt. Matt had since discovered that this was not true. Angus didn’t know that Matt knew, but over the years he’d become less careful about maintaining the fiction that he required the same injections Matt did to fool the screenings. He also did not suffer from the let down like Matt did. Oh, he did an excellent job of faking it; but Matt had lived too closely with him for too long to still be fooled.

  It was subtle things mostly. Like how Angus never did any real harm to himself during his recovery period. Matt had bit almost completely through his tongue, had cracked a tooth from clenching them too tightly, and even broken his nose and two fingers from thrashing violently.

  Matt at first put this down to being more experienced and preparing in advance for the possibilities. This theory lost its steam as Matt’s own experience grew and he realized that no matter how carefully you prepared, the aftereffects always seemed just as severe.

  Matt had decided some time ago that a lot of Angus’ history was in fact a carefully planned fiction. Angus was in fact a citizen. That meant that he was far more dangerous to the BGP than the average nil. Matt had no doubts about Angus’ desire to reform society. It also explained why he was eternally optimistic about the ability of citizens to wake up and realize the atrocities going on around them. Matt still did not share that point of view.

  The people were like a great shaggy bear fast asleep in the midst of winter hibernation. Like the bear they’d have to get a lot leaner before they felt any real hunger. The Government could continue to oppress and destroy wantonly as long as the majority was fat, dumb, and happy. None of them
ever believed it could happen to them. They were convinced that the people who had been chewed up and destroyed by the juggernaut that was the Government were all ,somehow, not like them. They were outcasts, or had harbored outcasts. They were clones, whom everyone knew weren’t really human anyway. It was especially easy in the cases of obvious physical mutations. Those monstrosities were really more animal than anything. It was a kindness to end their suffering and remove them from the sight of decent people anyway.

  No, as long as the fat held out, the bear would continue to snooze peacefully.

  Matt also knew Angus was a part of some larger organization. One he suspected Angus hoped to recruit Matt into. The part Matt could not figure out was why Angus had wasted years working on Matt. At first, Matt had only stayed with Angus because of all the man could teach him. Whether his ‘potion’ was needed for himself or not, it certainly worked for Matt. He could also move about within society with a freedom that always amazed Matt. Angus could make the system dance like no other, but some of the things he did required more than one man and his PDT could do.

  Matt had learned, and continued to learn, a lot from Angus’ teaching, but he also learned things Angus did not teach.

  None of the things Matt had learned caused him to fear for his safety with Angus, but they did cause him to fear the day when Angus’ ends and Matt’s ends would not be the same. That was a big part of why Matt planned to part ways with Angus now rather than later.

  These thoughts occupied a distant corner of Matt’s mind as he rode side by side with the woman he had finally admitted to himself that he loved. He rode close enough to her that their knees touched periodically. He watched her openly and if she looked a bit pensive at times he had given her a lot to consider.

  He still intended to disappear and thus take any threat he posed to her far away. He just needed her to understand why. He simply found it impossible to leave without her knowing how he felt, despite his earlier resolve.