Animalis (8 page)

Chapter 7

Shootout

As the Atticus descended to hit the runway, Jax took in the view of the city. Nestled among the teal veins of the bay, Port Hedland was part cruise ship resort, part industrial wasteland. On the west half of the city, cranes and dull gray warehouses fought for water access. To the east, Jax’s retina monitor lit up with luxury hotel names, amusement parks, and adventurous outback excursions, each with translucent icons extending up into the sky. To the south, where the plane was descending to, was the airport. The landing strip led to the corner of the massive half-circle complex of private and commercial boarding gates. Each line of planes radiated out from the center, where the four quarter-mile launch shafts extended into the air.

“What do you mean, kangaroos? Are you talking Animalis kangaroos?” Jax asked as he and Hank stepped down the staircase once they had landed.

Above them, the morning twilight was just breaking into a brilliant Australian dawn. Thousands of feathery clouds cut purple and pink slices into the deep blue sky. Jax could hear a constant, deep drone coming from somewhere in the airport, and it gave the atmosphere a palpable charge. Spring birds chirped and flitted past, dancing with and chasing each other. In the distance, the blare of horns from ships coming into port signaled that the city was about to come alive.

“In case the transport team loses the Animalis cargo, we’ll be more dynamic on foot and could continue to follow. These kangaroos are a world-famous attraction. Forty-five miles per hour … can jump farther than their animal counterparts.” Hank leaped from the last stair and landed with a dusty puff on the orange desert walkway.

The ground cover of the airport was impressive and brought Jax the instant satisfaction of visiting the Australian Outback. Trees and prickly shrubs broke up the winding paths. He became excited when he saw an exotic lizard sunbathing on the surface of one of the large, red rocks. As he watched, the lizard perked up, scurried to the edge of the rock, and disappeared, flattening back down into the surface of the rock. The wall screen surface of the rock had fooled him.
Clever.

Just beyond the next section of desert, beside a large rock formation, were the two kangaroo Animalis. They stood talking while leaning back on their thick tan-and-white tails. Their khaki shorts and shirts were straight and starched, and matched the expedition hats they both wore. Straps from a harness looped over their shoulders and connected with a heavy buckle across the chest. One of them turned, noticing Jax and Hank approaching.

“G’day, mates! I’m Talon and this here’s Wes. Starting bright and early today, aren’t we? So much to see.”

As it stepped closer to them, stirrups bouncing at the hips, Jax could see the legs moving with distinctly inhuman muscle and tendon structures. The furry limbs had looked almost human while standing still.

Talon smiled as he stopped in front of them. “We can take you to all the best—”

“We’re not sightseeing, and we’re in a hurry,” Hank said, cutting off Talon’s prepared speech. He held his hand up to his ear, listening to a conversation in his earpiece. “Right. Captain, the transport team has pulled in behind the rat plane. Cargo is being unloaded, they could start to move at any moment. Me and Jax are just about mobile, and will be on site within five minutes.”

The kangaroo closest to Jax, the one named Wes, turned and squatted. “Hold the horn up here, mate.” It pointed to a thick handhold at the top of the harness. “Once you get one foot in the stirrup here, you can climb on.”

“Don’t forget to buckle up,” Talon said.

Jax stepped up to his ride, the long, horse-like head watching him from under the brim of the hat. He pressed his foot into the stirrup and grabbed the horn, just above waist height, while the kangaroo was bent over.

Once he had mounted it and buckled the belt around his waist, he felt the strength of the legs as the Animalis lifted him. He had expected it to feel like an awkward piggyback ride, but the Animalis was powerful and sturdy. With his weight spread between the seat and the stirrups, Jax felt like he was riding a force instead of an animal.

“Atta boy. Here we go.” Wes started to bob, lifting and lowering Jax. The motion slowly built to a stationary hop. “First time in Australia, mate? Port Hedland is a beautiful city. For just two hundred more a day, I can be your tour guide and transportation. You can’t get a better deal than that, not inside the city.”

“Nope!” Talon called out. “Not in
this
city, mates.”

“We need to go to Terminal G-2,” Hank said, ignoring the offer.

“Our pleasure,” they both said.

The hops turned seamlessly into bounding leaps, and they lurched forward. The walkway in front of them split, going around a grotesque tree and several large rocks. But the kangaroos weren’t slowing or turning. Jax wanted to pull on the shirt to make it move. It was out of control; the stupid thing was going to crash.

“Hey, turn!” he yelled at the kangaroo.

“Everything’s keen, mate. Enjoy the ride.”

It didn’t slow, but instead gave an extra powerful leap and shot over the gnarled tree. Beside them, Talon hopped on a rock beside the tree and launched high onto one of the towering rock formations and kept going. They both landed on the walkway again and started to leap side to side, like slalom skiers, down the path.

Jax forgot about his fear as it was quickly replaced with exhilaration. The hops were powerful and precise, and intelligent. And because the kangaroos were small, it felt like he was the one rocketing across the terrain. Jax held the horn tight and enjoyed the ride.

The kangaroos passed under an archway and Jax could see travelers starting to make their way down the rows of private planes.

There were more Animalis than Jax had expected to see. Kangaroo, koala, and dingo were scattered around, some carrying bags and luggage, while some seemed to be there as characters in a living amusement park. Jax was shocked to see an alligator Animalis, though it did have a restraining collar, and seemed to be in a controlled, exhibition environment. If it broke free, would it snap up one of the smaller Animalis, like in the arena videos?

They passed through a second pair of arches into the next courtyard, lined with more private planes. Like a small patch of junkyard, the rat’s scrap-heap of a plane sat decomposing between two new, clean, normal-looking planes.

“Just arrived on site,” Hank said to his earpiece. He waited for a moment, listening, gave an acknowledgment, then spoke to Jax: “We’ll wait over here till they start to move.”

The kangaroos stopped near a bench and a drinking fountain, and they crouched for an easy dismount. Hank’s stirrup twisted, holding onto his foot as he tried to climb off. “You see anything from here?” he asked Jax. “Keep an eye out for that lion. We need to confirm if she is here,” he said, struggling to remove his foot.

“Oh, there’s a lioness alright,” Talon said. “Smells like some other strange Animalis as well.”

Jax tilted Hank’s stirrup to release his foot. “You smell them?” He gazed up at the large ears. “Can you hear them saying anything?”

The ears began twitching. “No. Sorry, not over the moan of that turbine.”

The droning sound of the huge turbine had disappeared when Jax had grown accustomed to it, but he realized it gave the air a thickness, like a kind of fog over his ears.

“We don’t have visual confirmation, but our kangaroos smell the lioness,” Hank said, holding his hand to his ear. He looked surprised. “Right. Yes, we’ve masked our scents.” He removed his hand.

Once they had remounted, Hank put his hand to his ear again. He listened for a moment and then turned to Jax. “They’ve started to move.”

Jax saw a cargo truck with a big blue stripe pull away from behind the plane and start moving silently down the row of planes.

“We need to follow that truck,” Jax ordered the kangaroos.

“Do whatever you have to not to lose it. But if you can, keep your distance,” Hank added.

“Right, we like a good chase. Eh, Wes?”

The kangaroos began bounding after the truck. On the road behind the planes, a second truck floated along silently, following after the cargo truck.

“There’s the staff sergeant’s unit,” Hank said, pointing to the truck.

As they approached the outer walls of the airport, the Outback areas started to shrink, and the building structures began to loom overhead. The truck turned, following the traffic that was leaving the airport.

“There!” Jax said. “Here, turn here, now.”

The kangaroo kept going straight. “I dunno, mate. That area is cars only.”

Talon started to pull to the left, where the truck had gone. “It’s dangerous,” he said. “But that there’s the spirit of the Outback.”

“Yes, we can’t lose that transport,” Hank said. “Turn now!”

“Hold on to that horn,” Talon said.

He veered sharply and hopped onto the street filled with cars, trucks, and taxis. The flow of traffic in each of the three lanes was smooth and constant, and where Talon hopped, fast-moving vehicles swarmed and filled in around him.

Jax was next to enter the gauntlet. Wes took two bounds toward the road and leaped headlong into the mass. The car coming up in the lane buzzed with a static charge as the city’s traffic computer readjusted the flow of traffic to avoid the new obstruction.

Wes turned to see the car coming at them and put his foot up to brace the impact. “You’re far from the most dangerous thing out here in Australia.”

There was a sharp smack from the impact. Wes struck down on the car, tipping the front bumper down to the surface of the road, and leaped backward. Lights flashed on the car and a warning sounded. “You are obstructing the public roadways,” an officially dull voice said. “Please use designated crosswalks.”

They landed back in a hop and dodged between the cars in front of them. Jax tightened his grip on the horn. It was all just for show, but it was a good show.

“Come on, Wes,” Talon called. He and Hank floated past overhead, riding on one of the levitating trucks.

“Aw, riding a car. That’s no fun,” Wes said to Jax.

Ahead of them, the traffic was starting to pick up speed. The towering skyscrapers of the core of the city rose above the large gates of the airport. Gold shimmered up and down the walls of glass, reflecting the rising sun.

Hank put his hand to his ear. “Are you still tracking them, Felix? Me and Jax are falling behind. Give me your location updates and we’ll try to catch up.”

With another powerful leap, Wes hit the side of another smooth-surfaced car, using it to bounce higher and land on the roof of a truck. Talon and Hank were a few cars ahead, watching the cargo transport a block ahead of them. Warm air whipped around them. Wes reached up and held his hat from blowing away.

“Let’s catch up,” Wes said.

Now Jax was ready to put his trust in the kangaroo. Wes hopped in place, waiting for the truck to get into a better position in the traffic. When the car in the next lane began to overlap their truck, Wes bounced onto its roof. The car sank a few inches while the city traffic program adjusted for the new weight. When the electromagnetism increased, propelling the car farther away from the surface of the road, Wes leaped again, shooting into the air as if it were a trampoline.

After a few propelled jumps from roof to roof, Jax and Wes passed Hank. Talon joined in hopping from car to car, chasing after the transport. The two kangaroos hopped through another plaza toward the gates to the airport. They leaped through the gate and were out in the city.

“Aw, there she is. Didn’t lose her for a second. Not to worry,” the kangaroo under Jax said. It bounded back down into the road, making some of the intelligently controlled cars hover to a stop.

“Is that it?” Jax asked. “How do you know it’s the same truck?”

The transport was nearly two blocks ahead of them. Jax had seen several other trucks with big blue stripes as they had hopped through the airport; it could easily be a different cargo truck. As he watched, the staff sergeant’s truck moved in behind it.

“Oh, yes, that’s her alright,” Wes said. “There’s subtle differences, whether it’s the age of the metal, the way sound comes off of it—little differences. I couldn’t tell you exactly what’s different, but I can always find it if it gets lost in a crowd. You two are in good hands.”

“This building on our left,” Talon said, pointing, “was used to house the first Animalis immigrants that were allowed to come into Australia.”

“Can’t you shut up and focus on keeping track of that transport?” Hank said. “Never mind, Felix, we’re still following them.”

Talon pulled his hand back to his chest and continued the chase in silence. The cargo truck pulled to the left as the streetlight over it switched from yellow to red, leaving the staff sergeant’s truck idling behind.

Talon and Wes quickly caught up to where the truck had turned. Since they were hopping along the sidewalk, they used the crosswalk and jumped in front of the staff sergeant. The smooth, curved surface of the truck was opaque, but Jax knew Felix and Maven would be in it, watching them pass, so he smiled.

Ahead, the cargo truck continued to move fluidly through the city. Behind, the staff sergeant’s truck continued to hit streetlights. Jax and Hank always seemed to be a block behind the cargo truck, but always, just when Jax was sure that they had lost it, the kangaroos would hop around another corner and the cargo truck would be there.