The Huntress (6 page)

“Yeah? Oh, Mea. You look like shit, Hunter.”

“Thanks, Boss. You’re a dream come true yourself.”

“Got a full load?”

“I’ve got more than that and trouble besides. I think Bragan’s gone over the edge or at least he’s teetering there.”

“What happened?”

She turned so that her shoulder was fully visible. It was a gory mess. “I didn’t cut myself shaving.”

He swore imaginatively and at length.

“Look, Boss, much as I love your way with words, I don’t have time to take notes. I want to get off this rock before he decides to try again.”

“Are you filing a formal complaint, Hunter Brin?”

“I am. He needs a stop at the psych office if not pulled from active duty outright.”

He rubbed the back of his thick neck for a moment, conflicting emotions chasing across the rough lines of his face. Then he slumped, seeming to lose whatever internal battle he was waging. Leaning forward with a fearsome scowl, he asked in a low voice, “How bad is it?”

Mea rolled her eyes. “For god’s sake, Uncle Mike. If it was bad, would I be sitting here talking to you?”

“I worry about you, girl. You take too many chances.” Sitting back, his craggy features hardened into uncompromising lines. “You be in my office with a full report the second you get back, you hear me?”

“You’ve got it, Chief.”

“And get that arm fixed, Hunter. You’re makin’ a mess.”

Shaking her head in amusement, she flicked the screen off and jumped up, striding quickly to a panel on the wall. “Almost done?” she asked, pulling a coagulation pack from the receptacle and securing it over her wound.

Warren was lifting the retinal scanner away from Terrik as she spoke. “Not a hitch.”

“Great. Regan, strap yourself in. We’re getting off this rock.” Pushing the girl gently to the other rear seat, Mea turned to Terrik. “Up and out, handsome. It’s my turn.”

He got to his feet smoothly, pulling his goggles back on, and Mea had to consciously pull her eyes away from him. He moved with all the powerful, magnetic grace of a hunting cat.

But before she could sit, Warren said, “Ah, Mea? We still don’t have clearance to leave.”

Hissing impatiently, Mea stomped back over in front of the screen. When it lit, a young woman gave her a tight smile. “Yes, Hunter Brin?”

“Tower, if you don’t clear me a path within the next thirty seconds, I’ll clear one myself,” she stated, staring into the controller’s eyes with grim challenge.

The woman lost her smile as she looked down briefly, making adjustments to the panel in front of her. Her mouth was pinched when she looked back up. “You are clear, Hunter Brin. Safe voyage.”

“Thank you.” It hurt her lip, but Mea still smiled with sweet spite at the woman and cut the transmission. “Okay, let’s do this.” She sank down into the chair and activated the VR gear, hooking herself up. Darkness enshrouded her. “Warren, let me know when you’re ready.”

Gravity shoved her down in the chair for a long moment when the
Starfire
leapt into space. She smiled in spite of the pain to her split lip at the almost inaudible throb of the engines. It was a good ship—sleek, powerful, and reliable.

A few moments later, she heard Warren say quietly, “Can you fly this thing, Terrik? Nothing fancy—just need you to keep from running into any suns while we do this.” He must have gotten an affirmative. “Ready, Mea.”

“Don’t let them sneak up on me.”

“You know I wouldn’t.”

Color bloomed around her as she activated the virtual reality. She still felt the seat beneath her, but the optical illusion of the VR made it seem as though she was floating before a huge, three-dimensional menu. Reaching out with the VR gloves, she moved quickly through a tree of selections until she was racing through hunter territory. Categories flipped past her with gut-wrenching speed until she came upon “List Records.” Here were the names and info of anyone ever sought by hunters. A tiny voice asked for authorization.

“Mea Brin, alpha two three six one gamma.” A retinal scan caused momentary disorientation and then she was in. So far, she’d done nothing out of the ordinary. She was well within her rights to seek this information.

“Search: Terrik, Seth.” A box floated out of the vast rows in front of her and she placed a hand on it.

“Search: Stone, Baynard.” Another box made an appearance. “Secured station.” A little glowing room formed around her. In here, she was safe from any prying eyes, but she would also be unaware of anyone coming. She refrained from telling Warren again to keep a close watch.

Opening the boxes with a delicate touch, she made a thorough inspection of the contents, fingering the three-dimensional symbols. When she was sure she knew all of the sections that needed to be switched, she sketched a careful line around each. “Release.”

The system chimed a query, confused. She had entered as a hunter, not a programmer and the usual activity of a hunter here was data retrieval only. Mea repeated her command and the system allowed the various pieces to float free of the boxes. With quick, firm movements, Mea placed the sections in their new location.

“Secure.” The system dutifully enfolded them, but Mea had no time for sighs of relief. Her work here was not done and she was running out of time. Closing the boxes and punching through the side of the little room, she raced across the rows of information.

“Mea, you’re about to get company.” Warren sounded as tense as she felt.

“Stall ‘em. Another minute is all I need.”

“Make it a quick minute.”

She fetched up against the Log Record, and it asked for authorization in an impersonal tone.

“Michael Conley, alpha zero nine five four alpha.” She closed her eyes when the system tried to get a retinal scan.

“Unable to verify.”

Undaunted, she keyed for manual entry and gave the system another code, one that her boss would be appalled to know she had.
Uncle Mike’s going to kill me,
she thought distantly, under no illusions that he wouldn’t find out what she’d done. These were his private codes she was using.

Pushing through, she called up the log of the date and time that she’d made the switch. Completely deleting the log would be faster, but that would leave a suspicious gap. Instead, she tweaked it delicately, removing only the information that pertained to the switch.

“Come on, Mea, you’re out of time!”

“Almost done.”

She closed out of the Log abruptly and flipped through several categories with nauseating speed. When she found the Purged files, she again used Mike’s codes to enter.

“What the hell are you doing? They won’t look there.”

“If they get suspicious, they will.” Willing herself not to go too quickly and make a mistake, she completely deleted the information that had been sent here by her from the Log Records a moment ago.

“You’ve got someone’s attention—they’re going to get a lock!”

Not bothering to answer, she finished and closed out of the system so fast that her head began throbbing in reaction. Pulling the gear off slowly, she rubbed her aching forehead. “Did they get me?” When she didn’t get an immediate answer, she opened her eyes and slowly sat up to look at the android. He was sitting with his head in his hands and she felt a momentary stab of fear. “Warren?”

“No, but it was so close, if I was human I’d puke.”

Mea relaxed and laughed softly, massaging her temples with fingers that had a slight tremble.

“But I think we made it.” Warren lifted his head and smiled at her.

She smiled back sadly. “Not quite, old friend.
Asterisk.”

On the trigger word, his eyes unfocused and his head tilted to the side in inhuman awkwardness. Mea felt a wave of exhaustion crash over her. She’d been functioning on hyper-drive for days now, not getting much sleep or sustenance, and the blood loss from her shoulder didn’t help.

“What happened to him?” Regan asked in high-pitched alarm.

Sighing, Mea slid off the chair and crouched by the android. “Asterisk is his trigger word. It leaves the basic functions intact while shutting off his higher centers. He can move if I tell him to, but he won’t remember any of this.” She patted his limp hand soothingly. “I’m sorry, love.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“He’s the last—no, the second-to-last loose end. He wouldn’t give me away on purpose, but if they decide to download his memory, we’d be screwed. Up you get.” She coaxed Warren to his feet and shuffled him away from the chair, before slipping in front of the console. Then she tapped navigational coordinates and commands into the autopilot.

“What are you going to do with him?”

“I have to change his memory.” Pushing Warren forward, she glanced at Terrik as she passed by. “You have a new name and identity. I’m through forcing you. You have my word on that.”

Not waiting to see his reaction, she maneuvered the android out into the hall.

Regan was right behind her. “Where are you taking him?”

“The infirmary.” Mea sent a swift look over her shoulder at the girl, thinking about what else was in the infirmary. She was secretly pleased to see Terrik following them. “Ah… I have an emergency medical unit that’s AI. She’s usually cranky. Don’t mind her if she goes off.”

“No big deal. What’s her name?”

“It was Emu, short for emergency medical unit, but she discovered it was also a big, extinct bird. Refused to answer to it after that. Warren started calling her Ema and the name stuck.”

“What does Ema stand for?”

“According to Warren—emergency medical asshole.”

Regan’s high, sweet laughter followed her into the infirmary.

“What the hell did you do now?” The crotchety voice echoed in the sterile room, coming from a long table against the back wall that glowed with golden light and sprouted mechanical devices.

“Don’t start with me, Ema.” Mea’s warning was lost on the AI unit.

“Who are these people? Picking up strays now? This isn’t a menagerie.”

“You push me and I’ll yank you right out of the wall,” Mea responded, hitting a panel in a side wall. A table slid out and she maneuvered Warren up onto it, pushing him onto his back and waiting expectantly for Ema to continue her rant. She wasn’t disappointed.

“What are you doing with that heap of spare parts? You have a wound, you stupid woman! You know enough to come in out of the rain, so why aren’t you on my table—?”

Mea strode across the room and opened a receptacle in the wall next to the AI’s table.

“Wait, let’s talk about th—”

Mea plucked a pale crystal out of the small recess and the voice cut off abruptly, its golden glow fading to nothing. With a certain amount of amused satisfaction, Mea placed the crystal gently on the table and looked up to see Regan staring at her. “That was necessary. If she’d recorded what I’m about to do to Warren, we’d be back to square one.” Rubbing the tension from her neck, she activated a seat to slide out from under Warren’s table and eased down on it with a tired sigh. “Maybe I’ll get a little peace and quiet for a change.”

Mea slid a long connector in behind Warren’s left ear, glancing at the other two out of the corner of her eye. Terrik prowled like a restless cat around the infirmary while Regan watched Warren with a child’s fascination.

“Ah… I’m going to be here awhile. Why don’t you two go get something to eat or get some rest?”

They ignored her.

“Bragan should catch up in about six to eight hours and then the fun starts again. You should rest while you can.”

“The last loose end?”

Startled, she darted a quick glance over her shoulder at Terrik, but he wasn’t looking at her—he was busy inspecting Ema’s crystal. Turning her head to meet Regan’s gaze, Mea raised her eyebrows with a sly smirk. “What d’you know? Beauty and brains.”

She surprised a giggle out of the girl. Regan slapped a guilty hand over her mouth and shot a wide-eyed look past Mea at the man.

Grinning, Mea pulled VR gear out of the wall and answered Terrik. “Yes, he’s my last loose end. He still has your original genetic trace in his ship’s systems and hand held tracers. We don’t refresh with the main systems constantly—too much of a power drain. Depends on the hunt, but typically we only refresh every couple of days. The tracers he had on him were put out of commission when I gave him a charge from the shock rifle, but he could have more onboard his ship, plus the ship itself has the trace. I need to get on his ship and change it.”

“Bragan’s the other hunter? He did that to your shoulder?”

Mea couldn’t see her, already sifting through VR, but Regan’s voice sounded lost. “Yup. Remember I told you it was stage dressing? Proof positive that he attacked me—with his own knife—backed by an audio of the actual encounter. Shows I had good reason to shoot him, which did a couple of things for me—knocking out his tracers and making him pissed off enough to follow us.” She was grateful for the conversation. Reentering VR so soon was making her nauseous and the explanation helped distract her from the roll of her stomach.

“Why do you want him to follow us?”

“I don’t have any good reason to board his ship. Hunters are very territorial. In the past, hunters have been known to steal each other’s targets, making easy commissions for themselves. That led to fighting, rogue hunters, bad blood. Now we have lots of rules that prevent that sort of thing, one of which is that you can’t board another hunter’s vessel without permission except under extreme circumstances.”

“Like when he’s attacking you.” Terrik’s voice was close.

“Which he’ll be doing in a few hours.”

“What’s your twisted game plan for me, lady?”

He was a dark sun at her side, radiating heat but no light. Unwilling to go into it in front of the child, she evaded the question. “You should get some rest,
Stone.”
She paused to let his new name hang in the air between them. “I may need your help when he gets here.”

He moved away with an almost inaudible growl, but she didn’t hear him leave the infirmary. The room fell silent and she focused her attention on the android.

Mea picked through Warren’s memories with as gentle a touch as she could, very aware that she was mucking about with her best friend’s brain. When she located the memories associated with the bar where she’d first met Terrik (Stone—she had to start thinking of him that way), she moved forward in his timeline with slow care, shaping certain memories and graying out others. The graying she did in progressively larger units of time to simulate a worsening bug in his system. She didn’t even consider deleting his memory. Not only would that be unfair to her friend, but also someone was bound to ask why she didn’t help him for several days. It was long, slow work and time drifted away, her world narrowing down to data streams and frozen images.