Runaway Heart (2003)

by Stephen Cannell

  OCT

  He was just starting the cracking sequence on the fourth.

  OCT. October, maybe? But why would Gen-A-Tec go to all the trouble of decoding the name of a month? Probably because it wasn't a month. It was something else. Then his program beeped and he quickly had the next letter, O.

  OCTO

  October: the tenth month. Ten maybe? He wrote it down. October? Octogeneric? Octopod? Keep going, he thought. He was already over halfway through deciphering it and started running sequences on the next two symbols.

  The windowless van had been parked outside the new Fairview Hotel for almost ten minutes when Ranger Captain Dave "Hi-Ho" Silver returned. He was dressed in a black business suit, and he immediately began stripping off his tie as soon as he got back inside the vehicle that was loaded with video and sound monitors.

  "I think Valdez must be psychic," Captain Silver said. They have security cameras on all the floors ... in boxes. We could disable the one on his floor, or maybe throw the hotel video system into temporary phase jitter, but it's not gonna be covert and will take too much time, so I'm gonna put a DU down."

  The entire response-retrieval team looked at the heavy metal cage on the floor of the van. They couldn't see the DU but they could smell it and hear it breathing.

  "Pan," Captain Silver said. "It's time."

  Chapter Eight.

  Pan is sitting in the box, his Geega thoughts coming slowly at first. Most times Pan uses only his strange language of the dark place. His memories of a shadowed past are verdant, humid, and atmospheric. Murderous urges are at times just below the surface, more powerful than even the Geega's commands. He has to fight to keep these urges under control, to do what the alpha Geega wants. The murderous impulse is natural to him, like tasting blood, or eating meat, or the savage instinct of the kill. Hunting and killing are deep inside Pan, although shadowed and obscured. The other things the Geegas want him to do are much harder. Geegas feed him and tell him things. They make him run, and kill, and work with their fire-sticks. Geegas are alpha and Pan knows he has to obey them. Sometimes he presents himself to the main Geega, turning around, raising his privates, offering himself to be fucked. But the alpha Geega never accepts Pan's presentation. Pan then lowers his head to the alpha Geega's feet, placing his soft pink lips in the sand, humbling himself But the alpha Geega just says his strange speaking words that Pan has to struggle to understand. Then Pan turns back and sits, waiting to be told what he must do. They are the leaders. He is nothing. He is alive only at their pleasure. On his arm is the machine to make the Geega talk. He looks down at it and finds the symbols on the keyboard. He punches in two syllables and waits. An electronic voice emits from his vest:

  "Pan go?" It says with metallic Geega precision.

  "Thirty stories up," the alpha Geega answers.

  Pan cocks his head and tries to listen, tries to do the Geega talk ... so hard for him, but he can do it. Pan looks down at the thing on his arm with all the buttons and little symbols that he has practiced on for hours. It does the Geega talk for him, but he has to concentrate for a minute to decide how to make the right talk. Pan pushes several buttons and waits while the strange Geega voice comes out of the heavy vest that he wears, with its lightbox screen and cold metal straps.

  "Thirty what?" the mechanical voice on his vest asks, while Pan jumps up and down in pleasure. This is good talk. This is the right Geega talk.

  The alpha Geega, Dave, looks into the cage, opens the door and lets Pan out. He leads Pan to the front seat of the van. It is dark outside.

  Night... the word coming to Pan in Geega talk, which sometimes happens now.

  "Up there, Pan," Dave points. "Thirty floors up," he says, pointing at a high place on the huge building across the street. Then Dave takes out a picture of a strange-looking Geega and shows it to Pan.

  "This is our enemy," Dave says.

  Pan takes the picture in his gray-white fingers. The Geega enemy looks skinny and small. "I'll direct you from here," Dave says. "Pan, you must fetch the lightbox! You must kill this Geega!" Dave points to the headset around Pan's neck: "Dave will talk over the radio and get Pan to the right spot," he says. "It's on this corner." The alpha Geega points at a spot on the side of the building. Dave looks right at Pan. Pan immediately drops his head, turns around, and presents. It is forbidden to look into the alpha's eyes, so Pan offers his privates in a show of respect.

  "Not now, Pan. Do you understand where to go?" Dave says as he opens the door of the van.

  Pan pushes a button on his talk machine. The mechanical voice responds. "Yes."

  Dave puts the leather gloves with the suction pads on Pan's four hands and buckles them on tight.

  "I'll be watching from here, so keep the camera on," the alpha Geega instructs as he taps the little glass eye on the front of Pan's metal vest. "Now go. Fetch. Kill."

  Pan is out of the vehicle, moving fast, his speed and strength on full display now. He reaches the glass building then starts up the side, going faster and faster. He climbs up the rounded glass, all four hands gripping the walls with the suction pads the Geegas designed for wall walking. Pan glimpses the inside of rooms as he scales the glass tower.

  "Further right," Dave's voice is loud in Pan's ear. Pan has to stop to remember. . . right. . . right is the machine side, so he reaches over, secures his suctioned tentacle on the window, then walks sideways across the glass to the next set of windows on the tower. Again he hears the alpha Geega speaking through the earpiece:

  "Okay, stop. That's far enough. Now, up, Pan, up." So Pan climbs higher, walking right up the side of the glass structure, pausing once to look down, hanging in that moment by only one extender. . . dangerous but secure. He looks down and sees the lights of the city. Again he has a shadow memory. He is somewhere else for that instant, lost in darkness, a lifetime away, his primal thoughts suddenly of warmth and sharing shadows that sometimes hit him at moments like this. Suddenly, he wants to ride through space and time on the long, green, fertile arcs against dark shadows. He doesn't really know what any of this is, or why he cares, or where he came from; he just knows these are shadow feelings from some other lifetime, and they haunt him.

  "Up, Pan, up." Dave, the alpha Geega commands, so Pan keeps climbing until, finally, Dave says, "Stop!"

  Pan obeys. He looks in at the room where he is hanging. He sees nothing but Geega things and a light coming from a second room.

  "Go, Pan. Fetch the lightbox. Kill!"

  And now Pan finds the edge of the window. With his strong, bony, gloved fingers, he hooks his hands under the frame and pulls. Pan is powerful, with more strength than ten Geegas. He once pulled many Geegas across a field. Although he is smaller than a Geega, he has very special muscles.

  He hears the metal window frame pop as he bends it open. Finally, using all his strength, the opening is wide enough for him to crawl through.

  Pan slips his hairy body and its bulky vest of metal lights through the window and lands on his front extenders, walking that way for a moment before slowly bringing his other extenders down until he is on all fours. His pink nose sniffs for danger. His Geega-like ears listen for sound. He hears a clicking noise in the next room . . . someone working on a lightbox? Pan moves softly across the floor, no longer worried about understanding the Geega talk. Now he can just be Pan. He is born to be a warrior, a soldier, and a relentless predator. He is from far, far away, but the vicious urges are still in him, programmed there by millions of years of combat. He knows he is expendable, existing only to

  protect the group. A distant shadow of that instinct now controls his thoughts. Pan hurries to the second door and looks in. Sitting on a Geega sleeping mat, working at a lightbox, is the one in the picture. He is a very small, skinny Geega, with funny colored hair. Pan thinks he will be easy to destroy. Just then, the little Geega finishes working, picks the paper up and studies it. He glances over, and sees Pan standing in the doorway.

  "Holy shit," the Geega says
. Fear is in his eyes. Pan attacks! As he charges, the Geega does a stupid thing: Instead of running or trying to fight, he jams the paper into his*mouth and swallows it.

  Pan grabs the long strands of the Geega3s colored hair. He yanks the Geega to him, holds him, then using all of his extenders, he pulls and rips.

  The Geega screams in pain, but that only makes Pan stronger. He rips one Geega arm loose and waves it over his head triumphantly before he throws it across the room. He grabs the Geega's head and, using all four extenders, twists and pulls until it comes off with a horrible snap. He throws it hard against the wall. It bounces loudly and lands on the bed. Pan shreds the Geega's other arm and both legs, throwing oozing Geega parts everywhere. The gushing blood excites Pan.

  He was taught by the Geegas to be silent, but he is so happy he cannot stop himself. He makes the victory yell. He jumps up and down on the shredded parts. He runs from one piece of Geega to another, licking up blood, tasting it, chewing Geega meat. Then he lifts up his privates and urinates on the dead Geega a message to others that this is Pan's kill.

  He hears a noise outside a knocking on the door. Pan is frightened. He doesn't know what he is supposed to do.

  "Get the lightbox," the alpha Geega commands in his earpiece. Dave can see what Pan is doing through the glass eye in his vest. "It's next to the bed. Go!"

  Pan runs to the lightbox on the table, grabs it, runs to the other room, then leaps out the mangled open window. Catching the ledge with one hand, he swings effortlessly. The street looms thirty floors below, but Pan is not afraid. He loves height, loves danger. He slowly lowers himself down the side of the building. Pan can see the sun coming up on the horizon and reflecting in his eyes from the mirrored glass.

  Moments later he is back in the van handing the lightbox to Dave.

  "Good, Pan. I saw it all. We'll watch it on the tape later," Dave says as he points to the picture boxes that are set up in the van to tape what Pan is doing.

  Pan tries to figure his answer. He wants to please alpha Dave. He looks down at his keyboard then pushes two symbols and waits.

  "Pan win," the mechanical voice says.

  Chapter Nine.

  The federal courthouse was tucked neatly between two old-fashioned turn-of-the-century buildings in downtown L.A.

  Herman was dressed in his best pinstripe, decked out all in 4s: the black-and-white ensemble. He had brushed his unruly hair to one side, plastering it over with water. But as it dried the curls began rising like gray smoke, until, now, his do was in a sort of modified Bozo.

  He sat in the attorney's room with Susan and Dr. Deborah DeVere. Dedee was nervous but ready. Herman thought she looked good in her tailored blue dress.

  "You were supposed to be wearing the backless hospital gown," she said. "I've been looking forward

  to that all morning."

  "Visual orgies of that nature have to be enjoyed episodically," he deadpanned.

  She laughed, deep throated and lusty and Herman liked her laugh.

  "Seriously, are you feeling better?" She pulled her smile down like a poster after a show, leaning in and studying him.

  "Ready to kick butt." He looked at Susan, who was searching through their pretrial motions, putting them in order. "Susie, did you file the application for the amended complaint?"

  She nodded, "The court clerk got it this morning. Judge King should have it by now."

  "Good." Herman felt strong, his heart was in battle rhythm, his head clear. So why, he wondered, was Deborah DeVere looking at him with one eyebrow raised?

  "An amended complaint?" she asked.

  "It's nothing. We just made a change on the plaintiff's list. No big deal. Now, Dedee, it's important that we get across to the jury the devastation that this bio-corn is going to cause the monarch population. Everybody can remember their first butterfly hunt, looking at it up close, seeing its feelers waving gracefully in the air, its tiny little head and big, beautiful eyes . . . the orange-and-black perfection. Everyone can remember thinking how delicate and tiny it was. We've got to make them remember; we've got to make them wonder what the world will be like without this wonderful species sharing the planet with us."

  There was a knock on the mahogany door and a young man from Elite Messenger Service entered carrying a glass terrarium with three beautiful monarchs fluttering inside. Herman had actually netted the butterflies in the field next to Barbra and Jim's house over the weekend. Herman and Susan had spent last night at the hospital, so Herman had sent the messenger to pick them up from the housekeeper in Malibu. He peeled off some bills and handed them to the man, then signed the delivery slip and waited in silence until the messenger left. Dedee looked closely at the

  terrarium while Herman tapped on the side. The butterflies landed and were now sitting on twigs, apparently unaware that their entire subgroup was facing biological extinction.

  "Okay," Herman said. "Let's go barbecue some USDA Prime."

  The courtroom was an ornate, old-fashioned job with Doric columns and spindled balconies. The U.S. and State of California flags flanked the bench against a curtained wall where the government seal was affixed. The room was large and overpowering; the building material mostly dark, polished mahogany.

  Herman watched as the jury he had voir dired two days ago was led in. He thought it was a pretty good bunch. Herman never used jury specialists. The gaggle of defense attorneys opposite him had employed a virtual choir of experts during the three days of jury selection. Throughout that entire process they'd been huddled in a semicircle poring over demographic spreadsheets, graphs, and background checks. Herman used a much more primitive method. All he would do is look at each potential juror and try to decide whether he would like to go out to dinner with them. Would this person be fun to spend a few hours with? Herman looked only for a sense of warmth and humanity. Race, color, creed, sex, or financial condition meant nothing to him.

  The jurors filed past and sat in their upholstered swivel chairs. Herman stole a look at his opposing counsels all ten of them. Some were government lawyers, others were hired by the three private research labs. The lead counsel was legendary Joseph Amato the Count Dracula of the legal community. He was dressed in hit-man black and seemed oblivious to his cocounsels, who were eagerly gathered around the defense table like orphans at a picnic, all of them scrunched together, their legal books piled around them, briefcases open, miniature tape recorders ready for last-minute whispered reminders.

  The Institute for Planetary Justice had only Herman and Susan .. . and, of course, the butterflies. The glass terrarium sat covered with a hospital towel, awaiting the appropriate moment in his opening statement to be introduced to the jury.

  "Oyez, oyez, oyez. Federal District Court Fifteen is now in session. The Honorable Judge Melissa King, presiding. All rise," the bailiff called out.

  The courtroom rose in unison as the back door opened and Melissa King strode into court.

  Jesus! The woman is ready to give birth any minute, Herman thought as she waddled through the door and around the mahogany platform, then labored up the three steps to the bench. Her narrow shoulders were thrown back for counterbalance. She had gained thirty pounds since she had thrown his last case out. A dishwater blond with a pinched expression and narrow eyes, she looked uncomfortable and angry in her last month of pregnancy. She eased herself into the big, high-backed judicial swivel, looked down at the court, opened a folder, and then while everybody waited began reading documents.

  Aside from the jury and the attorneys, there was the usual array of courtroom groupies: old men and women who preferred daily legal jousts in air-conditioned comfort to the eighty-degree L.A. heat in the park across the street. They sat like a row of vultures in their baggy street clothes, cutting up apples with penknives and drinking tap water out of recycled Evian bottles.

  "So, this is the butterfly thing . . . CO3769M." Judge King said, looking at her folder. "Is everyone present? Can we get moving?" No bullshit from Melissa this
morning.

  "Yes, Your Honor," Herman said. "The Institute for Planetary Justice is ready to try its case."

  "Good morning, Herman. New suit?"

  "Yes, Your Honor. I wanted to look nice for you."

  She smiled down at him, but it was a grim, humorless little number that could peel the paint off a grain silo. Then she snapped her gaze over to the crowded defense table. "Are there enough of you over there, Mr. Amato?" she quipped.

  Joseph Amato smiled and stood. "Your Honor, we represent the FDA, the EPA, the Department of Agriculture, the Pierpoint Laboratories, Gen-A-Tec, and Malorite Labs, et al. I've been selected as lead counsel. I think you've been supplied with a list of my cocounsels.

  Judge King held it up. "I have my score card all ready, Counselor. Let's play ball."

  Herman thought she was in fine form smart-assing her way along. He had absolutely no traction with the woman.

  She turned to him. "An amended complaint form was delivered to me this morning by messenger. What's the deal?"

  "Yes, Your Honor, we have dismissed on behalf of two plaintiffs and substituted a new one."

  "I see you removed the Concerned Scientists. Did they become 'concerned' with your legal tactics?"

  "Your Honor ... uh ... is it really necessary to . . ."

  "Yes, Herman? What?" A clear challenge.

  Herman paused. Shit. It pissed him off that she had just insulted him in front of the jury, but he also didn't want to start the case in a mud fight with the judge.

  "Nothing, Your Honor," he said softly.

  "And this new plaintiff, the Danaus Plexippus Foundation. What is that?" She went on reading from the amended complaint before her.

  "It is the foremost foundation researching the world migration and breeding habits of the monarch butterfly."

  "The foremost foundation?" she said, milking it for laughs. "In the whole world}"