“Mr. Eddington—Damon—please. Mozart is just an alien. He doesn’t think like us, he isn’t going to care that it’s me in there any more than he cared about any of the others. Don’t you see that? Me talking to him, observing him all this time—all that was only part of the project, the experiment. He’s just an alien, and he isn’t going to sound any different this time than he did the other times.”
Damon laughed again, louder. “Nice try, Vance, but I don’t believe it for a minute and I don’t think you do, either. Enough screwing around. I think it’s time to find out what good friends you two really are.” He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out the last vial of jelly he had; when he felt the warm glass in his palm, his mouth watered in anticipation. As the time had rolled by, the flavor of the jelly for Damon had changed, each dose tasting less like a child’s cotton candy fantasy and more like rich port wine, heavy with alcohol and fermented grapes. “Let’s see,” he rasped at Vance, “how much he likes you. I hope he does.” Damon raised the vial and toasted the bioscientist, then drained it, chuckling as Vance slapped angrily at the glass between them in response. Royal jelly flowed over his teeth and tongue, blazing a trail of startling vibrancy along everything it touched, not just inside but along his lips and the roof of his mouth, dribbling down the sharp line of skin along his jaw and collarbone where the drug seeped from the side of his mouth. Bluish splotches of it dotted the deep-cut neckline of his T-shirt.
He tossed the vial aside. “I hope he’s in agony over killing you,” he told her. “I hope it fucking cuts his monster’s heart out… if he has one.” His prisoner started to speak but Damon knew exactly what to do to put a swift end to that, and he quickly toggled the speaker switch to OFF. Without another look at Darcy Vance, Damon sidestepped to the wall control, wrapped his hand around the sliding switch that controlled the door leading to Mozart’s enclosure inside the feeder cage, and pulled.
* * *
The guy in charge of the loading dock in back of Presley Hall was a mope in a blue suit with little experience and less confidence. Barely old enough to legally hold a job, he had thick, youthful brown hair and a thin mustache. The mustache did a poor job of disguising the man’s age; leaning over the flunkie’s desk, Phillip Rice was close enough to see a light rash of pimples underneath the sparse hair. He could also see the guy sweat, and that was good. He liked making people wiggle.
“We can go in with or without you as an escort,” he repeated. “I’m giving you formal notice that this is a search for a highly addictive, controlled substance.”
“You n-need a search warrant,” the young man stammered. He was trying desperately to look tough and failing miserably. “You c-can’t—”
“I can and I will.” Rice leaned over the desk farther, until the metal brow of his white helmet was nearly touching the watch supervisor’s—what a joke—forehead. In a way he felt sorry for the kid; it was a helluva position to be in. On the other hand, if the guy was going to act like an asshole, he was going to get treated like one. “Look”— Rice’s gaze dropped to the plastic name tag on the left front of the guy’s suit jacket and he gave it a poke for emphasis— “Higgins. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the appropriate city ordinance, maybe you’re just stalling for time. It doesn’t matter which, because the result is the same. So I’ll tell you the way the law reads here in Manhattan, but I’m only using my air to say it once.” Higgins started to open his mouth, but Rice held up a warning finger. “Manhattan Substance Abuse Ordinance Number 2021-14.85.4673 says that, and I’m quoting here, so pay attention, ‘When an investigation is conducted wherein the target material is the substance commonly known as royal jelly, derivatives or materials in connection therewith, no search warrant is required by the conducting officer when a Homeworld creature is used as the mechanism by which the search will be carried out.’ End quote.” Held more or less firmly in place by Rice’s two men, ol’ Blue swayed slightly behind Rice, and the MedTech security chief waved a hand in the direction of the creature’s face. In response the alien hissed instinctively and tossed his head. “In other words, Mr.
Higgins, these babies either find what we’re looking for, or they don’t. They don’t lie and they can’t be bribed, because to them there’s no difference between good guys and bad. Now you either call your boss or whoever’s got the authority to lead this little tour, or we’ll go on our own and leave you to cover your own ass. If we have the misfortune to run into a locked door, we’ll laser it open. And trust me when I tell you that we aren’t going to pay any bills for damages that Synsound tries to mail us.” He gave the gaping young man a sardonic grin. “Do we understand each other, Mr. Higgins?”
Higgins nodded, his jerky movements reminding Rice of an antique string puppet. The young man fumbled with a telephone on the desk—an older model that showed the loading dock didn’t rate vidscreens—and pressed a combination of keys. Beneath the low, fairly calm hissing of ol’ Blue, Rice could hear not only Higgins’s whining voice, but that of the person he’d called.
“Morton here.”
“Ch-chief, this is Guard Higgins. Down at the loading dock?” The young guy swiped nervously at the moisture leaking down his forehead, his gaze skittering back and forth from Rice to the alien.
“I know who the hell you are, you moron! What is it?”
“Could you… ah… come to the loading dock?” Higgins swallowed as Rice and his men grinned back; behind them, the creature continued to rock gently on its haunches between the guidepoles.
“What for?”
Before Higgins could answer, Rice rapped his knuckles sharply on the desktop to make sure he had the guard’s attention. “Be very careful what you say on the phone to your supervisor, Mr. Higgins,” he said in a quiet, steely voice. “It would be very unfortunate for me to think you’re giving someone a tip or anything, now wouldn’t it?”
Higgins swallowed more noticeably and Rice saw that the young man’s shirt collar was dark with moisture. The sight made his grin widen; God, how he loved getting under people’s skin and twisting.
“Higgins, who are you talking to down there?”
“There’s a-a situation, sir,” Higgins choked out. “You-you should be here.”
“Do you need more men?” A note of alarm had crept into the unseen speaker’s previously annoyed voice.
Higgins shook his head as though his supervisor could see him, then flushed under Rice’s unwavering scrutiny. “No, sir,” he said stiffly. “I think you should just come down. Immediately.”
There was a cuss word or two, then a final response that was nearly a shout. “All right, damn it! But if I get there and find out that this is something you could’ve handled yourself, you’re in a world of shit, Higgins!”
Despite his boss’s anger, Higgins looked relieved. “Thank you, sir.” The young man hung up the telephone with a defiant bang, then looked at Rice and his team wordlessly, his eyes wide, gaze still flicking fearfully to the harnessed and muzzled alien.
Rice smiled at him from beneath the overhang of his helmet, his expression tranquil. “And thank you.”
A few minutes later—a good thing, too, because at the five-minute mark Rice wasn’t going to wait any longer—a red-haired man with a receding hairline and a thick, bristly beard stalked out of the door marked PRESLEY HALL SECURITY PERSONNEL ONLY on the rear wall of the receiving area. His mouth was already on rapid-fire, tone of voice a perfect match for the unpleasant scowl on his face. “Okay, Higgins,” he snapped, “what the hell do you…” As Rice expected, the sight of ol’ Blue put a sudden lag into the sentence, making it end more like a squeaked-out question than a supervisor’s demand as the man jerked to a stop at Higgins’s desk. “… want?”
Rice stepped forward, deciding to spare Higgins the pain of trying to explain. “I want you to take us wherever the hell he wants to go,” he said with a note of finality. He gave enough of a tug on his guidepole to make the alien tense and shift within his bonds.
“This is highly unorthodox,” Morton began. “I’ll have to get approval—”
“No.” Keeping his grip firmly on the guidepole, Rice took a couple of steps forward, closing the distance between himself and Presley Hall’s chief of security. Behind him, ol’ Blue followed the movement of the guidepole by rising expectantly and taking a single long step. “We both know you can’t legally refuse to let us conduct the search, and we both also know that I don’t have to wait for anyone’s approval or permission. So it comes down to this: We can do this with you leading and unlocking whatever doors need to be opened along the way, or we can go on our own and burn our way through ’em with lasers if they happen to be locked. Take your pick.” Rice rearranged his expression into a scowl: ‘But do it quickly, Mr. Morton, because I’m getting tired of wasting my time and having to repeat myself.”
“I…” Morton’s mouth opened and closed helplessly a few times, then he drew his shoulders back with as much dignity as he could manage. “Right this way, gentlemen. Higgins, you come, too.” With Morton leading, the group followed him into a small, cramped stairway, and Rice ducked his head and grinned at the quickly disguised look of vindication on Higgins’s face as he shoved aside the evening’s paperwork to accompany Chief Morton and the team on their search.
* * *
I must not pass out.
Darcy had never noticed before how loudly the door to Mozart’s cage squealed when it opened. When she had been where Eddington was now, on the outside of the cage and looking in, the sound had been nothing, just another part of the process. Now it was immense, like God’s fingernails sliding across the blackboard surface of her sanity and clearing her head of any thoughts of self-indulgent oblivion. And there was Mozart, of course, waiting where he always did when something was in the feeder, directly outside the door to the cage, his blue-back head and shoulders tilted into his normal hunched position. Without the protection of the unbreakable quartz window, his teeth seemed so much larger than before, still bright white with youth, the four rear incisors sparkling with alien mucus along their slim edges. At any second that massive mouth would part and pull a fragile webbing of saliva across the dark, dripping cavern that was beyond the creature’s teeth. He was swaying slightly, that same strangely parrotlike movement that made him resemble a bizarre cross between an insect and bird in a mating ritual.
One part of her gut was telling her to run, in any direction as long as it was away; the other said that if she just stayed inside the feeder cage and cowered like a little girl hiding under the covers, maybe the monster wouldn’t see her, or maybe it would be gone when she finally opened her eyes. Obeying either instinct would mean death; instead Darcy crept forward, fighting her natural impulses with every inch, breathing in short, soundless gasps that matched the beat of her heart in frequency and threatened to make her hyperventilate.
I must not pass out.
Two seconds, then four, and her icy fingers brushed the plastic stock of the Electrostun rifle, warmed by the higher heat of the room enough so that she nearly recoiled at the unexpected fleshlike feel of the soft, textured grip.
Mozart didn’t move.
Darcy lifted it slowly and swung it to fit under her right arm. He should be roaring at her, charging her. What was Mozart waiting for? Perhaps he does know me, she thought desperately. Maybe he can sense who I am. Should I talk to him as I have so many times over these past weeks?
She bit the inside of her cheek hard, letting the pain refocus her thinking and bring her back to sanity. Now was not the time to theorize about the working of alien minds, nor was she willing—despite what Eddington wanted— to be the first human test subject in the realm of possible future Homeworld alien training. Her right forefinger found the stunner’s power switch and flicked it on; her reward was the low vibration of energy along the rifle’s stock that signaled the weapon was ready. Thank God—if such a being existed—for automatic shutoffs, although the rifle’s last user hadn’t employed much in the way of the Electro-stun’s charge.
And, like the four others before him, now he was dead.
Darcy couldn’t help the tremble that started beneath the hair on her scalp and swept all the way to her feet. Mozart still hadn’t advanced and she could see him in more detail than she’d ever hoped for. Beneath his feet were a jumble of shattered bones and rotting flesh, the remains of the last man and his predecessors, a bottom jaw, a cracked-open skull. The smell hanging in the hot, semitropical air was enough to force a silent retch from her throat, like being made to inhale though an air mask where the supply came from tanks filled with decomposing meat. She tried futilely to breathe through her mouth but it was no good; already coating the inside of her nostrils, the scent was like oil, clogging every pore in her sinuses. Less than two yards away from her, Mozart rocked slightly back and forth, his low, continuous hissing drowning out the quiet thrum of the rifle. What unknown senses did he use to keep track of her location? Scent, of course, but was there something else, a psychic sense that humankind was still unable to admit existed? She thought again that maybe all the time and effort she’d invested in talking to and caring for the creature had been worthwhile; it wasn’t inconceivable that a Homeworld life-form could be trained, just imaginative, something that, because of their dangerous nature, no one else had ever considered. Then again—
Darcy’s breath locked in her throat as at last the alien’s outer mouth slowly opened and allowed the inner one to extend. The disturbing hiss doubled in volume, then tripled as the creature swung into a final, low crouch and flexed his spiky hands. She’d seen the movement enough times, so many times, to recognize it: the prelude to a leap.
A final instant of recollection before the confrontation: back in the early days of the project, what were the words she had said to Michael?
“…To pause a moment before it kills you.”
How ironic that she had been so correct; after so much time invested in him, Mozart truly had given her the most she could have hoped for.
Darcy hugged the Electrostun to her cheek, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Electricity crackled as a white arc of fire surged from the insulated barrel of the weapon and snapped through Mozart, its point of contact the front of his throat directly below the jawline.
Through everything—her terror, the ponderous but rapid beating of her heart, the steamy hissing sound that seemed not so much a vocalization by the alien as a projection of him… Darcy could still recognize that Mozart screamed as he had never screamed before. Emotions that made no sense whiplashed through her mind: panic, flight, guilt. And hate, too, directed at this creature to which she had devoted so much of herself for so long: she didn’t blame or condemn it for attacking—certainly its nature could not be denied. But she despised it utterly for giving what she knew must be exactly what Eddington, poised over his recording console in the outer lab, had wanted all along. There was an undercurrent to the alien’s shriek that she had never heard before, and surely it was the things the creature felt right now and revealed in that unique and previously secret sound that Eddington had most sought: of anything that had existed in Mozart’s limited world, she had been the only thing familiar, and steady, and… trusted. He was her savage and innocent child, and she had betrayed him.
Darcy caught a glimpse of Eddington hunched at his post beyond the safety of the glass as she scrambled a few feet to her left and prepared to fire again. Fighting for her life, struggling against impossible odds of survival, it was no comfort to see from his deranged expression that the dance of certain death she and Mozart did was giving the musician everything he’d wished for and more.
* * *
“Yes,” Damon whispered, “yes, yes, yes!” Mozart was screeching, crying, the music rippling from deeper within the creature than Damon had ever dreamed possible. Abandoning his position at the glass, Damon sped back to the mixing console and pushed the volume slides up another two notches. Sound thundered through the speakers, making the surface of the equipm
ent vibrate beneath Damon’s spasming fingers, rattling the lines of paper still rolled into the dot matrix printers. Blending with the wails of the alien was the bellowslike whoosh of Darcy’s harsh, labored breathing. Damon’s pulse jackhammered in time with the musical sounds of the battle, the alien’s screams, Darcy’s frenzied panting, the sound of the Electrostun rifle when it fired, like a huge wall of crumpled plastic exploding into flame. Nothing he’d ever experienced in his lifetime could compare to the nearly orgasmic sensations throbbing through his mind and body tonight in absolute synchrony with every exquisite note of Mozart’s dark and perfect music.
And, as his hand moved from the volume slide controls to the small gift Ahiro gave him before the final man was put into Mozart’s cage, Damon knew that the best of everything was only the push of a button away. What would the Japanese assassin say if he knew the use to which Damon was about to put it? The composer touched Ahiro’s gift reverently, then picked it up and hurried back to the glass, holding it high and wishing that Vance had a moment to turn and see what he held. If she had, her own screams of disbelief would doubtless add all but the grandest touch to the great finale of his Symphony of Hate.
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