Hurt World One and the Zombie Rats

by Stuart Parker

  *

  ‘It’s Fall I want. If our job is to let people feel safer in their beds at night, then taking Fall down would be the perfect night cap.’

  The curt voice belonged to a colonel of the United Nation’s Peace Keeper Strike Force: Colonel Smithers. He stood tall with a flat forehead, large ears and a bent nose, and upon his dark khaki uniform he was wearing the medals garnered from a distinguished thirty years of service. He was addressing a small gathering of the top tier of the United Nation’s decision makers. The round table at which they sat was the same polished grey steel as the walls. The view from the Central Command Tower took in the sprawling lights of New York stretching out to the blackness of the harbour in a beautiful display that had the nearby cloud bank brightly aglow. Smithers, however, had been a soldier too long to be caught up in the romance of views. His gaze honed in on Oanh Kim, the Chief of Lawyers. ‘Is there scope to go after Fall in all of this?’

  Kim, a stout middle aged woman shrugged. ‘I doubt it. He was not practicing in countries where he is banned.’

  ‘The civilised world,’ Smithers shot back

  ‘And through the Stamford Transaction Facilitators he has compiled with all his legal obligations in this particular scenario.’

  ‘Which does not include declaring what exactly was in that canister he sold to our renegade killer?’

  ‘No,’ said Kim flatly. ‘Compounds for scientific purposes is all he has to say.’

  ‘But Fall hasn’t been banned for selling watered down cough drops. His specialty is lethal biological agents.’

  ‘I’m sorry. As the seller in this incident, he has done nothing inherently wrong. It is only the purchaser with a case to answer.’

  ‘And if what is in the canister is as dangerous as you make out,’ chimed in the Sergeant for Public Order, ‘that should be a priority.’

  Smithers frowned. ‘We only have limited resources and this alleged transgressor has not been on our radar at all. He flicked through the files looking for the shot of Mas taken by the Stamford surveillance cameras. ‘What’s her name again?’

  ‘Mas,’ said Sunil. ‘A poacher. She specialises in abducting and smuggling animals, illegal breeding and assassinating government sanctioned predators.’

  Smithers’ frown deepened. ‘What does that mean? Can you assassinate an animal? And what was that other thing? Kidnapping pets?’ He shook his head bemusedly. ‘The Strike Force doesn’t have time for this.’

  ‘I have time,’ came a voice from across the table.

  All eyes moved to Gwen Renaissance, the Director of the Hurt World Agency. She was part Chilean and part Peruvian and it showed in her rich black hair, deep hazel eyes and dark olive skin. She had been brought in from outside the United Nations to lead the Hurt World by the Secretary General himself and the details of her background had been locked away in a secure vault. The rumours and speculation, however, were plentiful and ranged from spy networks to military special forces. With these came suspicion and wariness, but also begrudging respect. There was nothing about her intense demeanor to indicate she did not know what she was doing.

  ‘And I’ll want the dog too,’ she said. ‘I have a vet in mind who will give it a fighting a chance of recovery.’ She turned to the baby-faced Officer for Emergency Finances. ‘It won’t be cheap. Funds will need to be released.’

  ‘All Hurt World operations require a court order,’ voiced the officer. ‘Nothing can be done until that has been granted.’

  Renaissance needed to swallow her anger. ‘The reward for Mas is one million new dollars. An advance on that would be a useful start.’

  Colonel Smithers half-suppressed a chuckle. ‘Are you sure that wouldn’t be a tad premature? If the files are accurate, the Hurt World has had operations against her in the past. Something to do with the Cobra X species if my memory serves me correctly. It didn’t end well on that occasion, did it?’

  Renaissance pursed her lips and said nothing.

  The one person at the table with a position high enough to know who Renaissance really was cleared his throat to speak. ‘The Hurt World’s mandate is to act against crimes that will directly be of hurt to humankind,’ said the US Special Envoy, Kalp Falno. ‘I would be interested to know what crime you perceive that to be.’ He scratched his salt and pepper beard and his striking green eyes settled on Renaissance.

  ‘I will assert that it is a Hurt World Five case,’ Renaissance replied.

  ‘Hurt World Level Five is reserved for the crime of genocide,’ murmured Falno doubtfully.

  ‘That’s right. And without knowing exactly what was in that canister, the threat of genocide cannot be discounted.’

  ‘It is quite an assumption considering we are dealing with a canary smuggler. Perhaps the canister contains bird seeds.’

  ‘Mas’s mere presence proves it is bigger than that.’

  ‘She can’t be that good.’

  ‘Stamford TF make their living by roughing people around and we saw how Mas dealt with them. Do you really think they would be coming to us for help if they thought they could extract retribution themselves?’

  ‘We are the United Nations. We do not have retribution as part of our charter.’

  ‘True enough.’ Renaissance paused. ‘But you had better accept that Mas is worth ignoring that. She is running wild and unchecked and in possession of a chemical compound made by a mad doctor who cannot legally come within ten thousand kilometres of New York. Our only possible path to her is a dying dog in Guatemala. So, we need to make a decision now.’ She eyed each person at the table in turn. ‘We take her on or we let the moment slip and find out the hard way what that canister really contained.’

  ‘I will be happy to make the application for the court order,’ said the Chief of Lawyers.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Renaissance. ‘The disposition is being worked on at this very moment.’

  ‘A unit of the Peace Keepers Strike Force will be placed on standby,’ said Smithers in a conciliatory tone.

  The US Special Envoy nodded his blessing. ‘I suppose the United Nations needs people who dream bad and have the courage to assume the nightmares are real. Very well, Renaissance, let’s see if the judge grants you the opportunity to pursue this particular one into the light of day.’