Steel, Titanium and Guilt: Just Hunter Books I to III

by Robin Craig

  But when it happened again a week later he found himself staring at those strange eyes for long enough to know they were really there. And worse, long enough to hope they weren’t actually looking straight back him. Then they vanished again and he shakily reached for his phone.

  ~~~

  The IT department was continuing to increase the number and variety of data source feeds into the crime correlation AI, and in her search for clues Miriam had instigated a supervisory subsystem that gave terms related to the burglary case a higher priority score.

  She had done it as a learning exercise more than in any hope of something useful. If anything it was a step backwards, increasing the number of mysterious theories the AI suggested. But two weeks later the system flagged an odd item for her attention. Miriam studied it carefully, retrieved the background data then sat back and thought for a while, mulling over whether such a left-field idea was really worth pursuing at the risk of appearing a gung-ho idiot. Finally she got up and called Jack to meet her in Ramos’s office. Better appear an idiot for over-enthusiasm than for ignoring a vital lead, she thought.

  “Boss, this is a funny one. It’s probably nothing, but who knows. Animal Control had a report from a witness about a panther loose in the city. Would you believe, Animal Control actually sent a guy to check it out – apparently you’d be amazed at the kinds of pets some people do keep in their apartments. The man who reported it said he didn’t believe it the first time either, but when he saw it a second time he called it in. Animal Control weren’t impressed: people get their perspectives all screwed up, especially when it’s getting dark, and if AC find anything it’s usually a large feral cat. Once a ‘mountain lion’ turned out to be a small feral cat. But occasionally there is something dangerous so they like to check when the caller has any credibility at all.”

  They were watching her, as unimpressed as Animal Control had been but not caring to interrupt.

  “Anyway, they found nothing on this one. No signs of anything unusual, no prints, no droppings, just the usual vermin. It would have ended there, as it usually does, except IT has been feeding data to my AI from Animal Control. The system flagged it because it was in a part of the city not too far from a few of our robberies, and because of the particular words the witness used: ‘A big dark thing with a long tail. It went into the shadows and looked over in my direction, and all I could see were these big yellow eyes.’”

  She shrugged. “What do you think?”

  “Do we have a good location?”

  “Good enough. It was in a rundown part of the city, in a block with a few working warehouses and more derelicts. If we ignore the active ones, there are about half a dozen buildings that could be hiding places for someone.”

  Ramos sat tapping his fingers on the desk. “It’s a bit thin, isn’t it? But we’re not making much headway anywhere else. I wouldn’t normally send anyone out on something that can barely be called a lead in a case that mightn’t be a case, but here in my office I have two officers who are always trying to escape their desk jobs. Do you think it’s worth taking a look, Stone?”

  Jack shrugged and said, “Sure. I could use the exercise. And it might help Hunter here appreciate the true meaning of police investigation. Boredom and futility.”

  Chapter 11 – Search

  Miriam and Jack looked up at the warehouse. “Smithers & Sons” was painted in large faded letters on the side. Whoever the Smithers family were, they had chosen to leave this sorry monument to happier days slowly gathering dust and vermin. An equally faded sign was the only monument to the family’s optimism, declaring to an indifferent world that the property was for rent. The sign stood at a distinct lean, so it was now a slow-motion race between the sun and gravity as to which would remove it first. But for now the building’s sole purpose was a home for rats and, judging by a few food wrappers littering the ground, temporary lodgings for the sorrier members of humanity.

  This was the fourth building they had visited so far. They had all looked much the same as this one and all been empty except for one tramp sleeping off his treasure of cheap liquor. They had also questioned a few workers they had happened to come across around the still living businesses. None of them had seen anything.

  “There are two kinds of witnesses,” Jack had said to Miriam. “Those who see what isn’t there, like your panther man, and those who don’t see anything. I read about an experiment done a long time ago where most people watching a video of a basketball game didn’t notice a guy in a gorilla suit walk across the court through the players. That’s your average witness. And the ones who do see the gorilla won’t tell you. Half of them will try to blackmail him instead.”

  “OK,” said Jack after looking the place over, clearly unimpressed by the prospects. “Next on the list is this prime property. Let’s see if our friends the Smithers have anything to tell us.”

  They easily gained access through one of the broken doors and looked around. If it was the lair of a super-villain she wasn’t making a good living out of it. “Well, let’s take a look around.”

  There were the usual signs of occasional human activity, with a small scattering of discarded needles and a few food scraps even the rats rejected. More extensive drifts of food packaging and condom wrappers decorated the corners, swept there by the random winds that found entrance through any number of gaps. “Welcome to humanity’s finest,” whispered Jack.

  “Same as before, I suppose,” said Miriam.

  “Yep. But let’s not let the other ones lull us into putting our guard down. If a place is worth investigating, it’s worth being cautious in even if they all look the same. Stick together, be quiet, and be observant. Let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter 12 – Katlyn

  Katlyn was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her nest with her eyes closed, humming quietly to herself. She had an iBud in one ear and her mind was immersed in the soaring vocals of Phantom of the Opera. Like everyone, music made her feel and in turn how she felt changed her taste. As with most young people, when feeling energetic she loved dancing to hard thumping rock. At other times her overactive nervous system appreciated the more gentle but complex beauty of classical music. Today was a day she felt like something romantic and dramatic. She could relate to the tragedy of dreams crushed by indifference and madness, she thought.

  She had a number of such nests scattered around the city. They were places of refuge where she could rest or hide if she had to, or use as a base of operations if she had a few things to do in the obscuring darkness of the night.

  They were all similar to this one. She liked large abandoned buildings with lots of places to hide and several hidden escape routes above or below ground. She always made her nest in an out of the way part of the building, well hidden and usually requiring a climb, so a casual visitor would be unlikely to find it – especially the kind of casual visitor she was likely to get. She didn’t mind visitors if they weren’t too nosy. It was best if there was some activity and signs of random human traffic: it made her own presence less likely to be noticed. So she tolerated the tramps or hobos who made it their temporary hotel, the drug addicts shooting up and the occasional lovers looking for privacy they couldn’t find or afford elsewhere. If visitors were annoying or started to make themselves too much at home she would shoo them off somehow. Strange noises at night were often effective; if not, sending a few rats their way usually did the trick. Nobody liked the rats.

  The place was empty today. She wasn’t out here for any particular reason; sometimes she just liked to get out and about and have her own private time and space. Daniel didn’t mind. Well, didn’t object, anyway. They had talked about the extra risk but he had said that for all the importance of her work, you never knew how long it would take or if she would get herself killed. Life, he had told her, was for living; important as they were, long term goals should never stop you living along the way: especially when that living might turn out to be all you got. He thought she needed as m
uch of a life as she could make for herself so he was glad she at least had this.

  There were many reasons she loved Daniel, she thought. That was one of them.

  When cocooned in the safety of home, Katlyn wore an iBud in each ear for the usual full stereo experience, but when in the field she always kept one ear clear and alert for danger. It proved to be an unnecessary precaution this time. The soprano cut out mid note and was replaced by an insistent peeping sound: one of her hidden sensors must have detected someone entering the building.

  She removed the iBud and listened. Whoever it was were being quiet about it. The only visitors who moved that quietly tended to be teenage lovers, scared of their daring illicit adventure, not wanting to be caught or seen in their sweet clumsy couplings. But there was usually more whispering and giggling involved.

  She pulled her flexipad from her belt, unrolled it and scanned the spyeye inputs. There they were. Two cops had come in and were poking around. This could be trouble. If they were looking for anyone in particular they might decide to search the place and could find her nest.

  She studied them carefully. They were alert, hands on holstered guns, looking serious. She nearly laughed at the sight of them. They looked like a pair of stereotypes from a crime series: the middle-aged white guy, hard-bitten and cynical; trailed by the rookie black girl, innocent, eager and a bit dense. Katlyn half expected to see a camera crew. Then her bared teeth morphed into a more feral expression. However comical they might look they were the law, her deadly enemy: an enemy she must not underestimate.

  She sat back, watching them and pondering her best strategy. They weren’t sure what they were looking for was here but they were nervous about finding it. They would probably just do a quick search then go away none the wiser, which would be ideal: it would be sad to lose this nest. But they looked grim enough to be persistent, and then they might find it; and she certainly didn’t want to be found with it if they did.

  As was her habit she had rigged her nest so she could set it alight if it was compromised. The building still had a working fire control system but she had disabled it inside the nest itself. That way she could destroy any evidence without burning down the whole place. While a big fire would be exciting to watch, a small, contained fire in part of a disused building was unlikely to attract as much attention. Burning down the whole thing, especially if some people happened to be inside at the time or it spread to bring down the whole block, could prompt deeper investigation than she wanted.

  Her best course, she decided, would be to hide in another part of the building near an escape route then watch and wait. So she silently left her nest and crept carefully along one of the walkways.

  Thirty years ago, long before Katlyn was born, a splinter of slag had fallen into a vat of molten steel. It made a microscopic defect in a steel bolt, and in the decades since that defect acted as a nucleus from which time, oxygen, humidity and stress had conspired to send invisible cracks of corrosion through the metal. At last under the added stress of Katlyn’s weight the bolt sheared, and one side of the walkway dropped a few inches with a clang that echoed loudly through the warehouse.

  “Shit-shit-shit!” hissed Katlyn, looking wildly around. A long-empty window of some forgotten supervisor’s office gaped blackly at her from eight feet away. In less than a heartbeat she had gathered herself and leapt across the gap, grabbing the frame as she flew and swinging herself inside.

  Jack swung around at the sound. “Hey!” he cried. “Stop!”

  “What was it? Did you see anything?” cried Miriam.

  “It looked like someone up there, jumping into that room. And,” he added looking at Miriam, “it looked like it had a tail.”

  They took what cover they could, drew their weapons and peered up at the dark entrance to the room. Two pale golden orbs stared at them from the darkness.

  “You up there! This is the police! Show yourself!”

  Katlyn had heard Stone’s comment about her tail and worse, the tone in which he had said it. She needed to know more; escape was no longer an option.

  The orbs vanished.

  “Come out with your hands up! Don’t make us come and get you. Surrender now and make it easier on yourself!”

  “You mean easier on you, don’t you?” a harsh voice reverberated from above. “No, I think you should earn your pay today, officers. Come and find me. Let’s play a little game of hide and seek. I hide, you seek. Later, you might be hiding while I seek, which will be even more fun.”

  “What are we going to do?” whispered Miriam.

  “We’d better call for backup,” replied Jack. “Oh crap. My phone’s lost connection. You?” Miriam checked and shook her head. “It might be all the metal in this place. Or more likely our friend there has a signal blocker on.”

  “Maybe we should try to get back out to the car? Call for help from there?”

  Jack thought for a minute. “Dammit”, he whispered, “This is our best chance to catch this thing! You try to back away to the door while I keep it occupied. Let’s not let it get away.”

  Miriam began to edge back the way they came. She jumped as a bar of reinforcing rod spun through the air and smashed into the concrete a few feet away between her and the exit, throwing up sparks, its clang echoing through the building.

  “Hey! No sneaking out! Play properly or not at all, you two!”

  Miriam scuttled back under cover and looked to Jack. He whispered, “Let’s humor her. We’ll go hunting like she asks, but try to maneuver close to an exit. If you see your chance, take it. Otherwise stay close. We’ll separate but make sure you stay in sight. Let’s go.”

  “Ow!” cried Miriam as a small bolt or something hit her on the leg. “Something just hit me!”

  A second later, brick smashed on the floor a few feet from Jack. “Jesus! That could have killed me!”

  They looked wildly about. “There!” called Miriam. Someone darted along a walkway and out of sight. Jack let off a shot but without much hope of hitting anything, and his bullet zinged off into the far side of the building.

  “Come on guys,” the voice said, affecting a bored tone. “You’re a bit slow. Try to do better or I might get bored. I get angry when I’m bored.”

  The echoes made it impossible to tell where the voice was coming from, so they moved in the direction where they’d last seen its owner, guns drawn, casting about from side to side. They turned a corner and saw two feet and a tail disappear off to the side. They then had to duck as the metal lid of a bin came spinning through the air toward their heads.

  “Where the hell is she?” whispered Jack, swinging his gun around from side to side. Out of the corner of her eye, Miriam saw a blur swing down and plant a solid kick in Jack’s back, slamming him head first into a wall. He lay still. But before Miriam could fire her own gun without hitting Jack, their opponent was gone again.

  “God dammit!” she swore under her breath, “where the hell is she now?” Then it was her turn to find out, as what felt like a steel band wrapped around her throat and an iron grip held her gun arm.

  “OK bitch,” a voice rasped in her ear. “Here’s how it is. I can break your neck as easy as spit on you. But a life is a terrible thing to waste, even yours, so why don’t you drop that gun and maybe I’ll let you live?”

  Miriam couldn’t breathe, and dark splotches started a dance at the corners of her vision. There was something important in what the thing had just said.... something important... she relaxed her grip and her gun clattered to the floor.

  The creature quickly shifted its grasp to pin her arms close, dragged her to a support beam and handcuffed her to it with her own cuffs, arms behind her back around the beam. Then it stepped around to face her.

  For the first time Miriam got a clear view of the creature in the flesh, no longer a blur of dark and shadows. It was obviously human and obviously female, but the large yellow eyes and long furred tail gave it a distinct aura of cat. It watched her calmly for a few seconds
and then drew out a thin, sharp blade. Its gaze sharpened into a predatory look that accentuated the cat while diminishing the human, and she stepped up to Miriam. “Now, what are we going to do with you?” she drawled, tracing her blade along the line between Miriam’s jaw and throat. Miriam could feel the keen point drawing a line along her skin, but was relieved that the creature was, at least for now, careful not to cut her. Despite her terror, she calmly lifted her chin to gaze directly into its eyes. She knew the nature of her gaze belied the calm.

  “Well, you’re a brave little girl, I’ll give you that,” it said. “And I think we’ll have us a little talk, you and me. I’ll ask a few questions, you’ll give a few answers, and depending on how that goes we’ll see if you live or die. But first let me fix up your buddy over there. I hate people interrupting my private discussions, don’t you?”

  It bounded over to where Jack lay and Miriam didn’t even have time to cry out “No!” as it plunged its dagger into his defenseless body. But despite the speed and violence of the thrust, the creature stopped at the last instant and merely poked his body, as if checking whether he was awake. “Your friend is OK – for now,” it said, “Sleeping like an especially ugly baby. He’s got a bad bump on that thick head but unless he’s made of eggs he’ll wake up – eventually. Do you think I can trust him to be a good boy, or should I keep him out of trouble?” Miriam just stared, unsure of what to say. “Don’t worry little girl, that’s what we grown-ups call a ‘rhetorical question’. I’ll just keep this bag of bones out of our way.”

  With that, she unceremoniously and apparently effortlessly dragged Jack by one foot to the wall and handcuffed his arms around another pole, leaving him lying face down on the floor in the dust and debris. She stood over him for a moment then gave him a spiteful kick in the ribs; he didn’t move.