The Hunter's Pet (11 page)

Eventually though her curiosity drew her into the room, which smelled like William at rest and where a great electronic book was laid out on the desk. What had he spent so many hours doing with that great tablet? He was always tapping away in his spare time, eschewing more engaging entertainment for what seemed to her to be a very repetitious and mind-numbing activity.

There was something on the screen when she sat down in his chair. Sentences upon sentences, a veritable barrage of words. He must have put them all there one by one. Why, she could not imagine. She did know that there must be some meaning hidden in the text.

Sitting down, Sarah tried to puzzle out the words. She saw what she knew was her name repeated several times. She realized that he must be writing about her.

“Hello, you.” William’s deep drawl interrupted her investigation. “What are you doing there?”

“Just looking,” she said, hoping she was not in trouble. She’d had her fill of trouble for a while.

“Oh, yes, finding it interesting?”

“This is my name,” she said, pointing to an instance of the word ‘Sarah.’ She could have pointed to almost any place in the text, it appeared there so often.

“It is.”

“Why are you writing about me?”

“It’s not just about you,” he said, coming around behind her and putting a calming hand on her shoulder. “I write about the wilds. The animals that live there, and the humans who do too. City dwellers don’t know much about wildling culture. There has been a great deal of divergence between our two societies over the years.”

“What did you write about me?”

“I wrote that you’re a very unique creature, a civilian gone feral completely disconnected from existing wildling tribes.”

“Did you write that I am pretty?”

His lips twisted in amusement. “Why don’t you try reading what’s there?”

“It’s faster if you tell me.”

“It will be more rewarding if you read it yourself. Try this word.” He put his finger up to a word that seemed too long and too complex to be bothered working out. It started with a B, ended with an L, and had a whole lot of other letters in between.

She looked up at him. “Just tell me.”

“Just read it.”

Concentrating, Sarah tried. There were vowels after the B. Three of them. E. A. U. She had no idea how one might even begin to sound out such a mess of round sounds, so she moved on to the more comfortable hard letter. T. T was good. She knew where she was with T. Then an I. Then an F.U.L. She knew what that sound was. Ful. Puzzling over the word for long seconds, she found it began to form in her mind. It was a nice word. A very nice word.

“Beautiful?”

“That’s right,” he said, kissing the back of her neck. “You’re beautiful. And now it’s a matter of public record.”

“Public?”

“Once I publish this, it will be added to the archives that are shared digitally between all the cities. Millions of people will know of you and your beauty.”

A little smile spread across Sarah’s face. “What else did you say about me?” She scanned the text eagerly, suddenly interested in the art of reading. “This word,” she mused aloud. “What is this word… S…T…U…B…B…O…R…N.”

“You are stubborn,” William said, “and a great many other things besides.”

She could not disagree with that. She would have liked to have read more, but for once, William had other ideas.

“If you have had your fill of reading, then perhaps you’d like to come out with me today. An order has been put in for ten wild ducks for the celebrations of the upgrades.”

“Upgrades?”

“The city has been adjusting the technology it runs on for some time. All cities do it, but the engineers like to pat themselves on the back when they manage not to kill us all.” He smirked down at her and squeezed her shoulder. “And now we get to provide them with the finest wild meats.”

Sarah did not need to be asked twice. She bounced up from the chair and went to get her armor. She still did not like it, it made her heavy and stiff and annoyed, but it was the price of freedom and one she’d gladly pay. She even stood willingly by the front door and let him slip her tracking collar over her neck.

“You’re being so good,” he praised, simultaneously patting her bottom and kissing her cheek. His praise was genuine and warmed her from the inside. She leaned against him a little and was rewarded with a hug.

They left the city quickly. She avoided the indignity of the crate, but that meant putting up with the nine-minute journey on the whizzing sky platform, which still made her stomach lurch and her palms sweat. William made the trip standing, she sat at his feet, trying not to obviously cower. She would never truly become accustomed to the city, she thought to herself as she wrapped her arms around his left thigh for support and comfort.

She forgot her fear the moment the platform landed and they made their way to the exit. William’s documents were stamped and they were waved through, out into the verdant green that grew thickly around the base of the concrete dome. There was very little between the city and the wilds, not so much as a seam of dead space. Creeping tendrils and mosses and little crawling creatures all made incursions up the walls, attempting an invasion that was as insistent as it was futile.

With a little cry of glee, Sarah ran into the bosom of the wild, leaping into the air and dashing from place to place, tearing through the undergrowth and swinging from branches. It was like being returned to the womb. Being in the wilds gave her a sense of belonging and connection that nothing in the city did. William was kind enough and confident enough not to be concerned by her exuberance; she knew he was somewhere behind her, out of sight but with a clear bead on her location.

He let her run herself out and eventually came upon her panting her glee in a sunny beam that filtered through an opening in the canopy, flooding the surrounding glade with beautiful life-giving radiation. Sarah stretched out in it, having removed her armor to feel the heat on her skin better. He frowned when he saw that.

“What did I tell you about wearing your armor?”

“You would put lead boots on a fish and tell it to swim,” she complained.

William’s hands moved to his hips. He didn’t say another word as she reluctantly donned her armor. True, it was less likely a wild cat would put its fangs through her belly while she was wearing it, but it was going to make her sweat and it was going to slow her down and she had every intention of convincing him to let her take it off soon.

“Let’s start the hunt,” he said. “I think you’ve run yourself out for now.”

“If we’re hunting birds, that means nothing but sitting and waiting until they land on the waters. You don’t need me for that.”

“I don’t need you,” he said. “I want you. Now come.”

She didn’t know whether to be pleased that he wished her nearby or annoyed that he was so controlling. She settled on pleased as she followed him toward the lake, which contained many brightly colored schools of fish that played in vast numbers along the rocky walls. It was not a natural formation, it was a crater from a great explosion that had taken place a very, very long time ago. So long that fish native to the lake had sprung up with feathered facial whiskers and bright orange and yellow hues. Sarah lay down alongside the bank and watched them swirl around one another, hunting little insects and larvae that spun gold and green in the warm water.

William was more alert, his weapon across his knees as he sat and waited with keen patience. Though he lacked the genes that tuned her in to nature more than other humans, William was an impressive predator. When he settled into his hunting mode he became still as death, his dark eyes focused on the spot where his prey would soon be. He barely moved at all, every muscle relaxed and yet completely ready to move with slow precision.

An unfortunate bird landed on the lake, sending ripples through the water and making the fish scatter momentarily. Sarah watched quietly as William raised the gun in one smooth motion and discharged it with accuracy so great that the bird did not know its end was upon it until it was over. It fell to the side, listing in the water instantly dead.

“You want to get that for me, please?”

“Not wearing a hundred pounds of armor, I don’t.”

“Take it off then, brat,” he said, swatting her ass.

She grinned, stripping off not just her armor, but her clothing as well. Slipping into the water naked as a nymph, she leisurely paddled out to the bird and brought it in, handling it with due reverence. Once on shore, she wrapped it in leaves and placed it carefully inside William’s sack. He watched her with a fond sort of amusement. She knew he found her prey rituals strange; after all, what did it matter what happened to the animal once it was dead? Sarah had never been able to escape the feeling that the creature was still about in some form, returned to the wild from whence it had come. Kindness to one’s prey was kindness to oneself.

Still dripping, she sat next to William and put a wet hand on his knee. He raised a brow at her, but did not compel her to remove it. The rest of the hunt was peaceful, largely because no further fowl made landings. The afternoon’s labors turned into lazing by the lake with nothing to do but make idle conversation and enjoy the bounty of the wilds.

“Well,” William eventually said. “I suppose we’re going back with just the one bird.”

“That’s not going to go very far.”

“No, but it will fetch a pretty price.” He winked at her. She still did not entirely understand how the animals he caught translated into riches, and she did not much care either. He was happy, which meant that things were good.

They made their way back toward the city, but as they mounted a ridge that separated the city from the lake, William stopped in his tracks.

“Something’s wrong.”

Something was very wrong. The dome of the city was glowing bright red. Sarah had never seen it that way before; it looked like an angry volcano about to spew forth lava. The city proper, sometimes visible even from a distance through the dome, was obscured completely by the vapor, which was turning dark before their eyes.

“God,” William said, his voice dry and tight with horror. “My god.”

Sarah knew something terrible was happening, but there was nothing either of them could do. There was a sound like a giant egg being cracked and then plumes of red-black smoke began to pour from the dome, filling the sky and blocking out light from the sun.

“Sarah…” William’s words were cut off by a reverberation that shook the ground beneath their feet. “Get down!”

Sarah dropped into a crouch. She was glad she had, for in the next instant there was an explosion that shook the ground so violently that it was impossible to keep her feet. She went sprawling and William landed atop her, covering her body with his own.

His weight was not inconsiderable, but it was a comfort with the chaos that was raining down all around them. Bits of charred glass and twisted metal were flying through the air like hot shrapnel. It took a long time for the shaking to stop and when it did, the silence was so complete and eerie that her every hair stood on end.

“Are you alright?” William breathed the question against her neck.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you?”

“Yeah.” He stood up and shielded his eyes. “The city is gone.”

It truly was gone. Only a crater remained where the city had once been, blackened and hollowed out.

“What happened?”

“A fatal malfunction,” William said grimly. “A total overload of the power grid.”

“We should see if we can help anyone.”

“There’s no one left,” he said. “In the case of a fatal malfunction the entire city is evacuated through the subterranean shuttles. A whole city can be cleared in less than three minutes.”

“And if people don’t get out?”

“People get out,” William repeated himself with grim confidence. “Nobody stays behind in a fatal malfunction. The heat generated in a total overload is enough to vaporize anyone near it.” He rubbed his hand over his face, shaking his head with shocked dismay. “Every city is briefed about the possibility, but nobody actually expects it to happen.”

“It’s all gone,” Sarah said. “The house…”

“My work,” William frowned. “It wasn’t saved to the city’s servers. It is lost. All lost.”

Sarah once would have danced for joy at seeing the city destroyed, but William’s sadness made her morose. He was shocked and he was shaken, though he was clearly trying to remain strong, the notion that his labors had been lost was hitting him hard.

“What now?” The question had to be asked. “Will we follow where they evacuated?”

“It is too late to follow,” William said. “The heat will have sealed those tunnels, and the other cities are thousands of miles away.”

It took a few moments for the reality of the situation to sink in for Sarah. It was really gone. All of it. The terrifying flying platforms, the cruel bureaucrats, the stinking kennels, all incinerated into their composite parts.

Next to her, William held the bird he’d caught. It was all he had left, besides the clothes on his back and the weapons in his holster. In the blink of an eye, he’d gone from a member of a powerful collective to a man alone in the wilderness, a wildling without any genetic protections. Somehow she sensed that he wasn’t really registering the totality of his loss.

“We need to move away from this area as quickly as possible,” he said. “There’s a possibility of fires and airborne contamination. Let’s go.”

He was more interested in surviving the disaster than being emotional about it. She admired his strength, which had never shone more strongly than in that moment. It was easy for a man to be strong when fate was smiling on him, but adversity showed the true nature of all creatures. Without a second look back at the crater that had once been his home, William strode out into the unknown. Sarah followed quickly on his heels.

They fast marched away from the crater, making very good time as adrenaline surged through both their bodies. In all her time in the city Sarah had never imagined such a terrible force was boiling below it. She had never given any thought to the power that kept the place in pristine condition, all the widgets and the gadgets and the marvels that had defied nature. The memory of the meltdown was fresh in her memory, playing itself over and over again with red surging glow and rancid scent carried on the breeze.