“If it is about building the perfect demon,” Ariel said, “holding them back will be harder than ever. They’ve already successfully infiltrated the government, businesses and professions all over the world. Look at Tesslovich, he’s a lawyer, although I guess that’s a more understandable match. A war against some sort of super demon army would be catastrophic. The human race would die by the millions.”
“My technical forensic team is taking the bots we salvaged apart.” Cassius told them. “If we find out what they’ve been built to do, we might be able to postulate what Zaki is really trying to accomplish.”
Cassius pushed a key and both screens went dark.
“I’d say Zaki has been in the development stage for awhile now, but now he’s flaunting the results of his experiments without actually revealing what he’s done or why. He must be close to making a big move, something that will take the entire world by surprise. Whatever it is he needs to be stopped before he goes global.”
- 29 -
Mouser twisted around in the metal chair so he could see what the room looked like. There wasn’t much to see. The chair was white, the walls of the room were white, the desk in front of him was white and devoid of any objects on its surface except a folder that looked like medical chart. The number 83 had been written on the tab in heavy black marker.
Mouser was also aware of the man who stood behind him. He was dressed in white coveralls and held a plastic stick that Mouser recognized as a Taser. He guessed that was in case he tried to escape.
But Mouser was more interested in the man behind the desk. That man was tall and thin with perfect grey hair combed severely back from his high forehead. He was wearing a white lab coat over an expensive looking grey suit. It was unmarred by stains, a name badge or pens in the breast pocket. The man’s long-fingered hands were clasped loosely together on the desk top. Beautifully manicured fingernails gleamed in the too bright overhead lights.
Mouser reminded himself that he had to work this just right. He only had to give them what they wanted until he found a way to escape. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to lie his butt off if he had to.
The man unclasped his hands and dragged the chart in front of him with one finger. “I don’t think it’s necessary to continue to refer to you as number 83,” he said. “I’d like you to tell me your name?”
“Mouser.”
“That’s what they call a street name isn’t it? Don’t you have another, more adult name that would suit this conversation a little better?”
Mouser thought a moment. Way in the back of his memory another name surfaced. He had no idea where it came from, but it felt right.
“Theodore.” He said.
“Just Theodore?”
“It’s all I remember,” Mouser told the man, and that was the truth.
“Then it will have to do, won’t it.” The man smiled slightly. It was as if he had practiced the expression in the mirror.
“Would you like something to drink?” The man asked.
Mouser shook his head.
“It’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”
“No thank you.”
“Manners.” The man said. “How nice. Then let’s get down to business shall we? I have a few questions.” The man opened the file and pulled out a pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat. It was gold.
“Do you have parents?”
Mouser shook his head.
“Siblings? Grandparents? Any other close relations?”
“No”
“Where do you live?”
“Around,” Mouser told him.
“You have no single place that you sleep?”
Mouser scratched the back of his neck. “There’s squats,” he said. “I move around. Stay in one place for a while, then maybe try another. Sometimes the cops roust us out, take our stuff and throw it away. Then I have to start over.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.” Give or take Mouser thought.
“How do you support yourself?” The man asked.
“You mean get money?’
Nod.
“Different ways. But mostly I hack.”
“Really?”
“What? You don’t think I’m smart enough to do that? ‘Cuz I’m good at it. I look for information, you know. Credit card numbers, names, addresses. Stuff like that. Sell it to people for good money. I don’t have to beg or do stuff I don’t want to do.”
“Where’s your computer?”
“Gone now, I’ll bet. I left it back at the squat with my stuff when I went out. I don’t know how long I bin in this place but it’s a no brainer that my stuff is somebody else’s now.”
The man flipped over a page in the chart. “I’m going to ask you some other questions that might seem a bit-- unusual. I need you to answer them with absolute honestly. If you lie, there could be serious physical consequences for you in the near future.”
“You mean old sparky back there?” Mouser asked, jerking his head in the direction of the man with the Taser. “I think I’m getting used to it. I might even be starting to like it. Breaks up the monotony.”
“It will have nothing to do with Nile’s little toy, Theodore. I can assure you the consequences will be worse, much, much worse.”
- 30 -
Before they left Cassius said he had something he wanted to show Ariel and Bishop.
“Not the solution,” he said. “But a step in the right direction. I’ve been hiding down here too long. Look at what I’ve almost let my old partner get away with, a war against the human race.”
“Isn’t that a little apocalyptic?” Bishop asked. “Maybe they’re just tired of Raptors cutting their heads off.”
“It’s not like we’re out there randomly hacking away,” Ariel snapped. “It’s a matter of maintaining the balance. I just follow orders.”
Bishop and Cassius both gave her a look, which was dangerous since the three of them were zooming along at high speed in a day-glow purple electric golf cart through tunnels and corridors lit by curly fluorescent tubes wired into cables strung along the ceiling.
“Okay, even I know that sounded totally Third Reich,” Ariel said. “Besides, I’m already going against everything I was ordered to do, which unfortunately consisted mostly of nothing.”
As they sped on, sensors turned sections of the light tubes on, then off again as they passed through. Cassius had explained that the less energy the lighting took, the less chance the Deeps energy use would be detected.
Bishop found the effect creepy. It was as if the dark was chasing them, always just one step away from catching up.
“What about the rats?” Bishop had asked as they’d made the transition between Cassius’ labs and living space to the nearly deserted tubular highways of his underground city. As they went further, the frequency of distant banks of light sensors going on and off indicating someone else was using the ‘road’ stopped.
“Intermittent, high frequency sound waves keep them out of these tunnels.” Cassius said. “Higher up they’re still a problem. But then somebody would notice if the rats completely disappeared. Most people have a primal fear of rats. In a way they help keep us safe.”
“Orders?” Bishop asked Ariel. “Is that why you went after Tesslovich?”
“You know the principle ‘an eye for an eye’?” Ariel said. “Well, it’s like that between us and demons. They take one of ours, we take one of theirs. They cross the line, we push back. There’s at least one Raptor in every major city or region throughout the world. Raptors are the instrument that maintains the balance. Most of the time I don’t even know what the demon did to make us hit back. I have nothing to do with the ‘why’. I get my orders, I do my job. ‘Til now.”
“But you didn’t get Tesslovich?”
“The bastard resurrected. How am I responsible for that? The Guardian called me on the carpet about it, then he tells me to back off. He didn’t care about all the kids who have disappeared. It’s none o
f my business. Do what I’m told. Higher purpose, blah, blah, blah, fullness of time, yata, yata, millennial agenda and all that crap. He also told me to forget about Mouser. I’m not going to do that.”
“So what’s he going to do when we declare war on Yamazaki Kiriyenko?”
“I don’t know. Arrest me. Kill me. Send me back where I came from?”
“Where’s that?” Bishop asked.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
- 31 -
“You have some very interesting blood test results, Theodore. Do you consider yourself a healthy person?”
“Yeah. Sure. I don’t get sick much.” Or ever, Mouser thought.
“Have you ever had any childhood illnesses? Measles, chicken pox, frequent colds or flu?”
“No.”
“Ever been hospitalized? Any operations? Tonsils, appendix?”
“No.”
“What’s your best childhood memory?”
“Finding my laptop,” Mouser told him.
“I mean before that Theodore. Any memories of family events? Christmas? Toys, gifts? Going to church, living in a house with adults? Pets?”
“I had a rat once that seemed to like me. He came out at night in the squat. I fed him scraps from the dumpsters that were too rank for humans to eat. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“What about dreams?”
Mouser sighed. He had no idea where this was going. Everybody dreamed. Sometimes his were bad. Living on the street was hard and scary. There was never enough to eat and people tried to hurt you, or mess with you on an almost daily basis. You never knew where you were going to sleep that night or if it would be safe to close your eyes. Sometimes the dreams were good, especially since Ariel, Ez and the Caf’. And of course, his computer.
“Do you ever dream of being an animal, Theodore?”
Oops. “What? No.” This was going in a bad direction.
“How about flying? Have you ever dreamt you could fly?”
Careful here. Mouser had often dreamed of flying before the first change happened. Then, after suddenly finding himself a small brown bird, he’d felt totally terrified, even of pigeons, until he’d fallen asleep and awakened, naked in an alley, changed back into a kid. Luckily his clothes weren’t that far away.
Ariel had told him even regular people sometimes dreamed of flying, but she and Mouser were the lucky ones. They actually could fly.
“Sure,” he said. “But I know I can’t. It’s just a dream.”
The man wrote another note in the chart.
“I don’t want to fight.” Mouser told the man.
“What?” The man looked up at him, amused.
“I don’t want to fight,” Mouser repeated. “I’m too small and I wouldn’t be good at it.”
“Is that what you think we have in store for you, Theodore?”
“Yes,” Mouser said. “That’s what you make everybody do, right?”
“Not everyone, Theodore. You’re right, you’re too small to be a fighter. And it would be a pitiful waste of your true potential. We have something much better in mind for you, my boy. Something special.”
- 32 -
Cassius stopped the cart at a large steel door. Several other brightly painted carts were parked nearby. Each made an artistic statement, except for one. That one had once been white but what was left of the paint had turned a grubby ivory. What also made it unique was the number and severity of the dents and patches it sported. It was also missing both fenders.
“That belongs to the engineer,” Cassius said. “He’s not much on style. As long as it runs, he’s happy.” He pushed the steel door open. On the other side was a tile platform above a subway track.
“Come on,” Cassius said. “Before the train leaves the station.”
Within a hundred feet the platform broadened into a station. It was an old station by the look of it. Unused for decades, possibly an entire century.
“Wow,” Ariel said.
“Holy cow,” Bishop said. “Where is this place?”
“Under a really bad neighborhood,” Cassius told them. “It used to be a posh address about a hundred and twenty years ago. Its residents wanted to use the new underground transportation system, but only in their own fancy train from their own fancy neighborhood station. This place has long disappeared off all the existing maps. They built it deep and no other trains ever came through here except their three car luxury express.”
“Crystal chandeliers,” Ariel said. “Marble walls, mosaic floors, mirrors.”
“The fixtures are gold plated,” Cassius told her. “There’s a bar that still has bottles of liquor and champagne, crystal glasses and amazingly, running water. The elevators no longer go up to the houses. Too dangerous in this day and age so the shafts have been filled with rubble. I’m afraid most of the furniture has lost its upholstery to time and rodents but there are still some sturdy benches made of exotic wood inlaid with ivory and brass. There was no income tax back then, you know. The rich could spend their money as they liked on fancy toys and fashion.”
“What’s that?” Bishop asked. What he was looking at sat on tracks next to the platform, each car was rounded on top and painted an azure blue with curly, brass accents and gold striping. The cars had elegant interiors, couches instead of seats, wood paneling and murals on the walls. Dusty but elegant Persian rugs still covered the floors.
“Amazing, isn’t it? Magnificent actually. Runs on either electricity or steam generated by burning coal oil. We’re modifying that to a modern hybrid system so that the train can function on newer electric tracks or switch to bio-diesel, but that’s another project.”
Beyond the blue train at least twenty workers were crawling over another, more modern set of subway cars armed with a variety of tools. Bright sparks were flying from the steel plates being fitted over the windows.
An elderly man in overalls and a striped cap came up to Cassius. His grease streaked hands held a clipboard filled with papers. “Movin’ along Sir,” he said as Cassius stepped nearer.
“Engineer Jeorge McCullen,” Cassius said.
“It’s another train” Ariel said, as if no one had noticed.
“Oh, aye lass,” Jeorge said. “She’s a beaut too. Plenty of power and a heart of iron. Used to take passengers from the main line to Hauptman’s store. We brought her down here to work on her. Once we get the plates on we’ll be able to make it through Zaki’s steam trap, no problem. The lads have been going at it twenty-four seven. The gun mounts are nearly done.”
“You’re going to run the tunnel into Zaki’s compound,” Bishop said.
“Hopefully,” Cassius answered. “The steel plates and gaskets will protect us from being boiled alive by the steam. We’ve mounted heavy artillery on the engine and roof of the cars.”
“Zaki put something that makes rats and people explode in the heating ducts of his stadium,” Ariel told Cassius.
“Most likely microwaves,” Cassius said. “Thank you, Ariel, for that information. We’ll incorporate it into our defenses. And thank you for those sketches of the compound,”
Bishop had missed that slight-of-hand. Sneaky Raptor.
“What’s your timeline here?” Bishop asked.
Cassius looked at his engineer.
“Forty-eight hours, Sir.” The engineer said.
“Two days, then?”
“Tops.”
“You’re not going without us!” Ariel said.
Us?
“Of course not,” Cassius told her. “The fate of the world and Mouser are at stake. Come on, I’ll show you the quick way out.”
* * *
As they started back down the tunnel Cassius handed both Bishop and Ariel flat, steel cell phones. They looked a little banged up, as if they’d been well used.
“I already have a cell phone,” Bishop told him, surprised at the number of bright green bars showing in the corner of the small screen.<
br />
“Not one like this. This one has thumb print activation, just slide your thumb across that little window there, push nine and it will remember it. Scan your thumb every time you want to make a call. It also has a scrambler, a GPS, and it works underground. Kale.net has its own towers and satellite relays, kindly hosted by the Pentagon although it doesn’t know it. Since things are heating up I thought you might need to get in touch faster than using Old Bill. They’re fully programmed. I’m number three on the speed dial. One is Hot ‘n Fast Pizza. Two is Discount Liquor & Smokes. They know how to find Old Bill. We like to make sure he eats as well as drinks.”
Once out of the Deeps, Bishop’s own cell phone started to make the ring tone that signaled he had messages.
The first one was from Rain. “She’s dead, man,” he said. “Jennifer Corbin died a couple of hours ago in Memorial’s security nut ward. There’ll be an autopsy, but they think it was some kind of drug reaction. Or a brain aneurism. Anyway, they’re still waiting for the original tox screen. Hopefully the autopsy will tell us why she went all Freddy Kruger on her family. I’ll let you know when I find out more. Watch your back, bro.”
The second call was from Sister Cate. One of her missing kids had just stumbled into the shelter, wild eyed, shaking and disoriented. He’d been missing about three months. She’d taken him to Mid-City Memorial. He was in the ER.
“I’ve got to go,” Bishop told Ariel. “Jennifer Corbin just died and one of the missing shelter kids turned up at the shelter acting weird, so Sister Cate took him to the hospital. I think I’d better check it out.”
“You want me to come?”
“No point. I’ll stop by the hospital, then I need to make a few calls. So far, two formerly missing kids have shown back up with serious medical problems. And your fighter’s blood was over oxygenated and full of bugs. Things are taking a bad turn. I need to check on Susan Elizabeth’s family. Who knows, maybe she’ll show up next.”
Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir Page 23
