Superego

by Frank J. Fleming

  Eventually I came to a quite crowded section. It contained creatures from neither Earth nor Corridia but instead from other planets—many of them much wilder worlds with no sentient creatures. One very humid-looking habitat had creatures that looked like flying beetles but were about the size of dogs. In another enclosure were what looked like boulders sitting in a grassy area, but one moved and opened a giant mouth full of sharp teeth. I had never seen those before, and I bet they’d be fascinating to see in action.

  I found the main attraction of the zoo, though, when I came to a giant glass viewing area about three stories high. Through it, I could see a large, somewhat dark swamp area of tall trees. I stared at it awhile and saw nothing of interest, but everyone else was quite transfixed by the scene. I looked out into the dark swamp a bit longer, trying to see some movement.

  There was a loud shriek, and something slammed into the window. The crowd jumped in response. I was a bit more reserved in my reaction, but one of my hands did idly move closer to a non-existent gun under my jacket even as I still tried to figure out what I was looking at. Then I saw it. One of the trees nearest the window wasn’t a tree at all but a tall slender creature with limbs like branches and two giant, wood-like claws—one of which had just hit the window. At the top of the tree creature’s long, trunk-like legs was its body that looked a bit like a leafy top; I could make out the faint gleam of eyes. It was nightmarish—no wonder everyone was so fascinated by it. I looked up the creature’s info on my reader: It was called a tree wraith and had been discovered by humans on an ecologically primitive planet. It had just recently been added to the zoo, and, judging from its swipes at its enclosure, was not taking to captivity too well. It was nice to see at least one creature with a strong opinion on that.

  When my fascination with the tree wraith waned, I started to wonder when Diane would make contact. Of course, I knew there was a possibility that—given the news about Hana and her family—she had other things on her mind and wasn’t going to show. If that happened, I’d be stuck trying to find her myself—maybe having a slightly easier time than Nystrom, since (hopefully) she wasn’t trying to avoid me. And while searching for her, I’d have to avoid Nystrom myself. It would be a mess.

  So I hoped she would turn up. I decided to find a bench and read for a while, giving her time to find me, but saw a blonde woman approaching me. It wasn’t Diane, though—it was Vance, Morrigan’s lackey from the brothel.

  “Hello, Rico,” she said, a smarmy smile on her face. “You enjoying the animals?”

  And now if Diane was watching, she was probably going to be scared off. I couldn’t worry about that, though; I had to figure out how to handle this. They were planning to kill me, but I knew that for the moment they wanted me back. So the safe idea was to play along.

  I desperately wanted another option than the safe idea, though.

  “Animals are fun,” I replied. “Do you know if they have a giraffe here? I like them, because they have necks that are longer than the other animals’ necks.” There were a number of people around us; I didn’t want to look around too blatantly, but no one stuck out as being another one of Morrigan’s people.

  She glared at me, but she was a little too girlish to pull off threatening. “You think you’re funny, Rico? We watched you traipse all over the city, but guess what? We tagged you back when I knocked you unconscious. You don’t just get to run away from us.”

  “I’m sorry, but in the bug scans at your hotel room,” Dip chimed in my ear, “I wasn’t looking for a tracker signal on your person. I’ll see if I can remotely detect the signal they’re using, as it has to be pretty stealthy.” Good for him, showing some initiative—though it didn’t speak well for him that he’d missed it in the first place. My options were going to be pretty limited if I could never get away from Morrigan’s people.

  “Well, you found me, nice work,” I said. “But I’m still not doing the job. You can report that back to Morrigan.”

  “Morrigan doesn’t care what you have to say. In fact, she wanted me to tell you you’re not worth any more of her time. You’re just going to do what you came here to do.”

  “Or?”

  Her expression became more neutral. “Let’s not make it a threat. The executives still want you for this, so Morrigan just said to find out what you need to be more confident in your mission. Let’s all leave here happy.” She looked at all the people around us. “Why don’t we find a place to speak more privately?”

  She led me to a nearby door labeled “Employees Only.” “I’m not an employee,” I said.

  “Shut up.” She knocked on the door. A zoo employee opened it, and Vance grabbed him and pulled him out of the room. We moved inside, and she slammed the door behind us, blocking the teenage kid’s reentry. Inside was a hallway with a number of doors to supply and maintenance closets. A few zoo employees loitered about, on break or slacking off. Vance yelled, “Leave!” and the employees quickly scattered, most leaving through the same door we’d come in—I guessed they found her more convincing at intimidation than I did.

  I didn’t like being away from the zoo’s main area, but it was probably a bad idea to hope Diane would find me while I was talking to Vance, anyway. Plus, a secluded area would make it easier for me to snap Vance’s neck and move on.

  “I have detected the tracker,” Dip told me. “It’s a new Nystrom product, but I found the protocol and remotely disabled it.”

  That seemed to settle it. I’d just have to be patient enough to wait for the right moment and then kill her, as I was unarmed and didn’t want to underestimate her physically like I had the two girls on the tram. Then I’d try to find Diane.

  “By the way, if anything happens to me, you’ll be dead in seconds,” she said. Someone wearing a zoo uniform walked into the room and stopped in the doorway, startled by the scene.

  I didn’t know how many other people Vance had with her, but as long as she had a gun I could use, I’d be happy to find out. That might not help me find Diane, though. But it would get me noticed. “You scared of me?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No.” She almost sold it. “If you do try anything, you can be pretty sure I will be the one—”

  She stopped when a knife blade was pressed against her face. The woman in the zoo uniform had snuck up and grabbed Vance from behind. “I hear they do wonders with reconstructive surgery these days, so I hope you have a good picture for them to work from.”

  Now there was a woman who knew how to intimidate.

  CHAPTER 30

  The expression on Vance’s face was quite entertaining. Apparently, the idea that I would not be working alone had never crossed her mind, or Morrigan’s.

  Diane’s face was less entertaining. She was a brunette now, no makeup, and was wearing a loose, tan zoo uniform. One would probably not take a second look at her except for the deadly intense expression she wore, nearly emotionless with just a hint of hate. She was clearly prepared to kill Vance—but she probably wouldn’t start with that.

  “Get out of here!” Diane barked at me. “This was a bad idea. I’m not involving you in this anymore.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to help you.” I wasn’t sure what my next move was, though. Considering what Vance might say about me, she could possibly make things uncomfortable with Diane. Not that the current situation was particularly comfortable, but it at least involved things in the realm of my expertise.

  “We’ll see if you keep that attitude,” Diane said to me, then turned her attention to Vance. She pressed the knife into Vance’s face until blood started to flow. “So were you part of the group that killed them? Are you fine with killing innocent people like that? With killing children?!”

  This was what I had been afraid of. Diane should have had enough experience with these people to know that this was a rather pointless line of questioning to pursue. These people wouldn’t be guilted; they had long ago adjusted their thinking to be fine with what they were. I assume
d Diane had been that way, too, while she was part of the syndicate.

  Vance’s face showed more terror as she realized exactly who had her and how Morrigan’s plot to goad her hadn’t quite worked out as they had hoped. She regained some composure, though, and even went back to her smarmy smile. “Why don’t you tell me, applejack? How many children were on that transport you blew up?”

  That did knock a little of the edge off of Diane’s intensity. The “applejack” part confused me for a moment—but then I realized it was a distress word.

  The secure door to the zoo exhibits blew open, and in charged a large, brown-skinned alien and a mousy-haired human woman. The distraction gave Vance an opportunity to turn on Diane, but that was her problem to deal with for now, because the alien was charging me. He had no gun drawn, and it appeared the woman had a stun pistol, which was good luck, considering my current unarmed state.

  I ducked under a large brown fist and quickly assessed my opponent. Hand-to-hand combat with unfamiliar species is not simple, as disabling your opponent requires knowledge of his anatomy. Still, any oxygen-breathing creature will have parts that need to expand and contract to facilitate breathing. These parts will necessarily be softer. And having them struck sharply will not be pleasant for the creature. I saw movement just below my attacker’s neck, so I dodged another blow and punched hard. He gasped, his eyes widening, and swayed backward.

  Also universal: the effects of gravity on bipeds. As the alien was stunned and trying to breathe, I came in close to him and swept his legs, sending him crashing to the ground. And then I brought my elbow down hard on his face. Pretty much every creature hates getting nailed in the face.

  I turned my attention to the woman and pounced on her just as she was about to fire at me. She wasn’t quick enough, and I grabbed the stun pistol in her hand and twisted it until I heard her finger break in the trigger guard. She wailed, and a light shove sent her to the ground. She started to fumble for a real gun with her off hand, but I shot her with the stun pistol and she stopped moving. I spun toward the alien but found I hadn’t hurt him as much as I’d hoped, and he now had a gun in his hand. A bolt ripped through him, and I saw Diane pointing a gun at the alien while hovering over Vance, who was lying on the ground clutching at a knife in her side.

  “Everyone you know is so dead!” Vance screamed at Diane. “Next time, we’ll make sure you get to watch as—”

  Diane shot her through the face. She stared for a moment at her victim and then looked at me. “You don’t want to be a part of this.”

  I took a gun off the alien and one from the woman, giving myself a mismatched pair. Not pretty, but it would do. “We’re getting out of here alive—together.”

  She looked at me with an expression unfamiliar to me. I think it was admiration. I was still the hero to her—I didn’t know how long that would last…or quite understand why I wanted it to.

  A clinking sound rattled down the hallway as a canister tumbled toward us and started releasing gas. I could feel the irritants immediately—some sort of tear gas. So they still were trying to take me alive. I had no use for them alive, though, but I was already losing vision due to my stinging eyes, so I headed back into the exhibit area with Diane while we fired behind us.

  I heard screams of panic around us, but I was more concerned about those who weren’t panicking, as we were now out in the open. This was a big plaza in the exotic animal section, and there was very little cover besides a couple of pillars. We ran behind one, and I spotted a few people who weren’t running. I was about to unload on them, but I remembered I was still pretending to be a hero, and the risk of casualties was too high.

  I’d gotten myself into a dumb situation.

  A bolt ripped by me—they seemed to have given up on taking me alive—and I took a half second to carefully aim and remove the torso of one man with no visible civilians behind him. Diane shot another man and then dived behind a bench. I killed one Corridian coming out of the employee area as I ran for the bench while dodging more shots. Our attackers unloaded on us, and from the shot pattern I counted two of them. Diane signaled with her eyes that she would take the one on the left, so together we rose from cover. Again, I had to take careful aim, letting the man get off one shot, which luckily missed, before I nailed him. I saw Diane’s mark fall, too, out of the corner of my eye.

  Panicked people were still screaming and looking for the exits, and I saw one fleeing woman trip and fall…but a little too neatly. I have watched a lot of terrified people trip over themselves while running away from me, and they always awkwardly try to scramble straight to their feet as soon as they hit the ground. But the woman was still for a moment before trying to stand again. Despite being eighty percent sure, I let her turn so I could see the gun in her hand before I shot her—in case Diane was watching. This whole avoiding killing “innocents” thing was annoying, but I was trying to treat it as a new challenge.

  And then I heard an extremely loud shriek and a huge clamor behind me, and I realized I had yet another new challenge.

  Now, I couldn’t fault the zoo too much. This was apparently the first tree wraith in captivity, and in designing the enclosure, they probably hadn’t known at the time exactly how poorly it would react to being caged. Also, they most likely didn’t factor in a gunfight happening right in front of it. Anyway, the glass—or whatever advanced plastic they had used—viewing area had been weakened by a number of stray bolts. This had obviously startled the tree wraith, which now smashed at the glass with enough force to rip a big hole in it. Another swipe opened the hole enough that the wraith broke free into the plaza, about ten yards from where Diane and I were holding our ground. The tree wraith now seemed livid and intent on crushing and killing everything it could see until it was left alone.

  You could say there’s a little tree wraith in all of us.

  Several more people with guns had rushed into this section of the zoo from multiple directions—Morrigan had not underestimated me as a threat—but they all paused to see the giant monster charging toward them. I took the opportunity to shoot one before he was done gawking and signaled to Diane to head toward the tree wraith. She looked at me wide-eyed but quickly followed my lead. It may have been a terrifying creature with claws that could easily have ripped us in two, but it was also cover, which we just couldn’t be too picky about in our current situation.

  I ran between the creature’s legs while Diane ran around the side of it. It had four brown, seemingly bark-covered legs in addition to its massive claws (which I ducked). I hoped I was too agile for a three-story creature to snatch, but I had never seen one of these hunt before, so this would be a big learning experience for everyone.

  The tree wraith flailed at us with its claws, each about the size of my torso, but a shot aimed at us hit it in one of its legs. And while I’m not qualified to assess the mental state of a tree wraith, I would guess from its reaction that that made it mad. With one swipe, the man who’d shot it disappeared in a spray of crimson (that’s the color of human blood, if I haven’t mentioned it). Our other attackers now ignored us to concentrate their fire on the beast, giving Diane and me a chance to bail out through an emergency exit many of the civilians had run through. I assumed the men with guns would eventually win the battle, but I wished the tree wraith the best.

  Outside, we quickly stashed our guns inside our clothes and tried to get lost in the crowd, but then I saw a familiar face. Or, I should say, a familiar species, as it wasn’t like I’d have been able to tell them apart. Close to us, standing by his car and watching people exit the zoo, was, I was pretty sure, Agent Verg. I ran toward him, and he quickly noticed me and pulled out his gun just in time for it to reach my hand and become my gun, which I placed to his smooth, gray head.

  “You’re going to give us a ride.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Evasion plan beta, Dip.”

  “Understood. I still won’t be able to retrieve you, though, while you’re within a thousand
miles of the city.”

  “What was that?” Diane asked.

  “Just taking care of my things.”

  Diane and I really needed some time to talk, but sitting in the back seat of Verg’s car with a gun to his head wasn’t the right moment. I didn’t know what she thought about so many of Morrigan’s people coming after me, but I was hoping she had a flattering explanation I could roll with. She didn’t seem too preoccupied with me, though, as she was currently burning a hole with her eyes through the back of Verg’s head. “So what do you know about all this?” Diane barked at him. “I will kill you if you lie to me!” I was pretty sure that was true.

  “I don’t know what’s going on!” Verg said. His manner of speaking was really odd and hard for me to read, but I guessed he was scared, as his voice had become louder and his speech patterns a little faster. “I’m not even sure who you are! Is one of you humans Rico Vargas?”

  “Yep,” I answered. “And the other one you recently interrupted a dinner of mine to pursue.” Of course, I knew for a fact that Verg wasn’t a part of Nystrom, but I hadn’t yet decided how helpful it was to get Diane to the same conclusion. Shooting someone in the head was a very simple way to deal with things, but Diane seemed a bit on edge—certainly different from how I had seen her—and perhaps more killing wouldn’t help her mental state.

  “Detective Thompson?” Verg glanced at Diane. “You changed the color of your follicles…I guess you can do that.”

  “Are you claiming you’re not with all those people trying to gun us down inside the zoo?” Diane demanded.

  “I was in the area and heard that there was a disturbance there. The police hadn’t responded yet, but I thought I should check it out, considering all the recent terrorism.”