Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (22 page)

“It’s
bullshit,” the second said. “Shoot her.”
 
He raised his rifle and aimed it at her.

The first
batted the rifle away. “No!”

Joan
laughed. “Good choice.”

“What are
you gonna do?” the first asked her.

“Fuck
you. You’ll find out. Put your weapons down.”

“Fuck
you,” he said. “I’ll never put my weapon down.”

Joan
smiled her twisted smile and looked at the soldiers standing in her kitchen
with their big, vicious guns. They were dangerous men, stupid men, and greedy
men. They were men without moral fiber. They were hired killers and torturers.
They were the reason she was living in fear. They were the enforcers of someone
else’s hideous will by hideous means. They were traders in blood and evil. She
hated them. She looked at them and soaked up the hate, let it feed and
strengthen her dark purpose. When the young soldier looked into her eyes and
saw not fiery resolve, but cool certainty, he felt real fear for the first time
in his young and arrogant life.

Then,
slowly, Joan’s smile lost its crazy edge and changed to one of kindness. She
leaned over and kissed Eddie’s cheek. She closed her eyes. Eddie’s were wide,
and he was trembling. The muscles in Joan’s hand prepared to do what her mind
had already willed.

“Stop!”
the first screamed. “They’re down! Our weapons are down!”

He put
his rifle down so fast the motion was little more than a blur. The second
hesitated just a second, then planted his on the floor with both hands. They
both raised their hands and took a step back.

Joan
blinked and looked at the rifles on the floor like she didn’t recognize them.
As if coming out of a trance, she blinked sleepily and stared into the red and
fearful face of the young soldier.

“Good,”
she said with a twisted look. “That’s good. You did the right thing.”

John came
out from the back hallway and flanked the soldiers, his rifle pointed at them.
“Get down,” he said. “Sit against the wall and shut up.”
 
He picked up their weapons one at a time and
leaned them in a far corner.

Donna
came down the hall followed by Rachel.

“I guess
you know who’s got the power now, huh, assholes?” Donna seemed to ask, but was
really making a statement.

The older
one stared straight ahead. The younger, some shred of arrogance still left, met
Donna’s gaze. “We’ll see,” he said.

“Watch
your tongue or you’ll get on my bad side,” Donna replied.

“I take
it you’re looking for us,” John said.

“That’s
right,” the younger said.

“Looks
like you found us,” Donna said. “Too bad for you.”

The
soldier smirked.

“How many
are out there?” Donna asked.

“Twelve,”
he said calmly. “Six teams.”

“What
happens when you don’t check in?"

“Fuck
off.”

Donna
took a step closer and put her rifle’s muzzle a few centimeters from the
soldier’s nose.

“You
know,” she said, “I’ve been lied too and screwed over since I first heard of
this goddamned planet. I’ve been dropped into the green from a goddamned
shuttle by two fucks who thought it was funny. Then I marched through that
fucking jungle for five days with nothing but the clothes on my back and muddy
roots to eat. I’ve put up with bugs and rain and fucking monsters and parasites
and bullshit ever since I got here. And on top of that I’ve killed four or five
people.”

“You
won’t shoot.”

“Why
not?”

“Guns
make noise.”

Donna
laughed. “John, hand me that hammer from the tool bag. It won’t make much
noise.”

John
plucked the hammer from the canvas tool bag on the counter and exchanged it for
Donna’s rifle. She squatted next to the young soldier, hammer in hand.

“You’d
kill me if you had the chance, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “You wouldn’t even bat
an eye. You’d do it because you’re tough. You’re tough inside. Well, I’ve got
news for you. I’m twice as tough as you, and I’ll kill you twice as fast. What
happens if you don’t check in?”

The young
soldier looked into Donna’s blue-brown eye. It was the strangest eye he’d ever
seen. But he’d been scared enough for one day. And it just wasn’t part of his
nature to be scared. Plus, he’d already given in once today and felt like a
weakling because of it. She could kill him if she wanted.

“Lyle
Fabino, BCF88497,” he said with a smirk. “That’s all you’ll get from me.”

Donna
raised the hammer high and held it there for a second. Lyle Fabino looked up at
it and figured that he had better than an even chance she wouldn’t bring it
down on his head.

He was
right.

Donna
brought the hammer down on the soldier’s elbow with a crunch that made his
mouth spring open in a silent scream. He grabbed the elbow with his hand,
doubled over and started to rock, his eyes clamped shut.

“Answer
me,” Donna said.

“We have
to . . . to call in . . . after we leave each shelter” he croaked. “They check
it . . . off the . . . list. That way they know . . . which ones have been
covered . . . and which haven’t. It’s . . . no big . . . deal.”

“It is
now. Call in and tell them this one is clear,” she said, flipping the
microphone up to his mouth. “Do it.”

Fabino
switched the unit on.

“This is
Fabino,” he said into it.

“Go,” the
voice at the other end said.

He turned
to his partner. “Uh, which one is this?” he asked innocently.

“Uh . . .
B9, I think,” the older one said.

“B9’s
clean,” Fabino said.

“Roger,”
the voice said. “Proceed to B12. No, wait. Go to B13. B12’s done.”

“Roger.”

“Turn it
off and keep it off,” Donna said to him.

He shut
the unit off.

“Good boy,”
Donna said. She put the hammer on the table and took her rifle from John. She
aimed it carelessly at the two men. “Now we have some time to think without
interruptions,” she said with a self-satisfied smile.

“Are we
ready to make the call?” she asked Joan.

“I’m
ready.”

“Then
let’s do it.”
 
She removed Joan’s pad
from its kitchen mount and handed it to her. “You’ve got his number, right?”

“Yeah,
it’s there,” Eddie said. “I got it last night.”

Joan
turned the device on and brought up the speech they had prepared the night
before. It wasn’t very long. She propped up the pad where she could read it.

“Here
goes,” she said, reaching for the phone.

“You
people are nuts,” Fabino said.

“One more
word, and I’ll castrate you with that hammer,” Donna said to him.

“Yeah,”
John added. “Shut up.”

Joan
plugged the phone into the pad for a visual link. She wanted Council member
Theodore Ryder to see her face when she read the ultimatum.

“Ready?”

“Ready,”
Donna said. She looked over at Rachel who was leaning against the wall in the
hallway, arms folded. “Rachel?

Are you
ready?”

“Oh,
sure. I’m ready," she answered though everyone knew she wasn't ready at
all.

Joan
called up Ryder’s name and dialed.

The call
was answered a moment later by a lovely and sleepy-eyed young woman. She was
dressed in a house robe and her close-cropped hair was still wet from a shower.

“You’re
who?” she asked.

“Joan
Thomas,” Joan said firmly. “Get Ryder on the phone right now.”

“You’re
nobody. I can’t do that,” she said sweetly. “And how did you get this number?”

“What’s
your name?” Joan asked.

“Elizabeth,”
the girl sighed.

“Well,
Elizabeth, I may be nobody to you, but I guarantee you Council Member Ryder
will want to hear what I have to say.

“Oh, go away,”
the girl said and broke the connection.

“Did you
see that!” Joan said. “That little bitch . . .”

A moment
later the phone in Council Member Ryder’s suite rang again. This time Elizabeth
was greeted with a large red and white danger sign and the words NUCLEAR
WEAPON. Just as the big ugly words were sinking in, that Joan person’s face
came in from the side.

“That’s
what’s gonna explode,” Joan’s face said at an angle, “not five hundred meters
from where you are—if you don’t get Ryder on the phone.
 
Right now.”

Elizabeth
felt like hanging up and switching off the phone unit completely. She wanted to
go back to bed. That’s what she usually did after her shower, just until she
woke up completely. She’d wanted to masturbate, too, and think about that boy
she saw in the elevator yesterday. He’d had a nice butt and a nice smile from a
full mouth. She’d seen him before, but never up close. Up close he made her
tingle. But she couldn’t go back to bed and masturbate now because of this
angry contractor woman. Elizabeth knew what a nuclear weapon was and didn’t
care to know any of the details about this person’s. All she knew was that this
was getting kind of scary and maybe she should go get Ted.

“Fine,”
she huffed. “I’ll get him for you then.
 
Geez!”

“You do
that,” Joan said.

Joan
squared herself in front of the camera and straightened her collar. She
adjusted the screen and put the speech in one frame and the image of Ryder’s
suite just below it. She could see enough of his living quarters to tell how
wealthy he was. Nearly all of the sect’s members had given up their possessions
during the move, but Ryder, and most of the other Council members had kept
theirs. She watched as Ryder strode up to the phone and sat down. His demeanor
was typical of the Council members—self-important and condescending. She could
see it in his face before he spoke. He wasn’t physically ugly like Jacob, but
Joan found him somehow as repulsive. He sat down in front of the camera and
leaned in toward it, one eyebrow slightly up.

“What is
all this about?” he asked.

“Is your
recorder on, Council member?” she asked with stone in her voice.

“It’s
always on,” he said. His tiny mouth barely moved when he spoke.

“Good.
Let’s get something straight from the beginning. I’d like to tell you not to take
any of this personally, but I can’t do that. I can’t tell you that because I
take it very personally. So I want you to take it personally, too. I . . .”

“What are
you talking about?” he asked with a scowl.

“Don’t
interrupt me again,” her voice was as smooth as polished stone. The coolness in
it made Ryder sit still and listen.

“As I was
saying,” she went on, “I take all this very personally. None of it is a matter
of—of what do you call it?—abstraction or theory. It’s more . . .”

“I don’t
mean to interrupt you,” he said almost gently, “but could you get on with
whatever it is you want to say.”

Joan
paused and looked into the face on the screen. She couldn’t tell, to save
herself, couldn’t put words to what it was she hated about him. She had felt
the bottom of this man’s shoe on her back for as long as she could remember. It
was there when she was born. It had been there on her father’s and mother’s
back, her sister’s and brother’s, too.
 
It had been there on her grandfather’s back and her grandmother’s. It
had been there, pressing down on them for as long as anyone could remember. Was
that it? Was it that simple?

She
smiled and almost giggled. Maybe the reason for her hate was simply in the look
of Ryder’s teeny mouth. He had the thinnest lips she’d ever seen, so much so
that the impression was of no lips at all. Across the space that should have
been a top lip was a paltry and ridiculous mustache. It was blond and the
texture of short, thin grass.