The Hunt (8 page)

Practicaly lay down and let us have at them.

“What our research has demonstrated, however, is that hepers can be trained to be aggressive. They’ve demonstrated surprising acumen with the weapons provided. Primitive weapons, mind you, mere spears, knives, daggers, axes. And, quite endearingly, they’ve even fashioned leather guards that they place around their necks for protection. Those naive darlings.” He starts scratching his wrist, then stops. He jots something down in his notebook. “Not sure how they got the leather. Surprisingly resourceful, they can be.”

THE HUNT 55

We sit stil as he fi nishes writing. He snaps the notebook shut, starts speaking again.

“Myth three: They are a male- dominated society. This is another myth perpetuated by previous Heper Hunts. You’ve al heard about it, how it’s always the men who take charge— futilely; the men who make al the decisions— the wrong ones, as we also know.

The women typicaly do nothing but folow. Folowers. Submissive.

We thought this was simply how they were ge ne ticaly wired: men dominate, women submit. But our research has produced some startling results. Currently, we have fi ve hepers in captivity, al but one of which is male. Four males, only one female. Want to wager a guess who’s the leader?” His eyes sparkle with excitement.

“This is one of the more surprising discoveries. In fact, it was I who was the fi rst to spot the trend. Even early on, when the hepers were mere toddlers, it was I who noted that the sole female heper seemed to be in the forefront of everything. A natural- born leader.

Today, she is without question the leader of the pack. They look to her for . . . wel, everything. Where she goes, they folow. What she commands, they obey. During the Hunt, if you want to cut off the head from the body, you take her out fi rst. With her out of the the head from the body, you take her out fi rst. With her out of the picture, the group wil quickly disintegrate. Easy pickings, thereafter.”

He licks his lips.

“This girl. Al of you have seen her, in fact. On TV— she was the one who picked the last number. That wasn’t supposed to happen, of course. We would never have put a female on the airwaves, especialy one so young. We know the effect a young female heper has on people. It was supposed to be a little boy heper. But she . .

.

wel, before we knew it, she took control of the situation and put herself in front of the camera. That girl . . .” His words grow slithery with saliva. Spittle colects at the corners of his mouth.

His eyes grow distant; he is lost in some dreamland. When he 56

ANDREW FUKUDA

speaks, his voice is soft with desire. “She would be delicious, so . .

.”

He snaps out of it with a quick fl ick of his head. “I digress. My apologies. The offi cial who let that happen is no longer with us.”

He scratches his wrist, once, twice.

“There are other myths,” he continues, “and other discoveries we

“There are other myths,” he continues, “and other discoveries we wil disclose to you over the next few days. But for now, absorb what we’ve just told you. Use this new knowledge to aid you in the Hunt: First, hepers are afraid to fl ee into the unknown; and second, they can be trained to be aggressive. And they do not mind having a woman lead them. Not this one, anyway.”

He slips away deeper into his dark corner; blackness swalows him. Nothing happens for the next few minutes. Nobody moves, nobody speaks. We sit, blasé faces and glazed stares. Waiting for someone, something, to break the silence.

Then I sense it. A prick at the back of my neck: someone from behind is staring intently at me. The last thing to do— I hear my father’s voice instructing me— is turn around. Moving so drasticaly while everyone else is stationary wil only draw attention.

Unwanted
attention, as if there were any other kind.

But the prick sharpens until I can take it no longer. I let a pen in my hand fal to the ground; as I slowly swivel around to pick it up, I shoot a quick glance back.

It’s Ashley June, her eyes death green in the mercurial light.

She’s sitting
right
behind me. I almost startle in my seat—“startle”

is this refl ex where we jump a little in fright— but tamp it down is this refl ex where we jump a little in fright— but tamp it down just in time. I close my eyelids halfway— a trick my father taught me to make sure my eyes don’t widen too much— and turn around.

Did she see me startle?
Did she see me startle?

Somebody is at the lectern. Frily Dress from yesterday. “How are we al to night? Having fun?” She takes out a note pad, scans it, THE HUNT 57

then looks up, smiling. “We have a busy schedule to night. First, we’l tour the facilities— should take most of the night. Then, time and darkness permitting, we’l cap it off with a visit to the heper vilage just shy of two miles from the main building. If we’re running late and it gets too close to sunrise, then we’l have to push it off til tomorrow.” She looks at each of us, reading our expressions.

“Somehow I don’t think you’re going to alow that to happen. Shal we move on, then?”

What folows for the next few hours is a mind- numbingly tedious tour of the facilities. It’s nothing more than an amble along dark, endless halways. And emptiness. That’s what strikes me the most: how stil and empty everything is— the rooms, the halways, the very dank air we inhale, mere remnants and echoes of a busier, fuler, livelier era. Our escorts folow us, silently. The second fl oor is where the staff and hunters are housed, and we bypass it. The third fl oor is the science fl oor, for obvious reasons: from one end third fl oor is the science fl oor, for obvious reasons: from one end to the other, it’s lined with laboratories. A smel of musky formaldehyde permeates the whole fl oor. Although the guide speaks glowingly about each laboratory— this one used to study heper hair, this one to study heper laughter, this one heper singing

— it is obvious the laboratories have falen into disuse.

“This whole thing’s a crock, you know that, right?”

“Excuse me?” I turn to the el der ly man next to me. One of the hunters. We are in a lab previously used to study heper hair and fi ngernails. The man is leaning toward me, his gaunt frame tilting like a snapped pencil, his head slanted close to a sample of heper fi ngernails encased in a glass plate. His bald head is as shiny and hairless as the plate, but mottled over with age marks near his forehead. A few wisps of hair are combed across his gleaming head, 58 ANDREW FUKUDA

like thin strands of night clouds across the moon. We are alone at the back of a laboratory; everyone else is clustered near the front of the lab, where the (apparently) more exciting samples of heper hair are on display.

“A crock,” he whispers.

“These fi ngernails?”

He shakes his head. “This whole tour. This whole training period.”

I take a sideways glance at him. This is the fi rst time I’m seeing him up close, and he is older than I thought. Hair wispier, wrinkles deeper, the curve of his back more pronounced.

“Why do we need training?” His voice is gravely. “Just let us have at the hepers, already. We’l devour them in a minute. We don’t need training. We have our instinct, we have our hunger. What else do we need?”

“We need to draw this out. Savor the moment. Anticipation is half the enjoyment.”

It’s his turn to look at me. A brief look, but one that absorbs. I feel the suction of his brain taking me in. And then his approval.

I’ve been watching him a bit since yesternight. He stuck out, and I now know why. He doesn’t want to be here. Every other hunter (except me, of course) is ecstatic, has just literaly won the lottery of a lifetime. But his feet drag just so, his eyes fail to shine with the glee the others have, and everything about him seems to spel r-e-l-u- c-t- a-n- c-e. In short, he’s everything I’m feeling inside. A thought comes to my mind, but I dismiss it outright:
There’s no
chance he’s
a heper.
A real heper (like me) would be covering up those feelings (as I’m doing), not letting them hang out like dirty underwear for al to observe.

As I study him— his stiff, arthritic gait whittled down by age— it As I study him— his stiff, arthritic gait whittled down by age— it hits me why he’s so sulen. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance.

THE HUNT 59

Not against the younger hunters, who’l outrun and outgun him.

By the time he gets to the hepers, there won’t even be bones left to gnaw on. This Heper Hunt is torture for him, to be so close yet so far. No wonder he’s bitter. He’s a starving man at a banquet who knows there won’t even be crumbs left on the fl oor for him.

“There’s more going on here than meets the eye,” he says, stil bent over the glass plate.

I’m not sure what to say, so I wait for him to continue. But he doesn’t; he shuffl es to the front of the lab and joins the others, leaving me standing al alone.

After touring the laboratories on the third fl oor, we are taken to the fourth fl oor. We go through it quickly; it’s realy nothing more than a series of unused classrooms, the chairs inside propped upside down on desktops. At the far end is the auditorium. We stick our heads through the door to take a look. I smel a dusty dank-ness. Nobody wants to venture in, and we move on.

Eventualy we wind up on the top fl oor, the fi fth. The Control Center spans the ful length and width of this fl oor. The hubbub here is markedly different from the deadness of the lower fl oors.

here is markedly different from the deadness of the lower fl oors.

Clearly, this is the nerve center to the whole operation. Numerous computers and TV monitors glow from one end to the other.

Staffers are up and about, clipboards in hand, walking briskly between desks and cubicles and computer terminals. They’re al men, dressed in navy blue single- breasted jackets with peaked lapels and double vents, but slim to the fi t and streamlined. Three buttons run down the front of their jackets, emitting a dim mercurial light. They’re curious about us, and I catch them stealing furtive glances. We’re the heper hunters, after al. We’re the ones who get to eat and drink heper fl esh and blood.

Instead of concrete wals, large panel windows stretch from ceiling to fl oor, giving us an almost uninterrupted 360- degree view of 60

ANDREW FUKUDA

the outside. From up here, it feels as if we’re hovering above the moonlit plains spread below us.

The group moves over to the windows facing east. The Dome.

They al want to see the Dome.

It sits smal in the distance, a marble sliced in half, glimmering slightly under the stars.

“There’s nothing to see,” an escort says. “Al they do is sleep at night.”

night.”

“They never come out?”

“Hardly ever at night.”

“They don’t like the stars?”

“People. They don’t like people watching them.”

We stare in silence.

“It’s almost like they know we’re watching,” one of the hunters whispers.

“Bet there’s a bunch of them staring back at us. From inside one of those huts. Right now, as we speak.”

“They’re just sleeping now,” says an escort.

We’re al straining forward, hoping to catch some movement.

But al is stil.

“I heard the Dome opens at sunrise.”

The escorts glance at one another, not sure if they’re alowed to respond.

“Yes,” says an escort. “There are sunlight sensors that trigger the Dome. The Dome rises out of the ground two hours before dusk and retracts into the ground one hour after dawn.”

“So there’s no way to manualy open the Dome?” asks Ashley June. “From in here? A button to press or lever to pul that would open it?” There’s a protracted, intense silence.

“No. Everything is automated,” says an escort. “It’s al been THE

HUNT 61

taken out of our hands.” He has more to say, but he’s biting his tongue.

“Do you have any binoculars?”

“Yes. But there’s nothing to see. The hepers are al asleep.”

Everyone is so caught up with the Dome, nobody observes Ashley June slide away.

Except me.

I folow her from the corners of my eyes, turning my head when she slips altogether from my vision.

She drifts toward the back of the room where three rows of security monitors line the wal. Under the monitors sits a staffer, his head swiveling slowly from side to side and up and down as he head swiveling slowly from side to side and up and down as he scans the monitors above him. She stands very close behind him, edging closer, slowly, until a few strands of hair graze the side of his forehead.

He moves quickly, a slide to his right. She scratches her wrist, apologizing, scratching harder, making sure the moment becomes light and accidental. On his chair, he swivels around to face her, then stands. He’s baby- faced and inexperienced, and his bleary eyes take a while to take in what’s before him. A young lady, and a beautiful one at that. This man, his world fi led with an endless onslaught of digital screens, is taken aback by this sudden intrusion of fl esh.

Ashley June scratches her wrist more, trying to set him at ease. A moment passes, and he begins to scratch his wrist in return, cautiously at fi rst, then faster and surer. His eyes begin to gain focus and brighten.

She says something, but I’m too far away to hear. He answers, energy now beginning to course through his body, and points at a number of different monitors. She asks another question, her body turning slightly toward the monitors, inching closer to the man.