Panther in the Hive (The Tasha Trilogy Book 1)

by Cole, Olivia

  “Leave that, just bring your knife. If we have to run, you want to be as light as possible. Don’t forget your badge.”

  Tasha reluctantly removes the strap she had slipped over her shoulder. She’s used to having the backpack, especially during times like this. She’s run many blocks—hell, miles—with the green canvas bumping against her butt. To leave it now feels somehow ungrateful. She takes her Apiary badge out, then props the backpack up in the seat and slips out of the car after Ishmael onto the street.

  Z has come around from the other side of the Chevy, her battered face drawn, and stands with them as Dr. Rio quietly opens the trunk. He motions to Malakai, who approaches him slowly, like a terrier who’d received a slap a moment before and is reluctant to put himself in the line of fire again so quickly. Together they hoist out three backpacks. Ishmael takes one.

  “What’s this?” Tasha points at the bags.

  “Necessities, Ms. Lockett,” Dr. Rio replies. “Now, the idea is getting in as quietly as possible. Move slowly if we’re seen. No sudden movements. They’re not too bright, but if one of them decides to come after us, they all will.”

  He’s as animated as Tasha has ever seen him. He shoulders the backpack easily despite its obvious weight and looks at them, from face to face.

  “Does everyone have what they need?”

  He means weapons. Tasha carries the Wusthof, of course, Z her box cutter. Malakai has his trusty shovel, and Ishmael carries his axe—the huntsman. Dr. Rio carries nothing but the backpack—the sickle hasn’t been seen since the garage—but Tasha assumes he has a trick or two up his sleeve if they run into trouble.

  Rio nods, satisfied, and steps up onto the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings. They pass a Starbucks, which is predictably packed with bodies, both living and dead. Rio motions Malakai against the wall, and the whole group follows suit. Tasha cranes her neck, trying to be small. She can see the baristas, still behind the counters; one chewing on a customer who Tasha hopes has been dead for some time. Although they could be fresh—she can easily imagine some of the caffeine-addicts from Before sneaking out into the jungle, braving the hordes for a Frappuccino. The Minkers don’t notice Tasha and her group—they go on munching and swaying. Tasha still isn’t sure if their noses are any more advanced than her own, but she hopes her fear isn’t fragrant. Perhaps the smell of coffee beans will mute her scent. She wishes Dr. Rio had put on some deodorant before they got out of the car—god forbid they pick up his cabbagey, oily smell.

  Rio pauses as they reach an alley, he and Malakai stretching their necks around the corner to check for Minkers. They’re all dodging and dipping: ducking behind cars, flattening against walls, contorting their bodies to remain behind street signs and fire hydrants. It could be a game. Ishmael hangs back from Rio, staying close to Tasha. So does Z. If they’ve chosen her for a rock of strength, they’ve picked the wrong pebble: she feels as if she’ll vomit at any moment, faint away like a corseted Southern belle. Tasha has done her share of creeping up and down city streets, but this feels different. There are so many of them: crouching in the Corner Bakery, wandering in circles inside boutiques. They seem preoccupied with the stores they’ve laid claim to, and none pay much attention to Tasha and the others. She wonders if the noise of the Chevy is what drew the few who had given chase, including the cops—otherwise she doesn’t know how to account for the difference in behavior. Although not all of the shops’ window-fronts are broken—maybe they can’t see through the glass, maybe they can’t hear them. She remembers the Minker from the Post. There was no glass to see through, but still she had not even acknowledged Tasha until Tasha had crossed the threshold of the building. She needs a course on the biology of the Minker: what can they see, smell, hear? What do they think? Maybe Rio was right about the different programming for different Chips. They’re unpredictable. The stillness and grayness of downtown seeps into her and spreads through her veins like caffeine, leaving her jittery.

  “Rio,” she whispers, annoyed at having to address him. None of it makes sense, and it pisses her off. “Why aren’t they looking at us? Why aren’t they chasing us? They’re all around; some of them must have seen us.” She needs something more than lame references to random Cybranu programming.

  “Yeah,” says Z, her voice barely above a whisper. She still seems dazed after having her head yanked out the window by the Minkers. Tasha wishes she could have hidden her somewhere safe until after they left the Apiary.

  “Programming,” Dr. Rio says without looking back at them. “There are pawns and there are knights.”

  Tasha wants to throttle him—he and his predictable, cryptic bullshit. They pass a combined hair salon and coffee shop. This time, the woman inside—protective cape still around her shoulders, her tresses folded into squares of aluminum foil for dyeing—stares directly at Tasha. Blood wreathes her mouth, staining her skin all the way up to her under-eyes. She has been face-deep in someone’s flesh. Tasha freezes, and so do Ishmael and Z, but there’s nothing to hide from. The woman’s gaze doesn’t crinkle with annoyance the way Tasha knows a Minker on the attack’s face is apt to do. The woman just stares, dizzy-eyed, her expression cloudy.

  “It’s like she ate everyone in the salon and then just stopped. I don’t think she’s even left the shop,” Ishmael says, cautiously moving on, somewhat assured by the Minker’s lack of reaction that she won’t give chase.

  But Tasha wants to know. Her experience with the Post worker was a trial, but one trial doesn’t make a theory.

  She steps quickly to the door of the salon, which isn’t a door anymore on account of the body that smashed through it, a man who lies half-cannibalized in the frame.

  “Tasha, come back—”

  She feels Ishmael’s fingers snatch at her arm but she’s away from him, through the door, stepping into the territory of the woman with the hair foil.

  It’s as if Tasha pulled a trigger. As soon as she crosses the doorframe, the woman’s eyes narrow and come together like two irate caterpillars crawling. A hoarse bark rises from her throat and she stumbles forward, arms outstretched, ready to embrace Tasha and chomp on her organs. But she’s slow, and Tasha hops backward, outside the territory of the salon in a single step.

  The woman draws up short, reined in by an invisible bridle. She’s close enough to touch. She’s still snarling. Tasha is sure the woman can see her. The eyes are those of a mongrel in a cage, waiting for curious fingers to wander between the bars. Tasha glances at Ishmael, whose mouth is open, saying nothing. Rio has just noticed Tasha’s lag and is hurrying back from the next corner, his forehead furious. Tasha feels bold, defiant. She crosses the threshold of the salon once more, the Minker’s snarl only just beginning before Tasha brings back her arm and hacks the neck with full force. The spark of the Chip dying is a pop of a light bulb, the bark gurgling back down inside the volcanic throat of the Minker woman. There is no one else—the salon is empty except for its rows of mirrors, which Tasha doesn’t need.

  Then Dr. Rio is there and he has her by the shoulder, the fingers of his always-curling left hand digging into her body.

  “That was very, very stupid,” he says from between his teeth. “You might have lost your Apiary badge.”

  Tasha wrenches away.

  “We’re almost there,” she says, going back out onto the street.

  Continuing down the block, Tasha keeps Z nearby, who is still wordless. At least she’s walking; she hasn’t dropped her box cutter yet. Ishmael is on Tasha’s other side. All three of them are behind Rio, who stalks ahead with Malakai.

  “He’s right about the programming,” Ishmael murmurs.

  Tasha glances at him but doesn’t need to respond. She already knows.

  “There are sweepers and there are keepers,” he says, mostly to himself. “There are the ones that wander the streets and take out their targets, then there are the ones that have a keep to hold down. Un-fucking-believable.”

  She looks at him longer th
is time, until he looks back.

  “Like soccer. Well, and video games,” he says, unembarrassed. “Just saying.”

  They pass the new Chase building—the tallest tower in the city—and find themselves standing outside twelve revolving doors: the west entrance to the Apiary.

  “Ready?” Dr. Rio’s eyes are bright behind his dignified spectacles. Tasha’s shoulder still glows with a dull pain where he had grabbed her in the salon. Now the crack is beginning to show at the edge of him, the lava starting to glow through his pupils. “Remember…slow. Quiet.”

  As they push through the revolving doors, Tasha breathes in the familiar, heavily perfumed air of the Apiary, mixed with the smell of marble and money. Its spell is strong, and she remembers the magic well. It’s a smell that makes one lazy; it tricks the nose into whispering to the brain that they were never happy until they arrived here, and if the brain is smart, it will never let the body leave.

  And the Apiary is busy.

  All of Chicago seems to have gathered inside, milling and gaping, moving in and out of stores. The colossal center atrium rises as far as the eye can see, a long shaft with the endless spiral of stores wrapping around it, up and up. Somewhere up there is Level 51, where Tasha had stood so many times, looking down at the levels of ants, people moving from shop to shop, sitting on the REvolve, perched around the fountains, buzzing up and down on escalators. But the people are no longer ants. The buzz is no longer harmless chatter. The people are bees, ready to sting, and Tasha has entered the hive.

  Chapter 32

  “Quiet,” Dr. Rio reminds them, his voice a hiss. “Slow.”

  Quiet. Slow. Quiet. Slow. The words are a chant in Tasha’s mind. Her head swims. Through the haze of it she realizes Z is gripping her arm. Tasha winces but says nothing. She doesn’t mind the pain: it’s like a pointy anchor keeping her from floating up into the atrium. Returning to her old haven, she’s forgotten why they’ve come here. This place can’t be survived. She looks incredulously at Dr. Rio, who’s holding his hand out to them, his eyes on fire. He’s a shepherd on the mountain face, guiding his paralyzed goats over the precipice. Is he a good shepherd? Will he deliver them to a clovered meadow? Or does only the altar await?

  To herself she says, There might be a cure. There might be a cure, and Tasha takes a step forward, which brings Z as well since she’s still pinned to Tasha’s arm like a jumper (mind changed) clinging to the window ledge. Across the first floor from them is the gargantuan sculpture of the bumblebee, constructed entirely of glass. From above, Tasha knows, it looks like an angel made of ice, spreading its wings. The Minkers cluster around it now like zealots at worship. Through the transparent wings, Tasha can see the warped shapes of the Minkers. Are they sweepers or keepers? Where does their territory begin? At the doors? Should she hesitate before entering? But then Tasha and her group are within the threshold. All it takes to trigger the swarm is drawing the Minkers’ notice.

  “Quiet,” Tasha whispers to Z, and to herself, “slow.”

  Ishmael follows her. The hand that holds the axe is trembling.

  Looking up, Tasha feels like Mowgli entering Monkey City. The din must have been worse in his jungle, but the silence here has its own clamor. Everywhere is the muted swish of the swarms, their feet wandering along the polished marble in aimless circles. Tasha can see them inside Tiffany’s here on the ground floor. One woman slumps against the glass counter, bumping it over and over. From where they stand, it looks like she’s humping the diamonds.

  “Are they going to come for us?” Malakai wasn’t privy to Ishmael and Tasha’s conversation; nor had he seen the experiment with the salon Minker. Tasha wants to tell him, but it would require more words than she feels safe uttering in the present circumstances.

  “They’re at rest,” Dr. Rio replies, hushed. “They’ve come here to be still, not to hunt.”

  “Home base,” Ishmael mutters.

  “In a manner of speaking. It is the Apiary, my dear boy,” Rio says with a small smile. He is a secret-keeper. “They’ve followed the scent their maker left.”

  Tasha has no idea what this means. How would the Minkers know Cybranu’s headquarters were in this building? They couldn’t know. Unless something in the Chip itself is guiding them here. Tasha thinks of what Ishmael said about military technology, embedded in the implant. The Chip protected the body of the soldier—perhaps it also served to guide them back to base. But wouldn’t that mean all the Minkers in the country would be grazing their way toward Chicago at this moment? Perhaps they are. Unless there are other bases. Other malls. The Mall of the America, she thinks suddenly, if it hadn’t burned down…

  They move in slow motion along the wall, like moon-men, or lazily floating sea urchins adrift on the ocean floor’s current. Tasha’s body feels anything but lazy: her muscles are loaded rifles. Although at this moment she’d rather be a sloth again, slow and safe in a tree someplace. A sloth with a shotgun.

  Dr. Rio seems to know what he’s doing. There’s a bank of elevators fifty yards ahead by the first-floor fountain, a massive thing that took months to install. Tasha is all too familiar with the elevators: she had slouched into them morning after morning, standing zombie-like as they propelled her up to Level 51, sometimes getting stuck and forcing her to take the stairs—all fifty-one flights—as employees were prohibited from using the public elevators. The doors of the elevators are a mosaic of differently-colored metals, inlaid with retired pennies, thousands of Abrahams staring out accusingly at whoever stands before them.

  Z steps on Tasha’s heel. She’s lagging behind, her nails lacerating Tasha’s skin. Tasha is nearly dragging her to the elevators. Z has the look of a rabbit, too afraid to run, too afraid to stamp its feet to warn the warren. She’s waiting for the hound to close its jaws around her soft throat. She’s done so well after leaving the Web—now the fear is catching up.

  “Z,” Tasha whispers, “Z.”

  They’re almost to the elevators. All around them and above them the Minkers are swaying. Tasha hasn’t heard a single bark—that would mean they’re ready to hunt. Still, the sound could come at any moment. Tasha is in the keep. They are all floating on their lily pads, the pond placid. But crocodiles don’t doze for long.

  “Tasha, if you please.” Somewhere it’s Dr. Rio’s voice.

  Tasha is staring at a woman standing by the fountain, gazing into its pool. It glitters with coins. She is fur-clad and middle-aged, no doubt one of Fetch Fetchers’ regulars. The luxurious stole around her shoulders is probably the pelt of one or two or six micro lynxes she might have purchased. Perhaps it had been Tasha’s sale, Tasha handing the cats over to their doom, her tongue-tied. The woman stares at the pool, her mouth opening and closing. People wish for stupid things, Z had said in the Web. What did this woman wish for? What does she wish for now? Is there anything human left in her, tossing in coins for a faithful husband, a new car, a cure for cancer? Or is the only desire rattling around in that seething brain the need for blood and flesh?

  “Tasha. Your badge.” Dr. Rio, echoing.

  They are standing in front of the elevators. Ishmael nudges her, accidentally touching her ass. Even in the present circumstances he stutters an apology. She ignores him and reaches into her back pocket for her Apiary ID. She presses her face into the waiting hand of Dr. Rio, his thumb covering her Cresty smile as he takes the badge and holds it in front of the entry pad.

  The idea that it might not work sprouts and wilts at the same time. The light above the pad turns green. The doors slide open with a mechanical sigh.

  “After you,” says Dr. Rio, handing Tasha her badge. Malakai enters first. His face, Tasha sees as he steps into the elevator, is very stiff, his mouth a straight line, his eyebrows high. Her anger at Dr. Rio flares. She hates him for bringing Malakai, for seducing him into this scheme: he’s just a kid, not even a teenager. He’s afraid, of course, but maybe he doesn’t even know enough to be as afraid as he should be. As afraid as Tasha is, a
nd Z, and Ishmael. Dr. Rio is the only one who is cucumber-like in his cool. His lips are even turned up in the smallest of smiles.

  Tasha tries to step into the elevator, but Z’s weight pulls on her. Tasha turns. Z’s feet are planted. She’s staring at the woman in the fur stole, only ten yards away. She’s close, it’s true, but her back is to them. Like the other Minkers, she seems lost in her thoughts, sleepwalking.

  “Z,” Tasha whispers close to her ear. “Z. Come on. We’re going up.”

  She feels as if she’s talking to a child. Maybe Z hit her head harder than Tasha thought.

  Ishmael grits his teeth and prods her.

  “Z,” he urges her, “Z, get in the elevator.”

  Z doesn’t move. Her box cutter hangs limply at her side.

  “We’re going to die,” she whispers, and Tasha prays Malakai doesn’t hear.

  “Tasha.” It’s Dr. Rio. He looks at Tasha with his eyebrows raised, his mouth disapproving. It’s a father’s face. It’s the “Don’t make me pull this car over” face. Tasha wants to punch him. She’s about to snap at him when the elevator, kept too long from closing, verbalizes its displeasure in the form of a long, loud ding.

  Slowly, the middle-aged woman by the fountain turns her head to look at them. Her gaze is cloudy. Even from this distance, Tasha can see the furrow between her brows deepening in annoyance. Her body turns heavily after her head. She’s facing them now, her head cocked brokenly to the side, eyeballing them fiercely like an open-mouthed bird of prey.

  “Z…,” Tasha whispers, still staring at the woman, who stares back. Z doesn’t budge.

  Quiet, slow. Quiet, slow.

  The Minker barks. It’s a yap, a strangled sound. It rises into the fantastic atrium like the first notes of a ghoulish opera. The sound hangs for a moment, vibrating. Then the chorus begins, the calls of the hive pelting Tasha’s group like bullets.