Star Cat The Complete Series

by Andrew Mackay

  “It’s known as a compliance unit. Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing them for long. They shut around your neck and rest on your shoulders.”

  “Like a necklace?” Jamie asked.

  “Exactly like a necklace, yes. Well done, Anderson.”

  SCHJUNT.

  Remy held out his arms and took a step forward. The Decapidisc fit perfectly around his neck with a couple inches to spare.

  “I have to say, I do not like this type of formal wear.”

  Siyam, Rana, Sierra, Noyin, and Grace burst out laughing. The kids didn’t seem terribly amused by the wanton, morbid amusement on their captors’ behalves.

  “What it is for?” Remy asked.

  “Probably best we don’t tell you,” Siyam continued. “Just think of it as a silly prop. Like in a movie,” Siyam looked to Remy, Jamie, and Leesa for a hint of recognition. “You remember movies, don’t you?”

  They all shook their heads - ‘no.’

  “Oh, well, they were stories people used to tell years ago. Never mind, don’t worry about that now.”

  Rana sighed and pointed at the wall, “Save the history lesson. Can we hurry this up, please?

  “Sure.”

  Siyam passed one of the two Decapidiscs to Jamie, and the other to Leesa, “Put these on. Just press the hole to your neck and clamp it shut. Job done.”

  Jamie and Leesa did as instructed.

  “Be careful not to pinch your skin when you close them.”

  They looked really silly wearing the death devices, but were certainly none-the-wiser as to their real purpose.

  “Cool, cool.”

  “Cool?” Jamie asked. “Is it cold in here?”

  “No, it means good. It’s an old saying.”

  “That’s just weird,” Leesa said. “This thing is heavy.”

  “It’s okay. As I say, you won’t be wearing them for long. Just for the transmission.”

  Jamie turned around and accidentally knocked the side of Remy’s Decapidisc with his own.

  CLONK.

  “Hey, English. Be careful.”

  “Jesus Christ, kids,” Sierra held out her hands. “Whatever you do, be very careful with those things. I mean it.”

  Ten Minutes Later…

  Grace smeared her face with a thick, transparent goo from a black container.

  Jamie, Remy, and Leesa sat on their knees in front of the R.A.G.E. text on the far wall.

  Grace wiped the rest of the goo across her neck, “Just stay where you are, children.”

  “Why are we on the floor?” Jamie asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you look right at my Viddy Media cuticle, here, when we go live,” Sierra removed her thumbnail and set it to the central table in the middle of the arena, “You see it?”

  The three kids nodded.

  “Good. Now, Grace is going to be talking. You don’t have to say anything at all.”

  Siyam interjected, “Actually, it might help if you looked really worried and scared.”

  “Why?” Jamie asked.

  Sierra grimaced and sighed, “Because, Jamie. We’re going to issue USARIC with an ultimatum. We’re going—”

  “—What does ultimate-mum mean?” Leesa asked.

  “Ugh,” Siyam muttered, “Don’t they teach you anything in school, anymore?”

  “Not if we’re kidnapped trying to get there,” Jamie said, ultra-pleased with himself.

  “Let’s see how funny you are when you try to speak without any teeth.”

  “Siyam,” Sierra snapped. “Stop threatening them.”

  He snorted and placed his hands on his hips, “Okay, well, allow me to do what your teachers obviously couldn’t. Ultimatum. It means we give them a choice to do one thing or another.”

  “What lessense is this?” Remy climbed to his knees and felt along the rim of his Decapidisc, “These imbeciles are going to kill us.”

  “Sit down, Gagarin,” Sierra snapped. “We’re not going to kill you.”

  “How can we know this for sure?”

  “You don’t have a choice, comrade,” Siyam barked at him. “Either you sit back down, or I active the Decapidisc. Which is it?”

  Remy scowled and returned to his knees, “I hate you.”

  Leesa put two and two together and beamed, “Was that an ultimatum?”

  Siyam nodded, “Yes. Well-spotted, young lady.”

  Sierra turned to the three children and then to Grace, “You ready?”

  “Yeah, I’m always ready.”

  “Cliche city,” Sierra muttered with a healthy degree of disdain for her colleague.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Sierra blurted and focused on her thumbnail. “Noyin?”

  “Yup,” Noyin sat at the computer banks ready to punch in a command on the antiquated keyboard on his lap, “Ready when you are.”

  Grace produced a shotgun from under the central table. She gripped it with both hands as she approached the kneeling children.

  She stood behind Remy, the second of the three, and ‘accidentally’ knocked the back of his head with her knee.

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Stupid Americans.”

  “Wait, let me get central,” Grace shuffled an inch to the side and ‘accidentally’ knocked the back of Remy’s head with her knee again.

  “For God’s sake, woman.”

  Grace snorted, “Sorry, must have slipped.”

  “Can the pair of you stop flirting and concentrate, please?” Sierra snapped.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Grace said.

  Sierra pointed at the thumbnail, “Kids, look sad.”

  She pressed the fleshy part of her thumb down on the thumbnail, “Noyin, hit the frequency, please.”

  “You got it.”

  Noyin typed away on the keyboard and placed it on the panel. He reached above his head and slid a pair of bizarre-looking black spectacles over his eyes.

  “Frequency hop, four, four, niner.”

  CLICK.

  The thumbnail spat an infrablue line at the floor. The flat, blue beam waded up the three children, past their heads, and hit the back wall.

  It crept up Grace’s body, past the R.A.G.E. text, and bounced off the domed ceiling.

  A ten foot high rectangular live feed appeared adjacent to the real scene.

  Sierra looked at Grace and saw her readying herself. She closed her eyes and cleared her throat.

  “Noyin, let me know when,” Grace said.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Sierra looked at the live feed, along with Noyin and Siyam. The image displayed a two second delay. The three children were in the shot, but there was something uniquely bizarre about Grace.

  Her face appeared on the screen, utterly featureless, like a smooth elbow.

  No eyes.

  No nose.

  No mouth.

  Just a giant canvas of flesh.

  Sierra pointed at the live feed and nodded at Grace, “Black Gold is perfect. Totally obscured.”

  “Five seconds till frequency intercept,” Noyin added.

  “Good,” Sierra stepped back and winked at the kids, “Remember, Jamie. Remy. Leesa. Act scared.”

  They did as instructed. No crying or ridiculous amounts of emotion. It wasn’t much of a stretch for them to look pained, just a modest amount of willingness to remember what had genuinely happened to them, today.

  It showed on their faces, this time.

  “Here we go,” Noyin said.

  Sierra perched herself at the end of the table and mimed lifting a firearm in her hands, “Good luck, everyone.”

  Grace pressed the side of her shotgun to her chest.

  USARIC Research & Development Institute

  Port D’Souza

  (One hundred miles north of Laguna Vista)

  Crain McDormand ran across at the center’s metal walkway with a look of sheer hell and urgency on his face.

  “Jesus Chri
st, this is insane.”

  Kaoz, Maar Sheck’s guard, escorted him towards the bunker, “Sir, please. Keep your voice down.”

  “Don’t you understand, you cretin?” Crain huffed and wheezed, clutching his folder to his chest, “This requires immediate action.”

  The pair reached the door.

  “Hurry up, hurry up.”

  “Please, Crain. Remain calm,” Kaoz placed his glove on the wall panel and opened the door.

  It slid open and Crain bolted in.

  Maar was asleep on his chair with his feet on the desk.

  “Wake up,” Crain slammed his papers to the desk, jolting Maar out of his slumber.

  “Wha-what is it?”

  Crain unrolled a sliver of thin, plastic membrane and plastered it on the opposite wall.

  “This,” he said. “Viddy media. One-one-eight.”

  “What, what is it?”

  “Commence replay,” Crain said. “This was broadcast about two minutes ago, which means we have fifty-eight minutes to act.”

  The membrane shimmied to life along the surface of the wall.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Maar launched into a tirade, but stopped talking when he recognized the boy’s face on the screen, “Is that Jamie Anderson?”

  “Yes, and it gets worse.”

  Crain lifted his palm up, which raised the volume from the membrane on the wall.

  A faceless Grace dressed in black stood in front of the R.A.G.E. text.

  “We are RAGE. Rebels Against Genetic Engineering, broadcasting on a frequency of one, one, eight. Viddy Media.”

  Her voice had been altered as she spoke. Her regular sultry, dulcet tones, warped into a bizarre electronic growl, like that of a large cat.

  “What the hell is this?” Maar asked.

  “Just watch, sir.”

  Grace continued, “The Rebels Against Genetic Engineering have a message for USARIC and their bottom line. Put your morals where your mouth is. Prove to the world, all twelve billion individuals potentially watching now on their Viddy Media, that you are who you say you are. That you have our citizens interests at heart. Come out from behind the shadows. We will afford you this opportunity.”

  Maar sat back in his chair and felt his heart turn to stone, “Oh no. No, no, no.”

  “Keep watching.”

  Grace cocked her shot gun and aimed it at the back of Jamie’s face, “Kneel before us, like the three children you corrupted on the five-year anniversary of the Star Cat Project.”

  The boy burst into tears.

  “Jesus Christ, no,” Maar said. “What the—”

  “—You stripped these three children’s souls when you took advantage of them. See here, Jamie Anderson. An inadvertent participant in the wanton destruction and perversion of science. Why prolong the misery?”

  Grace moved the barrel of the shotgun to Remy’s head.

  “United Kingdom took part. You tantalized the Russians, as well. Remy Gagarin, whose cat you willfully allowed to be murdered at the hands of the winner.”

  “No, do not shoot me,” Remy blubbed. “It w-wasn’t my f-fault—”

  “—Shut the hell up,” Grace screamed, before arriving at Leesa. “And finally, a homegrown effort. From our own turf. The United States and Russia colluded. A confederation guilty as sin.”

  She pressed the barrel at the back of Leesa’s head.

  “No, this has to s-stop,” Maar stammered, feeling the fear of God enter his soul for the first time in his life, “Please, Crain. Tell me this didn’t happen.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Maar ran his hands through his hair, not knowing how to react.

  Grace pulled her gun away from Leesa’s head.

  “It is not us who are killers. It is you. USARIC,” Grace walked around the children and leaned into the replay. Her barren, skin-laden face all the more terrifying.

  “Maar Sheck,” she growled with a healthy dose of venom.

  Maar’s jaw dropped. He felt as if she had addressed him directly from within the bunker.

  “We know you’re watching, Maar. Everyone knows you’re watching from whichever cesspit you’ve chosen to run to. You can hide, but you can’t run.”

  Grace pointed at the Decapidiscs on each child’s neck and lifted her gloved, right hand.

  “You have one hour to release the non-human subjects from your facility at Cape Claudius. Arrange for a complete and utter shutdown of USARIC’s planned operations. If you do not agree to our terms, the children - your superstars and conspirators - will lose their heads.”

  Maar gasped and held his hands in front of his face like a frightened little boy, “Oh, God.”

  “The world wants to know how far down USARIC’s bottom line goes.”

  Grace threatened to push the button on her glove and knocked the side of Jamie’s Decapidisc with her knee.

  “The consequences of your decision rests on their shoulders as much as it does yours. One hour, Maar Sheck. Do the right thing, and make the right choice. The world is watching.”

  The replay ended with a still image of Grace’s bald face and the three distressed children.

  “Who saw that?”

  “Everyone, Maar,” Crain said. “This is a PR disaster. Shall I arrange for the core operations to at least pause before—”

  “—What the hell are you suggesting, McDormand?” Maar jumped to his feet and slammed the table with his fists, “You want me to cave in to the demands of these deranged animals?”

  “Sir, we have to do something.”

  “Do we?”

  “If we don’t, they’ll execute Anderson, Gagarin, and Task. The children of the three finalists from the Star Cat Project.”

  Maar screamed in his face and paced around the bunker in a state of rage, “I know who they are, you imbecile.”

  Crain looked at the table in bewilderment.

  “God, think. Think, think, think,” Maar cleared his throat and looked up at Crain. “Ah. Hang on. Can we stall them? Buy ourselves some time?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “What if we just say ‘yes, okay, you win,’ and do nothing?”

  Crain shook his head, “No, they don’t want a response.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Not a recorded one. All they want is action. The first instruction that followed was to release all the subjects from the animal compound.”

  “Release the subjects? The critters in for testing? What, like, just open the bays and release them out in the wild?”

  Crain tugged on his collar and tried to let the heat escape his body, “Yes, I think so.”

  “Are the bastards out of their tiny, left-wing minds? Those things can’t escape. Not again. I’ve already lost six madmen trying to get them back the last time an idiotic bunch of snowflakes set them free.”

  Crain looked at the Individimedia Ink and frowned, “We have fifty-four minutes to make a decision.”

  Maar took a deep breath and looked to Kaoz for a reaction. He didn’t respond. Instead, he kept absolutely still with his visor over his face and gun in his hand.

  In Maar’s eyes, Kaoz looked as guilty as hell of conspiracy, “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Sheck.”

  “Ugh,” Maar shook his head and sat into his chair, “Well, if you give a man no option, you leave him no choice.”

  Crain breathed a sigh of relief, “Oh, thank God. I’ll make the arrangements to pause—”

  “—They’ll just have to decapitate the children.”

  “What?” Crain blurted, half-choking on his sentence. “We can’t let them do that.”

  Maar ran two fingers along his throat, miming a blade cutting off his head, “Yup. DecapiDead.”

  “Are you serious?” Crain snapped. “You’re going to let USARIC be responsible for the deaths of three ten-year-old children? Live? On Viddy media, for the world to see?”

  “Nu-uh,” Maar chuckled at the ridiculousness of the situ
ation before self-pity sank into the pit of his stomach.

  “USARIC aren’t responsible for their deaths. This RAGE outfit, whatever it is, is responsible. It’s our policy never to bow to terrorists. If we start this, who knows what they’ll demand next.”

  Maar cleared his throat and dropped into a solemn, and very serious mood.

  “And we’re not going to wait another fifty-four minutes to—”

  “Fifty one minutes, actually,” Crain choked.

  “Okay, fifty one minutes. We’re not going to wait that long to give them a response, either. We’re telling them now.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes,” Maar adjusted his collar and nodded at the wall, “That screen, can we send a response back?”

  “Uh, yes?”

  “Good, let’s do it,” Maar licked around his right palm and smeared the saliva along his hair, preparing himself to make contact.

  “Kaoz?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I want extra security detail at Cape Claudius. Especially the entry points to the training facility and animal compound.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have the territorial mercs on standby, including the all-terrain units and air vehicles. Any available units for maximum defense. Do it right now, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kaoz turned around and exited the bunker.

  Maar looked down and snarled at his own reflection on the tabletop surface.

  “Those bastards think they can terrorize me? I’ve been holed up down here for months. Do they think I give one single, solitary rat’s ass about those children? Do they think I won’t find them and tear their guts out with my own, bare hands?”

  Maar let out a prolonged roar of anger. An earnest attempt to expunge the fire that had built up inside him.

  Crain couldn’t look at the screaming wreck of a man standing before him.

  He cursed the day he ever took on the job of representing his client.

  Chapter 9

  Control Deck

  Space Opera Charlie - Level One

  Furie lay asleep on the flight deck next to the yellow hyper-thruster lever. Her younger sister, White, as the crew had come to call her, cleaned herself atop the pilot’s seat.

  Alex felt around his face mask. The constrictive feeling began to get to him, “Manny?”