Drawing Dead (41 page)

“They cannot,” Tracker said, his tone clearly indicating that he was simply stating a fact.

“What makes you such an expert?” Tiger snapped at him. “My tribe existed long before yours was formed. If anyone would know—”

“I am not stating tribal knowledge,” Tracker said, patiently. “This is deduction only. I
feel
the truth of deduction, but logic isn't spiritual.”

“Hey! How about the both of you speak English, okay?”

Tracker and Tiger both shifted position to look directly at Buddha. They internally reconfirmed their ongoing agreement not to waste insults on a man immune to such.

“If those who originally hired us to collect a specimen—not the blond one and the Asian; the agency who paid their salaries—if that agency had
any
indication that Cross could be…touched by what they sought, they would have acted upon that information by now,” Tracker said. “He didn't
have
that…mark, or brand, or whatever you call it; he didn't get it until…well, we don't know, exactly. But it was
after
that thing they all trapped down in that prison basement escaped.”

“And you think, because we all can see it, a surveillance camera could as well?” Tiger asked.

“Why not?” Buddha demanded. “
We
didn't all get to see it at the same time. I mean, it wasn't visible right away.”

“Not to you,” Tiger said, disdainfully.

“Fine.” Buddha shrugged off her scorn. “And so what? If it came to some of us slower than others, why couldn't it reach the G, eventually?”

“They have not abandoned surveillance,” Tracker said.

“There's a better reason,” Cross spoke. “We know for sure from what Ace just told us. Percy's hunting Blondie and Wanda, not me. The G's made up its mind: either this…thing doesn't exist at all, or they're gonna need another ten years to come up with a new plan.

“Probably the first—we're about to have an election, remember? Even if they keep most of that agency, whatever it is, even if they keep on the same personnel, you think they want to report that something from…who knows where…has been watching
them
?”

“Percy?” Tiger snapped. “He's a thug, not a thinker. Whatever they tell him to do, it's no different from pushing a speed-dial button.”

“Okay,” Cross agreed. “And that means there's nothing personal in what he's doing. Hunting those two, that's an assignment. But none of this explains why Hemp gave that order in the first place.”

“That Lao told us.”

“Sure he did, Buddha. But he was
playing
the game—he didn't invent it. If the G wanted us dead, they'd just send in the troops. Percy's not the only asset they have.”

“Boss, look—”

“Shut up,” Tiger hissed at him. “It's
blinking
now. Can you feel it?” she asked Cross.

“No. Not like before. Look, we can't read whatever their messages are supposed to be. Mural Girl, she might know something, but even if she does, she's not gonna tell us anything more than she already has. We got a ton of information, but it's like a bunch of dots on a wall. We can take guesses, but it's just more dots—nothing connects.”

“It does now,” Rhino squeaked, stepping inside the room, one of the tablets almost completely covered by his closed hand.

“THIS ISN'T
what you'd expect,” Rhino said, the squeak barely present in his voice. “It was set up like an old-school video game.
Donkey Kong,
” the mammoth said, shaking his head in wonderment.

“I don't like that one,” Princess said. “It's no fun. That big gorilla on top, he'd never want to be friends.”

“You know, there's some people like that, too,” Rhino said gently. “But this wasn't a puzzle. More of a…taunt, I guess. Every little node held a coding test. If you passed the test—I don't mean if you knew some password, more like a skills test—if you got through one node, there'd be another. It didn't get…trickier as you went along. It was more like—”

“Ninja Warrior!”
Princess interrupted. “That's not a game; it's real. But the players, they don't fight each other. Like one of those…obstacle courses, right?”

“Exactly like that,” Rhino said, giving Princess a look that told the hyper-muscled man that it was time to stay quiet. “No antagonism involved. No ‘Hah! You lose!' kind of pop-ups. But there was some kind of perverted sense of humor in the whole thing. If you could work your way past…past every obstacle, just like Princess said, you ‘qualified' for that
Donkey Kong
game.”

“This is difficult to follow,” Tracker said. “Are you saying what is on that tablet is some qualifying test?”

“Yes.”

“As in the military, then? You have to prove many things about yourself besides the ability to shoot before you would be admitted to their sniper training?”

“Maybe. I don't know what kind of mind would build this,” Rhino said, gesturing with the tablet held between thumb and forefinger of his left hand. “But it might have a message of its own.”

“That this is all some game?” Tiger said. “That would be
exactly
like that Wanda bitch. For her, it probably
is
a game.”

“You're saying she
doesn't
want us all dead?” Cross asked, firing another cigarette as he spoke.

“The blond man, he is a coyote,” Tracker said. “Not a transporter,” he added quickly, as he saw Buddha start to interrupt, “a trickster. But he has many more layers than any shape-shifter. He is as cold-blooded as a Gila monster, but his venom is not for hunting. Or even for self-defense. It is as if both merged inside him. His blood
is
venom. There is no shortage of places where this quality would make him valuable. And with that woman to help, they could have departed for such places long ago.”

“He's hanging around just for revenge?”

“He would not understand that concept,” Tracker answered Cross. “He would not seek insight into his own motives. He would never question himself. But it would not be possible for him to…fail. Were he to fail…fail at anything he undertook…he would not be losing a game, or a contest. Or even a war. He would lose himself.”

“You know this…?”

“From watching. Listening. Breathing the same air. For a long time. I was there first. Before Tiger, I mean. And she is very sensitive. But, for Tiger, ‘sensitive' is a double-edged blade. One with no handle.”

Tiger took a breath. But this time, the breath was shallow. Cross watched her right hand. The slim pair of daggers strapped to her thigh
did
have handles. Tracker went very still.

Sweetie launched across the room, airborne from the first thrust of his hindquarters. And landed in Tiger's lap.

“He doesn't want you to get mad,” Princess said, walking over to the Amazon. “Me, neither.”

“I wasn't mad, honey.”

“Yes, you were. Sweetie could tell.”

“I give it off
that
much?” she asked Cross.

“Tracker hit one of your spots, that's all.”

“My spots?”

“Tigers have
stripes,
” Princess said, now standing between Tiger and the rest of the room.

“Princess, easy, okay? Tiger's not mad”—looking meaningfully at the warrior-woman, catching the slight nod of her head—“she just wants me to explain what I was talking about.”

“That is
so
true, sweetheart,” she said to Princess. “I'm not mad. Not at all. Nobody's going to hurt me. And I'm not going to hurt anyone. Okay?”

“I…”

“Princess, baby, you know I'd never lie to you.”

“I know. I was just…”

“You and Sweetie, both. Sure. He's a
very
smart dog. Maybe the smartest dog in the whole world.”

“You hear that?” Princess asked the Akita, scooping him up in both arms and carrying him away like the animal was a piece of spun glass. “I knew it! You're a…genius or something. Didn't I tell you, Rhino?”

“You did,” the patient giant confirmed.

“I am still waiting—”

“Your spots,” Cross cut her off. “I meant a trigger point. Everybody has them—some are just buried deeply, that's all.”

“I trained for years before I ever—”

“It doesn't matter. You trained to fight. That's a test you've never failed. Tracker has it in him. How he got his name. That gift. He wouldn't need his eyes to follow a trail.”

“I wouldn't need mine, either. So he picked up on me thinking Blondie is slime, so what? I could tell Tracker thought the same. That blond…thing, he had no respect for either of us—we were the hired help. Remember back in that rolling office the G had, when Tracker offered to share tobacco with you? You knew what that meant. Not Blondie. That wasn't something he'd understand. Or care about if he did.”

“That's him, sure.”

“But all I did was despise him, right? What good is that? Tracker, he was
studying
him. That's what you're really saying, isn't it?”

“No,” Cross said.

Minutes passed. Tiger blinked first. “So what
are
you saying?”

“Tracker respected
your
gifts. Wanda was outside anything he'd ever encountered. But you were probing for a way into her. Tracker could…feel that. So he left you to your work and went about his. Okay
now
?”

Tiger looked over at Tracker, caught the Indian's confirmatory nod, and settled back inside herself, shifting her body to tell Rhino she wouldn't be interrupting him again.

“Your wife's analysis was correct,” Rhino said, clearly referring to Buddha. The pudgy man with adjustable scopes behind his unblinking eyes said nothing, waiting for whatever else was to come. “I only brought back one of the tablets—the other one made a little snapping sound when I tried to get into it,” Rhino went on. “Probably the bellows mechanism—it discharged a spurt of some yellowish gas. Anyone opening it without protection would gasp at the sound
or
the sight. Either way, it would be his
last
gasp.”

“What's that got to do with—?”

“So Long connected all of this to that No-Chance Gaming Parlor. It was full of those who believe themselves capable of winning any online game, and telling them they had no chance of winning would only entice them to prove themselves. Every gambler is
sure
the next spin of the wheel will land on his number. But if the wrong tablet were to be opened—they are identical in appearance—the wheel would land on zero. There was, indeed, ‘no chance.'

“So the first obstacle would be random. But even if the coded tablet were opened first, the second one would be opened at some point. Maybe in the belief that there would be some work-around to the first one stored on it. Or even a key to the coding. So, while it appears that the odds were fifty-fifty, they were actually nonexistent—any gamer would lose.”

“That Wanda is one evil bitch,” Buddha said.

“Amen, brother!” Ace echoed.

“We expected them
both
to be looking for revenge,” Cross said. “But that was off—Blondie wouldn't care, and Wanda wouldn't come to us.”

“That
is
her,” Tiger agreed. “But if she gave us a way to find her…”

“She didn't,” Rhino said. “This was her own version of Mural Girl's wall. A way to transmit messages. Messages only we could understand.”

“You think she knew—?”

“Oh,
hell,
yes,” Cross said, blowing twin jets of smoke from his nose as he spoke. “I don't know whatever she had going with Blondie. Maybe nothing. Maybe it was her own game, and only the G could get her access to all that equipment she wanted. Maybe Blondie was just part of a package she put up with. But it was a
camera
we used to pick up those playing-card messages from Mural Girl's wall, right? Not our own eyes, so there couldn't have been anything special you'd need to see them.”