The Hunted

by Steve Scheunemann

  Malone would never be able to cover up everything. Too much of it was on the record with the BGP. Certainly others within the Bureau would see her and know that everything she spoke was true. They would also see Matt and assume that he too spoke truth. Malone would have some explaining to do.

  Abbey and Matt each spoke about the day Angus died. It was extremely painful for Matt to relive that day, but he knew that he had to. He merely wanted to contact the resistance, but he admitted to himself that telling Angus’ tale somehow just felt right. Matt had loved and honored Angus. He’d been a big brother, a friend and a teacher. He’d been only the second person Matt had ever considered family. First there was Fidelis, then Angus, now perhaps, Abbey. It seemed few enough people for him to call by such an important word.

  Matt told the story of the conditioning that had been done to the human race as Angus had related it, full of passion and anger. Abbey backed it up with the facts available to her as a fully qualified Hunter within the BGP.

  She’d been surprised to see her assignment to Malone’s team when the orders appeared on her PDT, but after further thought she shouldn’t have been. If Malone wanted to keep her defection a secret, as it appeared he did, then adding her to his team was the perfect way for him to do so. In his arrogance he never considered that the information it provided her and Matt might prove useful to them. She remained careful not to transmit anything, but as long as she only looked passively then there was no way to trace her location. With her new access level, granted to all of Malone’s team, she was able to find out all sorts of things. She couldn’t get to the depth of knowledge that they might have liked without an active query, but what she could pick up just from browsing the right directories was astounding. She stored everything to her PDT for future use. Matt might not have considered it, but Abbey regarded it as a virtual certainty that the government in New Zealand would have her imprisoned. They’d have their intelligence types try to peel her like an onion. She’d need something to give them in exchange for her freedom. Besides, if New Zealand was to be their home, then Abbey would be a patriot. She’d do everything she could to protect the nation that they hoped would take them in.

  Matt spoke of all he knew of life with Angus. Some things he merely suspected he reported as fact. Some of it Abbey was able to confirm for him. He spoke about his years with Angus, he spoke of the things Angus had stood for and believed in. How every man and woman deserved to live free. How each region should be free to rule itself. Nations still existed in the minds of the people and should be free to rise again from the ashes of domination. Matt knew that many ethnic groups still clung to their own identity. Many longed for their own nations. Many had not had them since long before the United Nations took over the world. The Kurds, the Basques, the Tibetans, all over Central America and Asia there were groups who longed for self-rule. Even those who’d had their will to resist genetically amputated still longed for a better world.

  Matt couldn’t help but feel sorry for any poor fool who heard his words and felt hope for a brighter future. That day was not at hand. His desire to save the world or to inspire others to do so was a new-formed thing. He had no plans to put into action. Now was not yet the time. He merely wanted to make enough noise that Angus’ friends would find him and get him and Abbey to New Zealand.

  Abbey for her part also felt some twinge of concern. She’d been raised a Hunter and as such was new to concern for others, but it was real nonetheless. In fact, Abbey suspected that she might acquire a tendency towards an overactive conscious and a bit of a tendency to protect the downtrodden.

  “Matt? Will people try to follow Angus’ example? I mean, are we inciting a rebellion?”

  “We’re only telling them the truth. What they do with it is up to them. We need to get them talking, not fighting. Most of them, according to what both you and Angus have told me, are incapable of fighting anyway.”

  “Matt, there are an awful lot of people out there who have not had the genetic modifiers. The planet has billions of people, despite the governments’ best efforts, a significant portion of them are still born free of the controls. The urge to procreate is too innate in our beings. They couldn’t mess with it for fear of the species dying out, so babies are continually born that were not planned for. If both parents had the modifications it will breed true and the child will too. But if either parent was not modified, then the chances are only about 70 – 30 in favor of the modification. If neither had them then, of course, the child will not either.”

  “Yeah but people need to be free to make their own choices,” Matt replied. “At least that’s what Angus believed. Free to fight and die if that is what they choose. We cannot live their lives for them. We’re only letting them know about what has been done to them. Some may decide to fight and die for it, but the government is already killing people every day and most can’t even find the strength to care. That is a crime. If our words instill in some of them the outrage required to care enough to fight then the death they earn was better than the life they lost.”

  They spent a week writing the story of Angus, then recording it. Never uploading any of it to the ‘net yet. They needed the story complete first because they would have to move fast once they started to tell the tale. They’d make periodic dumps, but since they’d decided to use Abbey’s PDT to do the uploads, since she had access to BGP codes that would allow for the widest possible distribution, they would have to be moving as soon as the data was transferred. They’d want to be careful about where they uploaded from too. Wherever it was would soon be flooded with BGP uniforms and military storm troops. Angry frustrated men with guns and no conscience who would face precious little in the way of consequences if they decided to slaughter the locals by way of burning off some steam. They needed a remote sight, but it also had to allow for an escape.

  From China they made their way to Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Siberia, and to the far north. They had selected a remote outpost in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands as their spot to dump the first volume of their story. It had taken some time to write and record it all and while they did they’d needed to move. Too long in any one place and the BGP would surely catch up to them. Never staying anywhere for more than two days, they made their way across the Asian continent.

  The crossing of the Bering Strait was the most difficult part of the plan. During the height of the cold war between the Old Soviet Union and the now defunct United States of America, there would have been no way what they now attempted would have been possible. This stretch of cold, gray water near the top of the world had at one time been constantly swept with every kind of electronic and physical type of surveillance known to man. Radar, sonar, submarine patrols, as well as surface vessels, aircraft, and satellites had kept it under constant watch day and night. Infrared imagining, radiation sensors and more had made it one of the hardest places to hide anything. Pods of orcas were tracked, just in case. Thousands of potential threats were identified, tracked, categorized and, as often as not, destroyed, by both sides in the conflict. Neither side was taking any chances that the other superpower in the world was up to something that might be detrimental to their own interests. All the actual combat had come through surrogates and the two behemoths had never come to blows, but it had been a deadly serious game of cat and mouse they had played for more than 50 years.

  Now, however, the Bering Strait was just a stretch of cold, gray water between two large landmasses controlled by the same government. All the surveillance was over and done. The only vessels patrolling these waters were fishing and research vessels.

  The plan was simple. Abbey would commandeer a vessel of either type, keep it incommunicado until they had made the crossing, done the data dump and gotten to the American mainland. From that point on they’d have all of Alaska and the Northwest Territory to disappear in.

  The vessel they chose, the “Alexia II,” was a fishing trawler. Her captain, Viktor, was visibly nervous at having a Hunter on board. In fact, he thoug
ht it was two. He only saw Abbey’s ID, but one did not insist on anything once a Hunter identified herself, not the identity of her companion or anything else.

  If Viktor found their keeping him out of communication and their insistence on not telling anyone their destination at all odd, he had the good sense not to say so.

  The crossing proved uneventful. Mooring at the small island research station in the Aleutians, Matt and Abbey debarked and warned the captain to keep the engines prepped for an immediate departure.

  At the facility it was simplicity itself to get the director’s cooperation. Again, it was merely a matter of identifying herself as BGP and the man who at first had been gruff and stern to the two strangers who arrived unannounced and disturbed his, no doubt vital, research, became obsequious and self-effacing. Anything he could do to be of service to the BGP was not only his pleasure, it was his most intense and personal honor to provide whatever service might be required.

  They both found his naked fear a bit disturbing. He’d done nothing wrong, was doing work that probably was important, for something, and here he was in fear for his very life. A fear caused not by anything they had done or said, but by their mere presence. Matt felt a little bit guilty about what they were doing to this man and his staff of five junior researchers. Soon the BGP would be crawling through everything here. It was possible they might not survive it all. Malone would no doubt like to cover things up, but when the story hit the ‘net, there would be no way to keep it all quiet. This facility, whatever it was researching, had about twenty minutes longer than the built-in delay they’d given themselves, to finish whatever research it was conducting. After that it was dead no matter what. The people might survive, but their work here was done.

  Matt had decided that a delay in the upload of more than four hours was more than they could risk. Not that anyone here would consider interfering, but on the off chance they’d somehow been tracked, they wanted to be sure it got out. With four hours head start they’d be ashore for 2 ½ already when it hit the ‘net and it would take the BGP a few minutes to figure out the origin and react. They’d have to get somebody to the site and then figure out where to go from there.

  Once back aboard the “Alexia II” they pulled the captain into his stateroom and showed him a copy of what had just been broadcast.

  “Captain, I can see where an upstanding person such as yourself would feel duty bound to turn us in,” said Matt. “Consider this before you do however. First, we could have left you ignorant of what we’d just done and the BGP would surely have found you. You know as well as I do that they would not be gentle in their questioning, no matter how much you tried to cooperate.

  “Second, what we’ve sent out is true and it’s important for the world to know the truth.” Matt found himself believing that despite the fact that it was all just a ruse to draw out Angus’ friends.

  “Third, we could easily kill you now to keep you silent. We won’t do that however. We won’t because we’re not BGP. Don’t misunderstand me, Abbey’s credentials are real, and my capabilities rival her own.”

  “He’s more deadly than I am,” Abbey interjected.

  “Perhaps,” Matt continued. “The important fact for you is that we could arm your entire crew with the weapons of their choice and still kill you all without any real effort, but we won’t. We will not allow ourselves to be harmed or delayed in any way though, so you will deliver us where we asked and then steam away. It is in your best interests to stay at sea a few days and to return home from a different route telling tales of the wonderful fishing to the south. Go there, get a tan, catch fish, and stay out of all of this.”

  “Da,” Viktor responded. Pale and shaking, he nonetheless understood and would not panic. He’d do as they suggested and in all likelihood survive.

  They had kept him and his crew on the far side of the island from the research facility and used the small power launch from the trawler to approach the facility, and left the same way. It was theoretically possible to make the crossing using only that launch and that was the impression they’d created in the facilities personnel. When they went ashore they’d leave it there and had already obliterated all its identifying marks. It should not be traceable to the “Alexia II.” It would be found right where they left it and that is where the search would resume. There would be no reason to go looking for any other boat. A desperate crossing by two fugitives in a stolen launch would fit right in with their image as being on the run.

  The run from the research facility at Squaw Harbor to their landing at Cape Yakataga was a little nerve wracking for both Matt and Abbey. They were now committed to this course of action. The heat had already been on, but this was more than a leap from the frying pan to the fire, this was leaping straight into a blast furnace. Instead of Malone, who seemed to be keeping it personal and private, they’d just invited the entire BGP, indeed every law enforcement officer of any stripe, anywhere in 99% of the world to join in the fun of hunting down and killing Matt and Abbey.

  Leaving the launch tied up at the quay they headed inland. Near the edge of the small town they stole a four-wheel drive truck and soon left the roads behind. Matt felt at home once again as soon as they headed into the mountains, so much like those where he’d spent his early years. When the country got too rough for the truck to go any further they abandoned it and headed on on foot.

  The truck had included a rifle in a rack. It was a 7mm magnum and as such a very good long distance rifle. In fact, the only thing Matt found wanting was the fact that they had only found one half-full box of ammo. The box had started with 20 rounds and now contained 10 in addition to the four already loaded in the rifle, they had Abbey’s side arm with plenty of ammo for it and a rifle with 14 rounds. They wouldn’t last long in any kind of standoff. If it came to a fight, Matt would have to make every shot count.

  26

  June 28, 2080

  New York, North America

  Malone was in a panic. The story of Angus’ desertion and Malone’s failed attempt to capture him was all over the ‘net. It had been dumped using scramble codes and cutouts, but Malone knew the source. Only Matt could know that story and only Abbey could have supplied the missing details.

  Malone had acted fast, circulating the story that this was all a part of his strategy to bring the underground out into the open. It didn’t take him long to realize that this was precisely what his quarry was trying to do. They wanted contact with the resistance, and figured this was the best way to flush them out. Malone would soon have agents tuned in that direction as well, but for now his primary goal was to find the two who had caused this mess. He knew the dump came from Squaw Harbor and that facility was already in his control. The search was proceeding from there.

  The director had practically fallen over himself in his effort to show how useful he’d been to the BGP when his visitors had landed. He’d be squeezed of course. Malone doubted he knew anything he hadn’t already told them, but there was certain propriety to these things. One must follow the forms after all.

  The drugs they’d administered assured them that the professor had told them the truth, but even with the drugs it was possible to withhold information that had not been requested. For that reason torture would be used.

  Normally he did this himself, but since he now commanded the very best the BGP had in this arena in Angel Halsey-Smythe, the diminutive blue-eyed torturer, he decided to see what she could do. He let her take charge of the investigation on the island and had it all recorded. As he watched live via closed circuit television he realized that while her technique was better than his, her biggest advantage came from being such a tiny, petite, innocent looking woman. Men naturally wanted to protect her. She did not appear scary in any way and somehow, even after learning she was a Hunter, men found fear hard to come by in her presence. At least until she began to work on them.

  After they saw their own blood staining her pretty little fingers they seemed to find the fear all right. S
he preferred blades. The sight of sharp steel and blood, coupled with the realization that the parts she cut away were gone forever, even if you survived, caused people to tell her everything they knew. She was a master at both the cutting and the asking that caused the truth to flow. She had an innate sense of when they tried to tell her anything just to stop the process, and when it was gospel. She seemed to know when to cause small painful bloody cuts and when to permanently remove parts of the prisoner’s anatomy. Small cuts might not scare this one enough to talk, but removing something vital might cause the next to decide there was no hope for the future and so stop talking.

  They had to be on the razor’s edge of fear. They must believe that there was some hope of a reprieve. For some that hope was for death, for others it was for freedom and a return to a normal life. Angel seemed able to decide in a flash which path to take and elicited the most complete and accurate interrogation results in BGP history. Indeed in all recorded history they’d searched.

  The director was not a brave man. Malone was certain he’d already told them everything he knew. Yet the chance to observe his new subordinate in action was priceless. The man repeated the same story again and again without variation as the process continued; even at the point where she emasculated him he told the same story.

  Angel let him bleed out, whimpering the whole time about how he was a good citizen, who did all he could for the government. He just wanted to serve the people. Malone found it quite pathetic. He was weak, he was menial and therefore he was useless to society. When the man finally died from the blood loss, Malone ordered Angel to pursue the investigation to the mainland and readied his dog handler. If the children were heading into that remote wilderness, then the dogs would be a priceless asset.