Animalis (14 page)

“Stop,” Jax ordered. “I will shoot you.”

The door sealed shut behind him. He stepped forward, following her from a distance.

“No.” Her voice was regal, as if she were declining a petit-four. She kept moving, walking slowly between the crates. “Malick, let’s get moving.”

Jax kept his sight on the back of her head.
Malick … So there’s someone else in here. Maybe the white ghostly figure I saw before …

“What is your name, human?” Narasimha asked.

The floor started to shift under Jax, throwing him off balance. The cargo transport was moving. He adjusted his feet to keep from falling over.

From outside the bulkheads of the cargo hold came the sounds of a violent crash. The transport shook, but the momentum kept going, increasing in speed. It was accelerating recklessly fast. The city’s traffic computer would never allow a car to travel at such high speeds, which meant they had moved the transport to its own driving software, also making the damage Jax had done to it useless.

Hank

Jax began a message, but he stopped when he saw his connection to the internet had been blocked. The walls of the cargo hold had to be somehow blocking his signal.

The lioness turned to the right and was gone from sight, blocked by a large crate. Jax continued to move and heard her begin speaking again:

“I want you to know my name, before you die, human.”

Her voice lowered, and became even more textured and powerful. “I am Narasimha,” she said. The words reverberated through the cargo hold. “I don’t think I’ll let you live, not after you slaughtered my people today.”

White crates passed by on either side of Jax. As he moved down the rows, he glanced left and right, around, behind the aisles of cargo.

“What are you looking for?” she asked. “My weapons? The explosives? Or … something else?”

She was talking too much.
Holding my attention …
But why? He stepped farther into the cargo hold. Now his nostrils picked up a rotten smell in it—a musky, decayed smell.

He took a step back and turned to recheck the crates he had already passed.

After a blur of dark-brown fur, tusks, and a sharp head-butt, Jax flew backward. He hit the ground headfirst with a hard bang and slid down the aisle of crates, the world swirling around him.

“Narasimha, I got it!” a snorting voice squealed.

Something moved out of the darkness of the transport and stood over Jax. He tried to lift his head, but his neck muscles tingled and then seemed to fall away from his awareness. Colors, shapes, and the face of the warthog swirled in his vision.

Made … big mistake …
His thoughts joined the stream of images tunneling away from him.
Thought it would have white fur. Where … Where’s the white one?

“Today is not the day I die,” Narasimha whispered into the dark void where Jax’s consciousness was heading. “Send him to the arena, Malick. I want to see him fight before he dies.”

Moxie … She has white fur and—Wait. No. Not the arena, please. Don’t …

His body pulsed and tingled, then there was nothing but blackness.

Chapter 10

Missing

Official transcript: Communication between Warrant Officer Hank Schneps and Captain Jesus Hernandez. September 21, 2097.

Schneps: We lost contact with Jax at 1900 hours. His last message indicated that he was inside the cargo transport that Narasimha escaped in. Twelve Animalis were captured. The contents of the second plane were taken in the transport with Narasimha.

Hernandez: In Gillian’s report, he indicated that you used one of the Animalis to find the location of the second warehouse. How?

Schneps: … Yes, sir. I … determined that the priority of finding the Ivanovich Machine was justification to use a pain-inducing drug on one of the Animalis found alive at the first warehouse.

Hernandez: What compound?

Schneps: … The Recoil compound.

Hernandez: Recoil? Did it kill the Animalis?

Schneps: No. The hyena Animalis was taken to a hospital.

Hernandez: APE would burn me alive if they found out about this. Do you understand that?

Schneps: But it’s only banned from use on humans.

Hernandez: Don’t play stupid, Hank; it makes me feel like I’m the fool when you do it. The political atmosphere around Animalis has always been volatile as hell. I can’t have my men torturing the things and leaving them for the world to see in hospital beds.

Schneps: I’m requesting that the company be deployed in full force to take the Ivanovich Machine.

Hernandez: I see. I don’t think that will be possible with you in the brig.

Schneps: The brig, sir?

Hernandez: I’m growing impatient with your behavior. Your actions have consequences, Warrant Officer. At first, I was willing to listen to you about this idea of a weapon, but now I’m starting to think that it has only ever been a sculpture. I’ve had the information from the rat’s computer analyzed, but each facility has confirmed that there is no such DNA device.

Schneps: I know it seems crazy, but if it is real, it’s the most dangerous weapon in existence!

Hernandez: I’m aware of your convictions.

Schneps: We have to go after it! Someone has to!

Hernandez: I have a responsibility to protect the United States—

Schneps: By—

Hernandez: At this time, by keeping the border secure. I have limited resources, Schneps.

Schneps: …

Hernandez: …

Schneps: Grimshaw wants to aid in a rescue for Jax.

Hernandez: What? You told her details of an active operation?

Schneps: She wants to leave right away to follow the cargo transport, and I could go with her.

Hernandez: You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let her—

Grimshaw: Hello, Captain.

Hernandez: H-Hurley? Is that you? You’re beautiful. You look like you haven’t changed. How?

Grimshaw: I’m going to try and find Jax. Hank says he can find where they went.

Hernandez: But, Hurley, you’re a civilian now. That’s a job for the army.

Grimshaw: Are you going to stop me, Jesus?

Hernandez: Wait, we have to talk about it first.

Schneps: Please, sir. If needed, I will find the machine on my own.

Hernandez: Hurley, it’s too late. The Animalis don’t keep hostages for long, unless they are sent—

Grimshaw: To the arena. I know.

Hernandez: And you know we can’t get in their way to—

Grimshaw: Are you going to let Hank join me, Jesus?

Hernandez: I …

Grimshaw: We have to leave.

Hernandez: Warrant Officer Schneps, join Miss Grimshaw. Help her with anything she needs in the search for Officer Minette.

Schneps: And the machine?

Hernandez: If you are able to give me proof somehow that it is what you claim it to be, then we can talk about it some more.

Schneps: Understood.

Hernandez: It’s so good to see you again, Hurley. I—

Grimshaw: Likewise, Captain. We’ll have to catch up another time. I’ve got to go.

End Communication.

——

In a private hangar at the Moscow airport, Hank sat in the cockpit of the Atticus, leaning forward in the captain’s chair, scanning a wall of information in front of him. It had been two days since the captain had allowed him to chase after Jax with Grimshaw. The first day had been spent going through shipping records until they were able to find where the cargo transport had been sent. It was taken to an airport and then jumped to Moscow. But the cargo transport had vanished off the grid once the plane had landed. Grimshaw and Hodge were somewhere in the city, checking in from wall screens with updates of their search.

Without her near him, Hank could finally breath comfortably again. She had accused him, after he had been the only one willing to do what was necessary to track down the Ivanovich Machine, stared him down with blazing fire in her eyes like he was—

He shook his head. It didn’t matter what she thought. The day would come when they would all see what kind of devastation the machine was capable of—unless Hank got his hands on the machine first.

The information floating in the air sat motionless while Hank’s eyes danced around, devouring it. Some people would have relied on their retina monitors to capture and store the information, as if it were a way to have a photographic memory, thinking that it could give them a superhuman mind—like Hank’s—without any effort. But as they relinquished their mind’s responsibility to hold onto memories, they lost the ability, and with the loss of that ability, they lost their reasoning mind. With no memories to form stories with, they couldn’t link cause-and-effect relationships, they couldn’t predict the future, and they became robotic and computer-like, acting out whatever programming was passed into them from the media they drenched themselves in. A truly genius mind require effort, and Hank had put in that effort.

What Hank was currently doing with the information had become easy, but only after years of practice and mental training. A page of information was taken in as a whole block of data. It was different from reading the words; there was no voice in his head phonetically sounding out each word for his mind to listen to. Instead, the page of information was held in an almost subconscious state. He was able to draw on the individual words when needed, since the whole page was stored in his mind. The pages, or blocks of data, were placed into a mental picture that represented the context that the information was coming from. At the end of the day, lying on his bed with his eyes closed, before falling asleep, he would take the catalogue of mental pictures and sort them into permanent memory files in his mind. If it was something like an apple, he would make a link, or tag, from memories of pears, oranges, lunches, pie, and the specific information he had learned: deliveries from an apple supplier in Moscow that produces fifty thousand pounds of apples a year, but somehow delivered fifty-eight thousand pounds of product—a company that Hank suspected sold laser rifles to the Animalis militants.

This process had been developed over the last seven years, after he had heard it was possible to gain a photographic memory. His mother had died a year before, and his father was struggling to teach Hank the religious foundation he wanted him to have. So the missionaries from their church had been visiting the family to teach the fundamentals of the doctrine. One evening, they captured Hank’s imagination by making a promise that if he were to memorize one scripture a day for a year, he would gain a photographic memory.

He was so excited that he made a public announcement to his friends and relatives in his social network. His uncle warned him that if he didn’t investigate memorizing techniques, he would quickly be overwhelmed and quit. One of his friends, who attended the same church, decided to try the same thing. And nearly everyone else told him it would be pointless because all information was just a brainwave away with a retina monitor.

The uncle was right. After the first week, Hank felt like all of the memorized scriptures were being crammed into the same tiny space in his brain. He did an internet search and found the idea of “filing” memories in a familiar childhood building. Through the second week, he discovered what that actually meant with trial and error.

During the third week, he found out his friend had quit. He was starting to have second thoughts as well. The retina monitor worked as fast as thought, so why should he waste his time on something most people didn’t believe was possible? But he wanted to prove them wrong.

After the first month, he had developed a reliable process. As time went on, his mind began to feel lighter, like it had been filled with tar and clutter before, but had been washed and organized. Instead of spending hours a day, painstakingly visualizing rooms with trinkets representing each scripture, and fearfully reciting memorized scriptures to make sure they were still in his mind, he found he only had to read through the new scripture once in the morning, and then again at night.

His social network wasn’t interested the closer he came to having a photographic memory, so he stopped talking about it. After the first year, he couldn’t be sure that what he had developed in himself was truly a photographic memory, but whatever it was had to be close.

Grimshaw’s icon appeared in front of him, a call waiting to be answered. Hank quickly set aside the mental tapestry he had been weaving with the information and answered the call.

“Arbat District seemed promising,” she said. “I’ll come back and visit it again tonight. Hodge didn’t find anything in the streets below Arbat. Do you have any leads for us?”

Hank eyed her. Her cheeks and nose were bright pink, flushed with blood trying to keep her skin warm. She was wrapped up in a big Russian coat, looking like a young, weary tourist. Behind her stood rows of cold gray buildings, each with a section of wall screen advertising sex, drugs, or gambling. With a quick mental command through Hank’s retina monitor, the image before him reduced to show only Grimshaw.

Hank folded his arms. “He hasn’t shown up in any new arena videos—yet.”

“That’s good,” she said, smiling grimly. “He’s a good, healthy kid. It’ll take some time for them to starve him a little.”

“It only takes a week to lose five pounds of muscle,” Hank said.

“You didn’t answer me about having leads.”

Hank pulled his hand up to his forehead and pinched his eyebrows while he spoke. “Nothing concrete,” he lied. “It’s no wonder the place hasn’t been found after ten years.” He shifted his weight in the seat.

“Well, don’t give up,” she said. “I’ll let you know what we find tonight.”

The call ended with a melodic chime, and Hank’s program windows and documents appeared back in view. In the top left corner of the array was the last message from the captain. Hank looked away from it quickly, but his mind knew the message, and the words floated involuntarily to the surface of his awareness:

The arena is off limits. Jax is an excellent soldier, but he is beyond our saving if he has been taken there. There’s a classified operation, or protection being dictated, that is likely tied to something political. I’m giving you three months to give me something substantial on this Ivanovich Machine, then I’m pulling you back.

Hank’s heart ached with the thought of giving up on Jax. He had always been such a fighter. In boot camp, putting in extra time to prove he would be ready for active duty by the time Hank was promoted to warrant officer, and fighting Gillian when the whole thing was unfair, and now, taken by the Animalis. He would fight; he always fought.