The Skin Hunter Series Box Set

by Tania Hutley

  “The police are coming?”

  She waves me to the couch. “Sit. I’ll call them off.”

  If stompers could burst in at any moment, the last thing I want to do is sit down. But the doctor still looks jumpy, and I can hardly blame her. Obediently, I sink onto the couch in the corner, though I’m coiled like a spring, ready to run if I need to. Even on wounded feet.

  She taps the band around her wrist, frowns at its control panel, then looks up at me. “I’ve cancelled the call and logged it as a false alarm. They were still a few minutes away, so I don’t think they’ll bother coming to check.”

  She’s too casual about it for my liking, but she has no idea I’m being hunted. She still thinks I’m Rayne.

  I have so much to tell her, I don’t know where to start. And I’m dreading having to confess I’ve been lying to her about who I really am.

  “Thank you,” I say. “And sorry to wake you. I know it’s late.”

  She shakes her head, brushing off my apology. “Before all this madness started, I would have checked what the disruption was before placing an emergency call. But now…” She runs her hand over her face. “I’ve been on edge. Of course, we all have.”

  “Madness? What madness has started?”

  “You know. The war.”

  “The war?” My throat is dry, and the word comes out so hoarsely, it makes me cough.

  “You don’t know?” She looks as shocked by my ignorance as I am. “We’re at war with Deiterra.” She crosses to a door and goes into her kitchen. “You sound like you need something to drink.”

  When she comes back with a glass of water, I gulp it down gratefully, then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “When did the war start?” I ask. “Have many people been hurt? Any Old Tritoners?”

  If war’s broken out, Ma and Lily could be in danger. And what about Cale?

  “How can you not know about the war?” she asks.

  “I was unconscious, and maybe I was out for longer than I thought. How much time has passed since the contest?”

  “The Skin Hunter contest? That was, let’s see, ten days ago. Saturday before last.”

  “I was unconscious for ten days?” I gape at her, shocked. I had no idea the doctor who tried to run experiments on me had kept me unconscious for that long. No wonder my body has healed after I was so badly injured in the Skin Hunter contest. The doctor must have wanted me whole so she could monitor exactly what was happening when she used my Leopard Skin to wound me again.

  “What happened, Rayne?” Doctor Gregory sits next to me on the couch. Her eyes are soft and she’s back to being the kind woman I remember. Taking the empty glass from my hand, she sets it on the low table next to the couch.

  I swallow. The first thing I should tell her is that I’m not Rayne. But how can I explain the truth without sounding like a criminal? Until I find Cale, Doctor Gregory is the only person who can help me. If she turns her back on me after learning the truth, I’ll have nowhere to turn.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” I say, stalling. “But first, will you tell me about the war? I’m worried about my family and friends.”

  “Before we talk, I should get some healing spray and bandages for your feet.” She starts to rise again, but I put a hand on her arm to stop her.

  “My feet can wait. Please. I need to know.”

  She sinks back down. “Well, shortly after the contest, there was a series of explosions. Deiterran terrorists hit police stations and military targets. A co-ordinated attack. They killed thousands of soldiers, and destroyed almost our entire stockpile of weapons.”

  “What?” It comes out as a breathless gasp. Could there really have been so much chaos and death while I slept?

  “I’m sorry. I know what a shock—”

  “Did civilians die?” I interrupt. “My mother and my best friend are both in Old Triton, and my brother’s in an academy.”

  “It was mostly policemen and soldiers killed. But they also blew up a portion of the wall, and collapsed a section of New Triton. An office building came down.” She picks at the seam of her trousers, her hands restless. “People are saying the war started because the Deiterrans think Skin technology violates the peace treaty. If that’s true, the researchers working on the project are at least partly responsible for the attacks. I share that blame.” She looks stricken at the idea. No wonder her hair is grayer than last time I saw her, and the lines around her eyes are more deeply scored.

  “I’m sure it’s not your fault. But don’t we know why the Deiterrans attacked? Haven’t they told us?”

  She shakes her head. “Deiterra denied responsibility. The Deiterran ambassador swore it wasn’t them. For the first few days, everyone thought The Fist had done it. But President Trask found proof the ambassador was lying, and a few days ago, he officially declared war. Here, I’ll show you what the Deiterrans did to the wall.”

  She taps her band, and the holo in the corner of the room flicks into life. This is the first time I’ve watched a hologram since my cybernetic eye was replaced with a real one, and I’m amazed at how easy it is to focus on it. It’s showing footage of smoking rubble, the 3-D projection so real I can almost smell the smoke.

  “That’s the hole in the wall,” says Doctor Gregory. “The few soldiers we have left are guarding it. They’re expecting the Deiterran army to come through and attack us.”

  At first I can’t tell how big the rocks are, then I spot a man in army fatigues standing at the base of one of them. He looks like a fly guarding an apartment complex. The wall is immense, at least a hundred stories tall, and a mountain of rock has spilled from it. There’s so much rubble it looks like it’s blocked any gap in the structure. Did the collapsed office building fall on top of it? I can see some rubble with sharp angles through the smoke, like destroyed rooms.

  “The Deiterrans managed to blast all the way through,” says the doctor. “Can you imagine how much explosive material that would take? The earth shook all the way to the other end of Triton.”

  The wall was built almost five decades ago, after the ecological collapse and food wars. Since then, there have only been rumors and speculation as to what Deiterra might be like. As far as I know, the Deiterran ambassador and Sentin are the only ones who’ve been to the other side, and they’ve always refused to talk about it.

  “What about the automated attack systems built into the wall?” I ask. The wall is supposed to be able to destroy anything that’s a threat. Drones can’t go anywhere near it, for fear of getting shot down by the old anti-aircraft weapons installed when we still had planes and places to fly to.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  I peer through the dust and debris, trying to get a glimpse through the gap in the wall, to see into Deiterra. All I see is fallen rock.

  The doctor touches her band again, and the holo changes to show Director Morelle. She’s standing in what I recognize as the lobby of the Morelle Corporation scraper, with the Triton flag hanging behind her. The sight gives me the chills. Not just because the director looks real enough to step out of the holo, but because I’m looking inside the building I escaped from only hours ago. In that building, a red-haired doctor was about to cut my Leopard Skin to pieces, just to see the effect it would have on my human body.

  And somewhere in that building, my leopard is still waiting for me.

  “No more Triton lives need be lost,” Morelle is saying. “My gift to Triton is the means to safely defend our great cities. To end this war swiftly and decisively, ensuring no innocents suffer any more harm.”

  The camera pulls back a little to show President Trask standing by the director’s side, nodding as she speaks.

  “In a series of cowardly attacks, the Deiterrans have brutally and callously slaughtered thousands of brave soldiers. But President Trask has accepted my offer to use Skins to protect Triton. Manufacturing has begun and the first Skins have already rolled off the production line. Soon, we’ll be defended by a
n unstoppable force.”

  I draw in a sharp breath. “She’s going to fight Deiterra with Skins?” When I turn to Doctor Gregory, she nods.

  “I’m worried too,” she says, pinching the skin on her throat. “I don’t know if they’ve determined the cause of the somatoform injuries you displayed on your human body when your Skin was injured. They must prevent it from happening again, but I’m not sure the Skins have had enough testing…”

  My attention switches back to the director, and I tune out the doctor’s concerns, which sound like the same ones that got her kicked out of the Morelle Corporation.

  “We’re training volunteers to use the Skins,” Director Morelle says. “They’ll operate them from a secret location, where they can come to no harm.” The view changes, panning across a giant, windowless room. Pods are arranged in rows across the floor. The pods are smaller and less elaborate-looking than the one I used when I transferred into my leopard, and when the camera zooms back I can’t believe how many of them there are.

  The director’s building an army. Hundreds of pods means hundreds of Skins.

  The camera focuses on a small group in army fatigues marching into the room. They’re all young, in their mid-teens, and must be Old Tritoners because they obviously haven’t been tweaked. Some have acne, most are pale, and one girl has a large mole on her cheek that would have been removed from any New Tritoner at birth.

  Surely they’re too young to be soldiers? They’re marching in perfect formation, their arms all swing to exactly the same height, and their steps are precisely the same. They must have been training for some time.

  When I picture hundreds of them transferring into Leopard Skins and padding out to war in perfect unison, my stomach churns. Is it smart to give so many kids that much strength and power?

  The young soldiers each lie down on a pod. The camera zooms in on one of the boys closing his eyes. Then it cuts back to the director giving her speech in the lobby of the Morelle scraper.

  “On Thursday, our president will join me for a public event in Central Square,” she says. “You’ll get to see the new Skins the soldiers will use to defend our glorious city.”

  Morelle nods at President Trask, and the President nods back, his expression serious. He has shiny black hair that’s full on top and cut short on the sides. He’s wearing a cream jacket in contrast to the director’s severe navy one, but they both have bronzed skin that’s as smooth as glass, and they both look ageless.

  “With Director Morelle’s help, Triton has nothing to fear,” President Trask gazes out from the holo with his brow slightly creased in a well-practised, fatherly way. “And with the protection our new Skin Soldiers will provide, we’ll quickly repel any and all Deiterran forces, and ensure they never threaten us again.” His job seemingly done, he looks back at the director.

  “Finally, I’d like to make a comment about the winner of the Skin Hunter contest,” says Morelle.

  The camera pulls back a little more to show the Reptile Skin standing upright on the director’s other side, with its knees bent. Its jewel-green scales glow in the lobby’s bright light, and though it’s impossible to read any emotion on its regal face, its large eyes gleam with intelligence.

  Sentin.

  I lean forward, wishing I could talk to him. He warned me about the director and said he wanted to stop her. What’s he doing by the director’s side?

  Is he friend or foe?

  “Sentin is half Deiterran, but has lived in Triton most of his life,” says Morelle. “He has become an invaluable source of intelligence, and proven his loyalty. Further questions about his allegiance will not be tolerated.”

  “Have you seen enough?” Doctor Gregory switches off the holo. “Things have been quiet since this clip aired. Deiterra hasn’t responded. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one, but I think we’re all on edge, waiting for something to happen.”

  I frown, still disturbed by that huge room with hundreds of pods. “Why is the president accepting hundreds of Skin Soldiers from Director Morelle? He didn’t want her to manufacture the Skins at all.”

  “He changed his mind, now we need them for protection.” She sighs, still pinching worriedly at her throat. “Perhaps it’s the right thing to do. Director Morelle is the only one who can defend Triton, even if I still have concerns about the Skin technology. There’s no doubt it needs more testing, but in the face of the threat we face from Deiterra, Skins could be the only viable solution.”

  I stare at her. Can’t she tell that everything Director Morelle says is a bare-faced lie?

  While I was unconscious, the director went from only reluctantly being allowed to run a contest with five prototype Skins, to manufacturing an entire Skin Army? And the president is standing by while she announces her army. No, more than standing by. He’s thanking her for it.

  Seems like Sentin was right, because the vague hints he let slip are coming true in the worst possible way. What did he tell me? That the contest was just a diversion?

  “Sentin warned me the director would start a war,” I say.

  Doctor Gregory blinks at me for a moment, then frowns. “That’s absurd. The director didn’t start the war.”

  “But what if she did?”

  Chapter Two

  Bless her, Doctor Gregory fixes me something to eat when I tell her how hungry I am. I fall on the food, trying not to shovel it in too fast. It’s good food, too. Much better than the tasteless gunk the machines spit out in the shelters.

  The doctor obviously wants to ask more questions. She impatiently watches me eat, sitting opposite me and sipping a cup of hot tea. She cleared the clutter off one of her worktables, moving all her electronic gadgets to the other table so we could use it as a dining table. I guess just because Director Morelle kicked her out, she hasn’t stopped being a scientist.

  I’ve barely swallowed my last mouthful before she asks, “Are you ready to tell me why you’re here in the middle of the night, and why you knew nothing about the war?”

  I wipe my palms down the legs of my jeans and drag in a breath. It’s time to start revealing my secrets.

  “I need to show you something first,” I say, mostly to delay the moment I have to confess to lying. “Using the Leopard Skin has changed me.”

  “Changed you how?”

  “My eyesight and my sense of smell are sharper. And I’m stronger and faster than I used to be.”

  She frowns, her gaze flicking down to my hands and back up again. “Improved eyesight is to be expected when you have a new eye implanted. Your vision must have previously been sub-par, thanks to your old cybernetic eye. And the cybernetics could have been affecting your olfactory system.”

  I get up, and walk carefully on my damaged feet to pick up a long metal bar that’s lying on her other cluttered worktable amongst the mess of electronic equipment. The bar is only a little thicker than one of my fingers, but whatever metal it’s made of is strong. I show it to Doctor Gregory. “Do you mind if I bend this?”

  “Bend it? I suppose not, but how do you propose to…?” She gapes as I grip the ends of the bar and force them together, my muscles straining as I slowly lever the bar into a U shape. I remember Brugan doing the same thing to a weight lifting bar when he was in his Devil Bear Skin.

  “How did you do that?” Doctor Gregory stands to take the bar from my hands. The muscles in her neck stand out as she struggles with it, testing whether she can get it to bend. Finally she gives up and puts it back on the table.

  “You believe your strength increased as a direct result of using the Leopard Skin?” she asks.

  “That’s right.”

  “The Skin transferral technology was in development for many years, and no test subject has ever displayed symptoms like yours.”

  I shrug. “And nobody else had their human body injured when their Skin was hurt, but you watched it happen to me.”

  “That’s true.” She frowns, rubbing her chin. “The director must be told a
bout this. The changes to your physiology are far more extreme than we ever considered and transferrals must be stopped until we know more. Considering the circumstances, perhaps she’ll allow me to help with the study. I’ll need to contact her, to let her know—”

  “Director Morelle already knows,” I interrupt. And it must be true. By now Morelle must have seen the restraints I tore free from when I escaped from her lab.

  “She knows?” The doctor paces across the room, clearly upset. “I developed significant parts of the transferral technology. If a subject’s physiology is affected, I’m responsible. Perhaps the director doesn’t understand the implications—”

  “You’re not responsible. The director’s the one in charge.” I hobble back to the chair and sink down, glad to be off my feet again. “Besides, I’m grateful for the change. Without the extra strength my Skin gave me, I’d probably be dead by now. Experimented on and dissected in the director’s lab.”

  “Dissected?” She spins to face me, her brow furrowed. She’s probably wondering if I’m a liar or just plain crazy.

  My heart sinks. I’ve barely begun to tell her what’s really been going on. And if she doesn’t believe me now, how’s she going to feel when I tell her I’m not Rayne?

  “The director’s not the person you think she is.” I say. “She’s been scheming and lying the entire time. Sentin said he only entered the contest to keep an eye on her. He seems to know what she’s up to.”

  “In that case, I’d like to speak with Sentin.”

  “So would I. But he’s with the director, and she might be monitoring his calls. We should talk to Cale instead.”

  “Cale? Why?”

  I hesitate, trying to think of a good reason. I can’t exactly admit it’s because I miss him, and need to tell him how sorry I am for pushing him away.

  “He’s affected by this too,” I say instead. “He should know what’s happening. Would you call him for me?”

  “You can’t call him yourself?”