The Hunt (17 page)

The wrist scratching that began with the images of the spear and dagger comes to a sudden stop. “What kind of weapons?” Beefy asks again, warily now.

Frily Dress turns to him, and there is suddenly nothing frily or dressy about her gaze. “This,” she whispers, and another image is projected on the screen.

It looks like a rectangular cup, but instead of an opening on one 122 ANDREW FUKUDA

end there is a glass encasing behind which three glassy bulbs point outward. The surface of the weapon is paneled with a highly re-fl ective metal, mirrorlike. A large chrome button sits atop the weapon on the other end.

“This is the three- bulb Flash Uniemitter, or simply FLUN for short. FLUNs can infl ict devastating fl ashes of light. Push the button situated at the back, and out shoots a continuous ray of light

—

not mercuric, mind you— that lasts up to two seconds. The beam is quite powerful: at a luminous effi cacy of about ninety- fi ve lumens, it wil singe your skin deeply and painfuly on initial contact.

If the beam is held for a second or longer, the ultraviolet resonance wil cause vomiting and loss of consciousness. If you happen to look directly into the beam, you wil be blinded, perhaps permanently.”

It is, as the saying goes, quiet enough to hear a heper hair drop.

“That is the lowest setting.”

“That is the lowest setting.”

Silence.

“How many settings are there?” Beefy asks.

After a dramatic pause, Frily Dress says, “Five. At the highest setting, a single shot is powerful enough to burn a hole through you.

It has fi ve times the potency of the noon sun rays.”

Ashley June’s arm wisps up like a plume of smoke. “How many?”

Her question is vague, but Frily Dress seems to understand perfectly. “There are fi ve FLUNs in total. Each heper wil be armed with one. Each FLUN shoots upward of three shots. It has a range of about thirty feet.” She purses her lips as if sucking out stuck entrails from between her teeth.

It is very, very quiet. “Why?” asks Beefy.

This question is also ambiguous, but again Frily Dress has no problem understanding it. “We’re doing it for you, my dear. To make this Hunt truly memorable, to make it surpass the excitement of any previous Hunt.”

THE HUNT 123

Nobody is moving now, nobody seemingly breathing. Only her Nobody is moving now, nobody seemingly breathing. Only her dress moves, swaying about her wide body, embroidered fronds and ferns and sunfl owers spinning about her.

“In fact, not only do we want to increase the combativeness between the hunters and hepers, we want to increase the level of competition between the hunters as wel.” Her voice has taken on a robotic tone, as if she’s spouting a script. “This wil indubitably make the Hunt that much more interesting and ultimately enhance the winner’s enjoyment.”

“How are you going to increase it?” Ashley June asks, glancing at the others. Her voice is a whisper in the airy lecture hal. “The competition between us?”

“Sometime later to night, you’l each be given a piece of equipment. Nothing that wil help you actualy kil the hepers, but it wil make the chase to them more interesting. The equipment is designed to give you an advantage over your felow hunters.

Perhaps.

They’re al stil in the prototype stage, so their ability to deliver as advertised is unproven.”

“What kind of items?” Abs asks. She’s leaning forward, intrigued.

“Wel, some of you wil be given shoes designed to give more bounce and speed. We estimate that it wil make you about ten percent faster. Others wil be given either a SunCloak or SunBlock percent faster. Others wil be given either a SunCloak or SunBlock Lotion. Worn and applied properly, they can be used to block the early- dawn and late- dusk sunlight. We think, anyway. You’l be able to leave perhaps ten minutes before the others, an eternity of difference in a race like this. Some of you wil be given an adrenaline shot.

You get the idea. Things that wil give you minor advantages over the others in the chase. But again, let me emphasize: These products haven’t been completely tested. You use and rely on them at your own risk.”

124 ANDREW FUKUDA

“I was hoping for something more along the lines of a protective suit— against the FLUNs,” Crimson Lips says.

“I wouldn’t worry about the FLUNs,” Gaunt Man says before Frily Dress can respond. “Remember, they’re animals. They won’t even be able to fi gure out how to operate the FLUNs.”

“Believe that if you wil,” Frily Dress says, her voice even and cold. “If you think that gives you a competitive edge over the others, then think that. The others here wil be only too glad to take advantage of your wilful ignorance.”

“Hey, you can’t talk to me that way—”

“Funny, that. I was just about to ask for a volunteer, thank you for offering.”

“Volunteer? For what?”

“That’s right, just make your way up to the stage.” Frily Dress takes out a pair of shades from her belt, puts them on. “I suggest you al put on your shades now. Except you,” she says, looking at Gaunt Man.

Gaunt Man gets up slowly, his hand creeping up to pul his earlobes. He stops himself. “What’s this? What’s going on?”

“Nothing the escorts haven’t already gone through this morning.”

“What’s this? I’m not getting out of my seat,” he says, sitting back down now.

“That’s not a problem.” And then Frily Dress takes out a secreted FLUN from beneath her dress. “ Didn’t I just tel you this thing has a range of thirty feet?”

Gaunt Man strains back against his chair. He’s pinned, got nowhere to go.

“Consider yourself lucky. I’ve set it on the weakest setting. But I think you’l stil be impressed.”

“Wait!” Gaunt Man’s head snaps forward, then to the side.

THE HUNT 125

“The Director said punishment had already been meted out. Upon the escorts. There’s nothing left—”

“But to show what you were so lucky to miss out on. Albeit a very watered- down demonstration, compared to what they had to face. You’l live.”

There is a click as her thumb pushes down on the button. A sharp, clear beam shoots out of the FLUN. Arms raised before our eyes, we’re al blinded by the fl ash. Except me, of course. I see the beam hit Gaunt Man on his chest. His arms fl y to block it, but already there is black smoke shooting out of his chest. He fals to the ground as if toppled by a sledgehammer, his body writhing in pain. His mouth is wide open, but no sound emits. He turns to the side, his tongue thick and dry and protruding out of his mouth; a sludge of yelow vomit pours out.

Frily Dress releases the button. “Oh, stop being such a drama queen,” she says as she fl oats by him and out.

We’re ushered out of the lecture hal and taken on another tour of the facilities, more empty classrooms and laboratories. After our face- to- face encounter with a live heper yesterday, looking at heper teeth and anatomical heper diagrams fails to arouse any heper teeth and anatomical heper diagrams fails to arouse any excitement. The only area remotely interesting is the kitchen. Gaunt Man rejoins us there, having gotten clearance from the doctors, looking even more bitter than usual. The chefs are busy in the kitchen preparing for dinner, carving up huge chunks of cow hide.

The group stays around the main prep table, where the sight and scent of bloody meat draws them. I meander over to a side table where an apprentice chef is at work.

“Now that,” I say, salivating at the fried potatoes and noodles,

“is absolutely disgusting.”

126 ANDREW FUKUDA

The apprentice chef, a smal man with beady eyes, ignores me.

He scoops out the food and slaps it into a large plastic container.

He opens the door to an oven behind him, tosses in the container, and slams it shut. He pushes a button and walks away. “Heper food,” he murmurs. After taking a quick look around to make sure no one’s watching, I open the oven door. Except it’s not an oven.

The container’s gone: down a long narrow tunnel, on a conveyor belt, into darkness.

Footsteps approach the group from behind. With a military cadence. It’s a staffer, his face chiseled and serious. “Your cadence. It’s a staffer, his face chiseled and serious. “Your presence is requested,” he barks, his sharp chin pointing at Ashley June. “Immediately.”

“What is this about?” she asks.

He ignores her question, turns to me. “And you too. Come with me now.” He pivots around and walks out, not bothering to look back.

Something is off; I sense it as we folow the staffer outside and along the brick path toward the library. His pace is more than just brisk and urgent; there is
fear
propeling his boots forward. No one speaks.

Walking through the front doors and into the library feels like walking into the lion’s den.

Inside, the fi rst thing I sense are bodies. Lots of them, perhaps two dozen, staffers and sentries standing just inside the foyer. Al of them are wearing shades, al off to the side, standing stiffl y at attention.

Don’t swivel your eyes back and forth. Don’t.

Nobody moves. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness slowly, taking long, sustained breaths. It’s cold inside.

THE HUNT 127

THE HUNT 127

Nothing good is going to come out of this. The only silver lining: They don’t know yet. That I’m a heper. If they knew, I wouldn’t stil be standing here. They’d have pounced on me the second I entered.

I hear his voice before I see him.

“I trust you have found these accommodations to your satisfac-tion?” the Director says in a tempered tone. He is standing in the center of the room, just off the side of a table, the right side of his face lit by a mercuric lamp, his left side blanketed in blackness. His lithe fi gure, cutting an inconspicuous line in the room, possesses the thinness of a slashing razor. As he speaks, even the books on the shelves seem to tilt slightly away from him.

“Yes, they have been wonderful. Thank you.”

His head arcs upward as if folowing a fl ock of birds hastily taking fl ight. “We worried about the size of the sleep- holds. They weren’t custom- fi t for you. We apologize for that.”

“They were a coincidentaly good fi t.”

“Were they now?”

“Yes.”

He gazes casualy at me with seeming disinterest, but beneath his stare a keen coldness lingers. Without warning, his feet suddenly lift off the ground as he leaps toward the ceiling. His body spins upward, his feet a half second later locking into the sleep- holds, the very sleep- holds I have never used. Minutely, his body sways lan-guorously, like the pendulum of an ancient grandfather clock.

His eyes, upside down, are stil locked cooly on mine.

“Amazing how different the world is from this position, when everything is turned on its head. Do you fi nd that to be true?”

“Yes. I do,” I answer.

“Makes you see things from a different perspective. And that’s why I’m upside down, looking at you now.”

128 ANDREW FUKUDA

“Sir?”

“Because I’m trying to see you in a different light. Trying to see what’s so special about you. Trying to see why the Palace is singling you out, giving you the royal treatment. Because I just don’t see anything about you that’s distinguishing.” He closes his eyes, luxu-riating in a long, drawn- out blink.

“Royal treatment, sir?”

“Ah, playing dumb, I see.”

I don’t say anything.

“Take a look around,” he whispers, “at this whole wide library that is yours alone. It’s even bigger than
my
chambers! And you tel me the Palace is not giving you the royal treatment.” He descends slowly from the sleep- holds and lands unnervingly close to me, an arm’s length away.

I fi ght the urge to step back.

“You know, just a few minutes ago, I received yet another directive from the Palace. Concerning you. Again.” He pauses, a glint in his eyes. “There are very few things in life that leave me at a loss.

But this kind of attention from the Palace for someone as bland and insignifi cant as you . . . wel, quite frankly, it’s left me fl ummoxed.”

“I confess I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Another directive, sir?”

“No confessions, please.” He takes a step back to a nearby desk, his fi nger trailing along the back of a chair. He puls it out, sits down. And that’s when I notice the two attaché cases. On the table, refl ecting the faint gleam of the mercuric lights. They stand straight up like everyone else in the room, at attention. But with an straight up like everyone else in the room, at attention. But with an ominous air.

“If there’s one thing I disdain, it’s being kept in the dark. It’s a cold stiff arm of disrespect. And the Palace has been doing this repetitively over the past few weeks. To
me
. Random directives arTHE HUNT 129

riving on my desk daily, without explanation or rationale, last minute twists and turns regarding the Hunt. Fortunately, my bright intelect helps me see the method to al the madness of these directives.” His lips downturn. “Except when it comes to you.”

Standing off to my right, Ashley June hasn’t moved. Her arms hang stil by her sides, her face lost in the dark shadows.

“I’ve done my research on you. Apparently, you’re quite an intel-lectual standout at school, not nearly as dumb as you’ve been pretending to be here. Quite the brains, so they say. A natural, despite your only moderately above par grades. How did the report put it?