London Wild (16 page)

February stopped replacing the panel again and stared at Kitty. Her hand continued the fastening motion but slowly, half-heartedly. ‘You think the
re’d be more?’

‘Can you take the chance
that there aren’t?’ Kitty replied.

‘No,’ February said, ‘you’re quite right.’ She started to remove the panel again and then slowly strip
ped the weapon right down to its many components. In all she found four different objects that seemed to have no purpose in the working of the laser rifle itself. Four objects that could be tracking devices. Then she started to put the weapon back together again before she started on the second. The second weapon contained the same number of erroneous devices as the first, but they weren’t all in exactly the same places as the first, seeming to add weight to the idea that they were foreign to the weapon.

‘We should evacuate all houses the authorit
ies might know about,’ February commented as she returned the second panel. ‘That’ll include the regional headquarters in every district.’

‘Not all at once
, though,’ Kitty replied. ‘If the army begins to suspect that we know, they’ll attack that much sooner. Make the most of what they can.’

‘I know,’ February replied, ‘but I can only advise.’

‘Might they know where you live?’ Kitty asked simply.

‘I don’t think so
,’ February replied. ‘The last weapon I had I got from a civilian; I’m only changing now because it let me down earlier today in the heat of battle. I threw it away.’

‘At least they aren’t likely to come tonight then,’ Kitty sighed with relief
. ‘Don’t forget to check the energy cells and that bomb thing.’

February shook her head
. ‘I am not playing about with explosives. That goes to our leaders, and if they want to take it apart looking for tracking devices, then that’s up to them. I have enough knowledge to get away with playing about with laser rifles, maybe. Explosives, though, are beyond me and I’m not willing to get into them. If there is a device attached to them, then we will have to risk it.’

There was silence for a minute or two; even the local nightlife seemed to be keeping quiet this night. February
finished the second laser now and pressed a small button on its side that made sure all the circuits were how they should be before moving on to the energy cells.

When February was happy that both laser rifles and all the energy cells were clean
, she returned to the vehicle and grabbed the bomb. ‘Grab the body and put it on the back seat of my car. The blood should be dry enough to not stain the upholstery now. Oh, and turn off the headlights on that other car; no point letting the poor soul get his car back with drained cells.’

‘You hunt and kill humans, you steal cars and yet you worry that the car’s energy cells might run out before the vehicle is reclaimed? I’m not criticizing
; it just seems strange.’

‘We aren’t all gangsters like they show in holomovies. I hunt and kill to survive. I don’t kill unless I need to. Nor do I do more harm than absolutely necessary. We don’t need to drain the man’s energy cells, so we won’t.’

Kitty hovered over the body, hesitating to pick it up for a minute or two, trying to pluck up the courage to carry it the short distance to February’s car. February stood by her car; though she didn’t seem to be doing anything herself at that moment, she didn’t offer to help. It was obvious that she wanted Kitty to do this alone. Kitty had to get used to handling the dead if she was going to stand any chance of surviving in this world.

Once she had built up the courage to move the corpse
, Kitty found another problem she hadn’t expected. As she tried to take the body out of the car, she found that rigor mortis had set in, and the body was no longer as pliable as it had been. Kitty couldn’t just throw the corpse across her shoulders and try to ignore it as she had earlier. She had to use both arms and carry the body as best she could.

She felt clumsy as she lurched slowly towards February, and the uneven gravel ground made the journey more precarious than Kitty might have imagined. She made it to February’s car in one piece
, though.

February quickly unlocked the rear storage compartment and held it open, indicating that Kitty should place the body here instead.

‘I thought you said the back seat,’ Kitty grunted as she tried to place the body in the compartment.

February shrugged
. ‘I changed my mind. His blood stains should have dried, but I don’t want to risk it, and I can’t spend all of tomorrow cleaning congealed flakes out of the car.’

‘It won’t fit properly,’ Kitty said after a moment of trying to arrange the body in the compartment without touching it more than she really had to.

‘Break a bone or two if you have to,’ February replied. ‘He won’t mind, and the meat will still be edible with a few broken bones, don’t worry.’

Kitty gulped awkwardly
; it was bad enough to carry the corpse. She stepped back and had to breathe heavily for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and held her breath as she tried to force the body into the small space, but she was too delicate in her handling of the corpse and it just sprung out of the space again. She sighed, feeling quite ill. ‘I can’t do it.’

February shook her head. ‘Go and sit in the passenger seat. I’ll deal with it.’

Kitty did as she was bid, and no more than a minute later February joined her in the front of the car. Kitty closed her eyes, expecting some sort of verbal attack from the queen, but nothing of the like occurred. Instead February opened a small storage compartment, the descendant of the glove compartment, located between the two front seats and from it took a small makeup kit and a ginger wig.

‘Your disguise?’
Kitty asked. She felt a little nervous at saying anything, but the silence that had been building up was too much. She was still expecting February to yell at her for not dealing with the body; she even wanted February to yell at her, if only to get it over with.

‘If I was alone this disguise would be enough to get me
past my neighbors and into the house. With you, though, we’ll have to be very careful; if one of my neighbors spots you, explanations could be awkward.’

Kitty nodded
; they had been through this earlier. It was the reason they had waited until past midnight before coming even here. It was unlikely that any of February’s neighbors would still be up, and if they were they would be unlikely to venture out onto the street when there might be Herbaht out hunting. However small the chance, though, there was still a chance.

‘I’d like to change my top as well
; even when I have a disguise on, the bloodstains will be hard to explain away,’ February commented as she sorted out the various items in front of her.

Kitty seemed to notice the top for the first time that evening. Until then she had just assumed that that was the style
and color of top that February had chosen to wear that night. It had never occurred to her that the funny-looking red patterns on February’s top had been anything other than the way the material had been dyed.

February’s disguise was a pretty simple affair
: a wig to hide her natural hair color and some powder of a human flesh hue that she painted lightly over her facial stripes, all the time using a vanity mirror to make sure nothing had been missed. Finally she pulled out a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses and put them on. It might look silly, wearing sunglasses at night, but humans did it too sometimes, and they would hide her eyes until she got in the door.

‘I thought you
had contact lenses,’ Kitty piped in.

‘Usually yes,’ February replied,
‘but just sunglasses for now.’

February’s home was located just outside the official borders of the city of London in Upminster. The journey was made in virtual silence. Kitty was usually in bed by eleven in the evening at the latest
, and it was already a quarter to one. She was feeling quite tired from the day’s events and, of course, she was missing George. She wanted to mope, but she was scared of doing anything February might take exception to. February seemed to be a good friend, but she had only known her for a few short hours. She could still be left behind somewhere if she wasn’t careful.

February stopped the car at the end of the road
on which she lived and studied the street carefully, looking for any activity. This wasn’t as suspicious as it might seem, as many humans would normally check places for hunting Herbaht before venturing into them. When, after less than a minute, she was sure it was safe, she drove to her house and backed the vehicle under the carport.

‘Do you live alone?’ Kitty asked; she felt she should’ve asked that question earlier, but only when she saw the house did the possibility that February was married even occur to her. ‘Is there a husband, some kids I should know about?’

February giggled. ‘I’m only seventeen. Though I suppose I might’ve found a husband by now, which I haven’t. I really wouldn’t want to be tied down with children so young, so no, neither.’

Kitty was speechless. This queen
who had been ordering her around all night was six years younger than she was. Kitty had assumed that February was at least the same age as she.

‘Wait here for a minute,’ February told Kitty. She then climbed out of the vehicle and went to the front door. She tap
ped the entry code into the small panel on the door and placed her thumbprint against the glass sensor before the door opened.

February then studied the street
again, making sure it was devoid of activity before she indicated that it was safe for Kitty to join her.

Kitty climbed out of the vehicle carefully, nervous of the distance between her side of the car and the front door. She was nervous of all the windows that overlooked the street and nervous because she wasn’t used to all this creeping about.

A quick look round the hallway told her that February wasn’t very good at looking after her place, not like her master had been. There were three doors off of the hallway, as well as a set of stairs that led up to the next floor. One of these doors was closed, a second led to the kitchen and the third led through to the living room.

‘Make yourself at home in the living room, through there
,’ she told Kitty, pointing the way. ‘I’ll go and put the body in the larder.’

Kitty spent a moment wondering how often February had a dead body in the house. She wondered if there might be the remains of one there already from a previous hunt. The idea of a dead body in the same house as she was worrying her a little, but at least this time she wasn’t the one having to move it.

The living room was very similar to what she was used to; if slightly longer along one side, it was also slightly thinner along the other. A couch capable of seating three persons comfortably was positioned in the center of the room but at a slight angle, as if the sides of it were aimed at the corners of the room. The couch faced a flat screen high on the main wall opposite the door; this was the newspaper. Also on that wall was the main projector of the holoviewa. It was positioned at head height, with the other two projectors embedded in the corners adjacent to this wall at knee height. It was a cheaper model of holoviewa than her master owned, and it seemed to have no interactive interface. You could watch the movies, but you wouldn’t feel as if you were a part of them. The controllers for both the newspaper and the holoviewa were sitting on one of the arms of the couch. There was a small drinks cabinet just in front of the side of the couch furthest from the holoviewa. It had a two-foot square surface and sat on four wooden legs with a selection of fruit juices on the top, including grape, carrot, orange, lemon, strawberry and tomato juice.  As well as the couch, there were two armchairs. They were positioned next to each other and placed with their backs to one of the side walls so that they almost obscured the holoviewa projector on that side.

The main difference
from what she was used to was the table in the corner opposite the door, positioned behind the other side of the couch from the drinks cabinet. On this table sat a sturdy-looking computer with a very lightweight-looking monitor and voice box. Around the computer itself were all sorts of small devices which would be unnecessary to the standard computer user but which were a must to any self-respecting programmer.

Kitty decided to take February at her word and poured herself a glass of grape juice before taking up residence in one of the armchairs. She sipped thoughtfully at the juice and held her head gently in her other hand
; it was threatening her with pain if she didn’t start trying to sleep.

No more than ten minutes passed before February joined Kitty in the living room. Kitty didn’t notice her at first because she had started to doze while holding her glass of juice at quite a precarious angle.

She then sat up with a jolt, spilling a little of the drink when she realized her friend had entered. She looked a little guilty.

‘I said to make
yourself at home,’ February grinned. ‘I guess you must be very tired after tonight. Would you like a drink?’ She grimaced as she caught herself asking the question and nodded as Kitty pointed to the glass she already held. She went over to the drink cabinet and proceeded to pour an orange juice for herself from those available.