Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (21 page)

“Rachel!”
he yelled. “Stop it!”

As he
held her, her struggling took on a familiar and dreadful feel, a staccato
rhythm. With mindless fury, she now fought the invisible riot of a seizure. It
was a bad one.

“There
she goes . . .” Donna said, wiping blood on her sleeve.

John
lowered Rachel to the floor, her body convulsing so violently that her head
banged on the floor like a hammer.

“Hold her
head up,” Donna said, climbing out of the seat to help. “Don’t let her bang
like that.”
 

* * *

Rachel
flew through tunnels dark and shiny wet past things nonhuman and tortured. She
raced up and down and through dim brown shafts faster and faster until she
burst out, stopped and floated limp in a chamber of madness. She rolled slowly
in the wet air above tables topped with human forms splayed open and pinned
back.

She
looked down at her own face looking up. “Help me,” her mouth said silently. The
air thumped with the sound of a giant heart, and she was swept through the guts
of a thing not right, a thing not right, and a thing not right—and sick. Faster
and faster she flew until she raced straight at herself, arms and legs spread
wide, laughing with idiocy.

“Look at me!”

* * *

Hours later,
she awoke as she always did, in a place not quite recognizable. This one was a
bedroom in a shelter, and, for once, the place felt a little good to her
somehow. There was a light and a pleasant scent on the air as if flowers were
there in the room. When she was awake enough, she turned and looked for them in
the low light, hoping to see them on a dresser or table. But there were no
flowers, only the light scent of them.

The door
opened, and she squinted against the blade of light that struck her eyes from
the hallway.

“Hungry?”
John asked.

“Hungry,”
she replied.

“They’re
making some stuff up now. Do you want me to bring it to you?

“Yeah. I
don’t feel much like getting up.”

“Okay.”

“Hey,”
she said as he started to leave.

“What?”

“Come in,
I want to ask you something.”

He came
in and sat on the edge of the bed. His hand reached out and rested on her
forehead, out of habit.

“Are
they—are you—going to go through with this?” she asked.

He
stroked her head once or twice before he answered. There was no easy way to put
it to her.

“Yes.”

“And blow
up the settlement?”

“Some of
it. If it comes to it.”

She
studied his face in the dim light, searching his eyes for signs of a bluff. She
saw nothing but resolve in his brown eyes.

His look
confused her. She wondered for a moment if she really knew him at all. But that
thought reluctantly gave way under the weight of her own ambivalence in the
matter of the bomb and forced her to consider that, perhaps, she and John
simply came from different places, had different histories and that those
differences had now surfaced, not for some shared enlightenment, but had risen
like a wall between them. She shuddered briefly, as if chilled.

“This
isn’t like you,” she said gently.

He pursed
his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. He leaned forward, his arms
on his knees and hands interlocked. He stared at the floor.

“John…?”

Finally,
he looked up. The resolve in his eyes even stronger. He didn’t look at her as
he spoke, his eyes fixed on something, or nothing on the wall.

“Have you
ever considered how trampled down we are on this planet?” he asked, his voice
even and measured. “We’re planting the bomb tonight. We’re delivering our list
of demands in the morning.”

“Your
grievances, you mean?”

“No. Our
demands.”

“What if
they won’t give in? Then what?”

“I
already told you.”

Of course
he had. She just wanted to hear it again. She wanted to test him again with the
question, hoping he’d back down.

“We’ll
detonate the bomb and start over,” he said.

“With
what?” she implored.

 
“We’ll have our freedom. That’s enough.”

 
“You know, we could just run away like we did
before,” she said hopefully. “We could go so far they’d never find us. We could
just steal a shuttle like we did before and fly away.”

“Not this
time,” he said, his voice stony.

They
stared at each other. She kept hoping he would soften and give up this
murderous plan. The idea of setting off a bomb and killing people with it, even
ridiculous people, made her sick. It made her so sick she wanted to vomit. It
made her so sick she wanted to shake him and slap the nonsense out of him.

“I wish
there were another way,” he said.

“Can’t
you try to find one?”

He got up
and stepped toward the door. “Meat or fish,” he asked with a sigh.

“Both.
And tell Donna I’m sorry. I’m not right, you know . . . in the head.”

He nodded
that he would deliver her message. The plastic door closed slowly and latched
behind him with a faint and tinny click.

10

H
iding the bomb was a
dirt-simple job. It didn’t seem right that such an important event should be so
stinking easy. With a few simple motions, Joan Thomas nestled the strangely
pretty, ultra-destructive little thing in the weeds and covered it up so no
one could find it. Now they had the Council, the soldiers, the entire settlement
by the proverbial short hairs. Things were going to change rapidly for the
better because of this simple no-brainer of a job. It was an odd feeling.

She
brushed bugs away from her face and eyed the location one more time from
several angles. No way. They’d have to go in there and scratch around to find
it, if then. Donna had suggested they bury it in the ground, but the others
thought better of it. You could always tell where something had been buried, at
least until the spot was weathered down. No, this would do. It was the right
place strategically; that was the most important thing.

She
imagined herself in her shelter and seeing the bomb go off from there. She saw
the bright blast racing outward at light speed. Part of her liked that idea a
lot.

By the
time she got back to the shelter, the dawn’s soft light soaked the air, and
things were starting to form in shapes gray and green out of night’s blackness.
She went in the back door and stripped out of her net suit. She always made it
a habit of sticking the suit out far through a crack in the door and shaking it
as hard as she could. This time a couple of big ones flew off it and bounced
off the screen; just two more she wouldn’t have to chase around the lights the
next evening.

“How’d it
go?” John asked.

“Perfect.
The egg is hidden,” Joan replied with her twisted grin as she sat down.

“I say we
call in as soon as it’s light,” he said.

“Let ‘em
get their coffee first,” Donna said. “They should be fully awake when the shit
hits the fan. We want their little minds working well, and we can get a couple
of hours of sleep ourselves.”

They
turned in, but no one really expected to sleep.

Eddie lay
on the sofa in the little living area and stared up at the ceiling. He was just
starting to doze a little when he heard the commotion outside. It was a mix of
angry voices, bumps and banging and then shouting. Long before he looked
through the blinds, he knew in his guts what it was.

Across
the alley was another row of shelters, some deserted, a few occupied. He could
see one of the shelters about twenty meters down with the lights on, and the
front door swinging open. He saw hurried movement inside and could hear
shouting. Another pair of soldiers was double-timing toward him. They marched
past the one where the commotion was and went up the stairs of the next one in
line. They banged on the door real hard; and when the occupant opened the door,
they shoved past him and rushed in.

They were
looking for them, shelter to shelter.

Eddie
rushed down the hall and found Donna and John already with their rifles out.
“Hey . . .”

“We
know,” John said. “We saw them already. Go unlock the front door, and then sit
down in the kitchen. There’s another team coming from the other side. They’ve
got one more stop before they get here.”

Eddie
raced down and unlatched the door. Donna took up a position just inside the
first bedroom. From there she could step into the hall and cover the entire
front section of the shelter. John moved to the rear door entryway and pressed
himself against the wall.

Joan went
to the kitchen and sat next to Eddie. She took the detonator out of her pocket.
“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry,” she said to him. She pressed two buttons and
entered the access code she’d already programmed in. The display read ARMED.
She rested her thumb on the DETONATE button.

So
simple.

“Whew. I
need some coffee,” she said lightly to break the iceberg-deep ice.

“Me,
too,” Eddie said.

“Don’t
worry,” she repeated breathlessly. “They’re not stupid. They’re not stupid . .
.”

Joan
reached over, took Eddie’s arm, wrapped it around her own arm and put his hand
over hers on the detonator. Eddie’s fingers floated over it.

“It’s
okay,” she said. “You won’t have to do anything. This is just in case. Just
stay calm. They’re not stupid . . .”

The pounding
on the door made her stiffen, and her thumb went down until it actually made
contact with the key. She could feel the sweat from Eddie’s hand on hers.

“Come
in!” she yelled. “The door’s open!”

Two men
in dirty uniforms burst through the door, rifles at the ready.

“Stop
right there!” Joan said to them.

“Get up!”
the first yelled at her. He was young and arrogant, red-faced and cocky, no
more than twenty or so. The one behind him was older-looking and didn’t look at
all bright.

“Now, you
listen to me, you sonsofbitches,” Joan said in a steady voice. “Do you know
what this is?” She nodded at the detonator.

“Your
pussy! I said get up!” he ordered.

“Listen,
you stupid bastard. Look at this.”
 
The
open case the nuke came in was on the other side of the table, on the floor,
smack between them. She kicked it with her foot. The soldier’s eyes glanced at
it, and then went back for a longer look. She watched him scan the contents.
“Can you read? Do you know what came in that box?” she asked. “It wasn’t
candy.”

She saw
the younger soldier swallow as he studied the case. The remaining components
and the warnings were plain enough.

“This
thing in my hands came out of the little slot in the upper left-hand corner of
the case. Can you see what the label says on that little slot?”

The
soldier took a cautious step closer, his rifle aimed squarely at them. When
he’d read the label, he stepped back. His eyes had lost their confidence; his
demeanor all arrogance.

“What is
it?” the second asked.

The first
didn’t answer. Joan could see his mind racing behind his eyes. It gave her
satisfaction, and she smiled.

“What is
it?” the second insisted.

“Shut
up!” the first said.

“You’re
getting it,” she smiled. “You’re a little slow, but you’re getting it.”