Who Hunts the Hunter (28 page)
“How do you know that?”
Scottie’s reply is almost incomprehensible—more shaman talk. Amy struggles to understand. From what Scottie says, it sounds like he traveled out of his body somehow and followed Dr. Hill into the lavatory. That must be what happened when Scottie went as limp as wet noodles. For a moment, Amy had feared that he’d had a stroke and gone into a coma. Now it sounds like some kind of trance ...
But what Scottie says about Dr. Phalen points out the one thing she knows for certain, the thing she’s learned, her one small payment for the risks they’ve taken. People are lying to her. There has to be a reason for that and whatever the reason is, whatever the cause, it can’t be good. Two very respectable scientists do not just start telling lies because they’re in a mood. Scientists are at least as conscious of their reputations as bankers. Saying the sky is green when in fact it’s gray or brown would only make them look foolish and that is the one thing no scientist wants.
“I’ve got no choice,” Amy decides, at length."I’ve got to tell what I know. I’m only hurting myself if I delay any further.” The longer she waits, the more time she spends looking into this on her own, the greater the chance that she’ll be seen as an accessory or just plain incompetent.
“Maybe I can do something,” Scottie says.
Amy looks at him."What do you mean?”
“Let me think about it.”
The room is rectangular, a uniform platinum gray. There are no furnishings, no pictures, no decor. No windows, no way to tell if it’s day or night, no way for Tikki to know for sure how long she’s been here. She woke up here a while ago, at least a couple of hours ago. Outside, it must be getting on toward midday. Here in this room, nothing has changed.
The air coming in through the vent in the ceiling carries many scents. Tikki discerns the scents of many two-legs, vague and airy, as if from far away, but none that she can identify. The smell of her own frustration and outrage fills the air, gnawing at her. Like instinct gnaws at her. Battling to control her mind.
Again, on four legs, she walks around the periphery of the room, sniffing where walls meet floor, and wondering which of the panels dividing the walls might conceal a door. Every panel is about the size of a door. Every panel looks and smells about the same. She keeps thinking that she must have missed something, some subtle clue at the very limits of her perception, but she’s been around the room more than a dozen times already and discovered nothing new.
One thing is clear: the elf O’Keefe was here. He and one of his female accomplices—not Shaver, Whistle. This tells her that O’Keefe played a part in bringing her here, as if she didn’t already know. The thought brings a discontented rumbling into her breath. She would like to drag her claws through O’Keefe’s face, down through his chest and belly, and keep tearing at him till only shredded meat remains. She would like to make him die very slowly. Slowly and with much pain.
How does she get out of this place, this cell? That thought has monopolized her attention. She tried the obvious approach. She hurled herself bodily at the walls till cartilage crackled and bones snapped and finally pain conquered instinct, persuading her that brute force alone would earn her nothing, not now, anyway. She managed to dent one of the wall panels and scraped shick out of the floor—that’s all. Not worth the price in blood.
Now, she sits with her back to one of the shorter walls, and she thinks some more. Where is she? Why is she here? What comes next? Maybe the idea is to keep her here till she starves to death. That doesn’t make much sense, but with two-legs, who knows? With two-legged elves involved, anything’s possible.
There must be a way out of this.
Something above her hums. She looks. A voice comes from the ceiling, a strange computer-modulated voice, neither male nor female."I know what you are,” it says."And I know who you are. And now you’re going to pay.”
What is this ...
The words are hollow, a meaningless threat. It’s the voice that incites Tikki to anger. The thought of some two-leg speaking to her from the safety of another room arouses her rage. She bares her fangs and roars and batters the walls with her paws. If the creature wants to speak to her, let it come and face her. She may be confined for the moment, but she is far from helpless and she will face any creature, two-leg or four, with just the weapons nature has provided her. What she will not do is listen to two-leg noise.
She fills the room with her own voice, her fury, her menace, her promise to exact a savage vengeance for this outrage—roaring louder and louder—till the voice from the ceiling finally stops.
The silence that follows is more easily endured.
The first indication Harman has that something is amiss comes when he feels a stinging at the nape of his neck.
He lifts a hand, and suddenly everything gets very dark.
Then, he’s sitting in a chair, a very rigid, uncomfortable chair that seems to have no cushions. It’s a macroplast chair with arms, and, for some reason, he can’t move. He’s several moments struggling with that, trying to lift his hands to rub his eyes. He feels like he’s just woken up, but that cannot be. The morning’s already past. He was just heading out to lunch when ... when ...
Harman pulls his head upright. He’s sitting in a small, dark, sparsely furnished room with no windows. He can’t move because his wrists and possibly his ankles too are wrapped with thick black straps and fastened tightly to the chair. Another strap rings his chest. What the hell is going on? This is intolerable.
A door opens on his right. A stocky Asian male with eyes like gleaming black marble enters, then steps around to face Harman directly. This man is accompanied by an Anglo male with facial features of a vulpine cast. The Asian looks young; the Anglo a well-kept middle-age. Both wear suits and cool expressions.
“Who the devil are you?” Harman inquires."Release me!”
“That’s not possible,” the Anglo replies.
“What the frag do you think you’re doing?”
“Only what’s necessary,” the Anglo says."You may call me Neil, Mr. Franck-Natali. May I call you Harman?”
“I insist that you release me at once.”
“That is not possible.”
“You’re making a serious mistake.”
Several moments pass. Neither of the men seems the least bit impressed by Harman’s statements. They are obviously professionals, security ops or specialists in black operations. Harman feels a queasy sensation enter his stomach. He is obviously in a bad situation.
“Neil” inclines one eyebrow, and says, “Let’s forego the theatrics, Harman. I’ll tell you very simply that you and I have certain similarities. You might say we’re both corporate men. We have objectives to meet and superiors who rate us on our performance. In this particular case, I’m forced to be expedient. There are certain things I must know. If you cooperate, you’ll soon be back at work and your masters will know nothing of what’s transpired.”
“And if I refuse?”
“That would be unwise.”
“In other words, you’ll compel me to speak.”
“I’d prefer to have your cooperation, Harman, but if that’s not forthcoming I’ll be forced to resort to methods I think you’ll find unpleasant. Ultimately, you’ll tell me what I want to know. It’s really just a question of time.”
“I will not betray proprietary data.”
“That’s very commendable, Harman. However, from your perspective, the data I’m primarily interested in is personal, not proprietary. I don’t give a damn what you can tell me about Mitsuhama.”
Harman hesitates. Only two explanations for this abduction had occurred to him thus far: one, a corporate competitor of Mitsuhama wants to squeeze him for information; or, two, a rival of his at Mitsuhama, perhaps someone with an eye on his job, wants to provoke him into making compromising statements. Neil’s remarks seem to indicate that a third possibility exists."I don’t understand.”
Neil says, “I’d like you to begin by describing the nature of your relationship with Amy Berman.”
Involuntarily, Harman gapes."Why is that any of your business?”
“You’re not here to ask questions, Harman.”
“I fail to see what this has to do—” Harman stops abruptly. Another explanation has suddenly come to mind."You’re investigating Amy. You’re with KFK International.” Neil shows no response. He glances aside. The Asian steps forward, lays a hand over Harman’s left wrist, presses down with the tips of three fingers. For a moment, nothing happens. Harman frowns, perplexed. In the next moment, his left arm is being seared by a fire that streaks up through his shoulder and into his head like an incandescent spike. His whole body jerks with the shock. He shouts. Colors burst in front of his eyes and for what seems like a brief eternity he’s quivering at the end of a high-voltage wire. The current radiating throughout his body is excruciating pain. Every nerve ending burns with it.
As the pain subsides at last, Harman gasps and grunts, breathing hard. Vision returns. His left arm is numb, then tingling as feeling returns."That’s merely a sample,” Neil says impassively."My friend understands pain. He can do that to you all night. Your arm may feel a bit tingly, but there’s no physical damage. Not yet.”
Harman catches his breath, says, “This is heinous."
"Expedient,” Neil replies."Metahumans can take only so much pain. Then the mind begins to rationalize. You’ve had no training in resistance techniques. I promise you that you’ll soon break down. Save yourself the pain.”
That would be a good thing to do, Harman supposes.
What Neil says is probably true. A person can take only so much."What assurance do I have that I’ll be released unharmed?”
“I’ll leave that for you to decide,” Neil replies."In the meantime, let’s get back to Amy Berman.”
Yes, of course. That’s the point. And the question is how much can he say without compromising Amy or himself? If Neil is in fact with KFK International, might it not be best to tell everything he knows? If Neil is connected in some way with the audit going on at Hurley-Cooper, might it not be best for Amy, for everyone, for him to expound at length on everything he knows about Amy’s recent activities? to prove that she’s doing everything in her power to further the interests of KFK International?
Of course, if Neil has been sent by Mitsuhama, then every word Harman says, everything he knows, his very relationship with Amy, could be construed or manipulated to appear treasonous.
The Asian steps forward and lays a hand on his left shoulder.
Agony pours through his body.
The creature on the display screen strikes Dr. Ben Hill as possibly the queen of all tigers, a dark queen, robed in crimson fur with black stripes. Her resemblance to
panthera
tigris
altaica,
the Siberian cat, is perhaps only superficial, for she is truly named
bestiaforma
mutabilis,
shapeshifter. But these technical terms convey nothing of her majesty or power. She is larger than the Siberian cat and more massively muscled. Her eyes glint darkly in catching the light. She lies now at one end of the room reserved for her, head erect, eyes searching the dull gray space before her like a queen surveying the cell of a dungeon, with regal anger and ... something more. A resolve.
Germaine asks, “You want me to tell Dr. Phalen we’re ready?”
“Yes,” Ben replies, “and warm Mr. Tang we’ll be starting in a few minutes.”
“Yes, Dr. Hill.”
“Thank you.”
Germaine goes out. Ben looks back across the console controls to the figure on the central display screen. His stomach churns uneasily. Coining face to face with primitive creatures can be disturbing. One always wonders just how great a degree of intelligence lies behind the feral mask. With a shapeshifter especially, that question nags. Does not the ability to transform into a humanlike appearance at least imply a human degree of intelligence? Is it possible that he’s participating in the confinement and abuse of a creature that should be regarded as having a stature equivalent to metahumans? The possibility gnaws at him. It’s been plaguing him ever since this most recent project of Dr. Phalen’s began.
The Were tiger has kept her secrets well. Like her cub. If not for her remarkable crimson fur and reflective eyes, Ben might have wondered if the bountyman Tang had not brought in a mundane animal. She has remained in her fourlegged form since arriving, and shown practically nothing of any intelligence she may possess. She’s demonstrated primarily animalistic behaviors, making her displeasure with confinement quite apparent. The sheer ferocity of that displeasure was shocking to witness, and captivating, and served to apprise them all of just how dangerous a creature they’re dealing with here.
Ben has no doubt that within moments this dark queen could reduce a man to shredded strands of flesh and bone. They must be very careful.
The door to the control room slides open and Liron Phalen walks in."Ah, Ben. How is the stomach, my dear fellow?"
"I’m managing.”
“I do wish you’d take my advice and go home.”
“Work’s a better remedy. Did you speak to Amy Berman?"
"Ben, you’re really worrying yourself to death. I’ll speak to our Ms. Berman later this afternoon. I’m quite sure this little administrative problem will be swiftly rectified.”