Quickly she covered him, leaving only enough of his face unburied to allow him to breath. Satisfied he was as well hidden as she could manage at the moment, Abbey left him there and went in search of a few things they might need in order to escape Japan.
Abbey knew there was no going back. She could never be a Hunter. In attacking Malone she had signed her own death warrant. The BGP had never had an agent go rogue before, but Abbey was certain she had just rocketed to the top of the Most Wanted List. No doubt all her records would soon be altered and she’d appear in the system as genetic trash. Genetic trash, could she still think of them that way? Hadn’t her feelings for Matt destroyed any basis she had for that assumption? Regardless, she had taken a side. It was a choice that had been based on her feelings for Matt, and not on any sound rationale.
That solitary act of striking Malone had caused Abbey to reevaluate her entire life, and more, it caused her to reevaluate her entire society. Abbey had always believed in certain core values. Integrity, courage, and loyalty had been her personal creed. Now that loyalty was gone. Abbey’s personal image took a beating as she considered her treachery. The BGP had trained her, had educated her, and had given her a place in society. It was a place among the elite.
Because she was BGP she had been all but untouchable. She had been given the best of everything. All citizens had been afforded great opportunities, but Hunters were, by virtue of their great authority, given great privilege.
Now she had betrayed those who had given her so much. Without that loyalty, did she have any integrity? What was her courage? Physical courage was easy, but she had not, in the final analysis, had the courage of her convictions.
Throughout her entire life she’d been taught about how the genetically inferior were a danger to the purity of the race. How the random joining of sperm and egg led to all kinds of depravity.
Hadn’t virtually every disease been eradicated? Gone were killers such as cancer and heart disease. It went beyond mere sickness too. The genes that made sociopaths had been eliminated. Serial killers, child molesters, sadists, sickos of every description no longer existed. Uncontrolled breeding was dangerous, that was a given.
Only Abbey now knew that wasn’t true. If you took away the base assumption that the genetically inferior needed to be destroyed, if you even went so far as to challenge the definition of genetic superiority, then you had to admit that the entire BGP was full of the worst kind of sadists and serial killers. This realization, while new to her, did not shock her as it might have, probably because it was only new to her conscious mind. Hadn’t she been haunted in her dreams? Hadn’t she kept secrets from her instructors, because if they knew about her feelings of compassion she would not be alive today?
Had that moment when she struck down Malone instead of Matt been inevitable? She had always thought she would eventually get used to the killing, but now she knew differently. Oh, she could kill if it came to it, but now she knew she’d only do so to defend or liberate herself or others. Killing because you decided someone didn’t meet your ideal was wrong.
A renewed anguish at the deaths of those innocent babies during her week with the BGP deletion squad at the hospital filled Abbey. Guts heaving, she spewed her lunch out in the bushes lining the path. She had been a monster, and worse, had believed she’d been saving humanity. What good was humanity without compassion?
Abbey had read enough history to know that barbarism was nothing new. She also knew that the human spirit contained immense capacity for nobility, for self sacrifice, and kindness. That was what the government was trying to stamp out.
Somewhere along the line the government had changed from serving the people to being served by them. It had gone from improving the lot of the average citizen to oppressing any who they denied citizenship to in its never-ending thirst for power and control.
The criminals were labeled as such more because they represented a threat than because they were inferior genetically. Wasn’t Matt a perfect example? He was strong, intelligent, and healthy - just like she was. Why then was he a criminal while she enjoyed such privilege? Simple, the government had not raised him. Had he been born in a crèche he probably would have been allowed to live. The difference is he’d be a Hunter or soldier. His genetic makeup was not so different that he’d be a threat. No, the threat came from his not having been indoctrinated in the new world order. Squeezing her eyes shut against the tears, Abbey continued to examine her life and her world, and she found both wanting.
A new determination filled her. A determination to better both herself and the lot of all others the government sought to eliminate. She would no longer be a tool of the tyrant. From this point forward she would work for the people. Any sacrifice, any price she had to pay to atone for her past life would be worth it. Abbey had spent her life training to kill, to destroy. She would have to see how well that training served her now. She wouldn’t have the resources of the BGP behind her, but she did have their training. Filled with a burning sense of purpose, Abbey continued her search for an escape.
Consciousness returned slowly to Matt. As he sat up he was overcome by a wave of nausea and barely managed to turn his tortured head aside before everything he’d eaten the day before came spewing out. His stomach continued to heave until nothing but sour, yellow bile rose from his throat. Spitting to clear the foul taste from his mouth, Matt realized his concussion was infinitely worse than he’d first suspected.
Too weak to move, suffering from nausea and dizziness, Matt knew he was completely helpless. Should Malone or Abbey find him like this it would be over quickly.
Thinking of Abbey, painful as it was, brought up the question of how he had managed to escape BGP custody to this point. Could it be that they had let him go in order to follow him to others? Angus knew that the one thing Malone had wanted more than his death was to prove that there existed, outside New Zealand, an organized resistance.
While Angus had seldom spoken of it Matt knew that he was at least associated with the resistance. Where else could he have gotten the PDT he gave Matt for his birthday?
What a birthday it had turned out to be. In one day he had seen his best friend killed, fallen in love, had that love betray him, and almost died. His eighteenth birthday was not one he’d soon forget.
Not trusting the motivation of whoever had dumped him in the stable, Matt decided to move. He quickly discovered that standing was not among his abilities at the moment, so he crawled ever so slowly to the front of the stall. Knowing he could not go far before he passed out again, Matt spotted a ladder into the loft above and made his way towards it.
Climbing that ladder was possibly the hardest thing he had ever done. The dislocated finger on his right hand made gripping with that hand impossible, so he had to hook his elbow around the rungs. It was when he reached with his left arm that he realized that the pain on that side was from more than broken ribs. He also had a laceration along that side that was clear through the muscle and exposed the ribs in question below.
By the time he reached the third rung, Matt knew he’d never make it. Determined to go on anyhow, he continued to struggle upward. The dizziness came in waves now. The room would spin in all kinds of crazy directions then rush in towards him, only to zoom away. Not trusting his vision, Matt reached blindly for the next rung, and the next.
Suddenly, reaching upwards, he found only open air. He was in the loft. Matt managed to no more than pull his legs up after him before the blackness overtook him again.
17
Serbia, European Territory
May 16, 2080
Vasily met with the rest of the group in the old barn. The barn was falling down, a relic of the days when this area produced its own foodstuffs. The government had decided to move all the regional farms to Croatia.
Serbs relying on Croats for food, One World Order indeed. Vasily and his friends dreamed of an independent Serbia. The Government believed that all births were registered and that they therefore were r
esponsible for raising all the world’s young. This in turn meant that all people were indoctrinated in their ideology.
Vasily and thousands more throughout rural Serbia had been raised patriots. They believed in Serbian independence. They believed so strongly in fact, that today they would strike the first blow against the oppressor.
Sasha had finally acquired enough AK -47s and ammunition that they could launch an assault. Today would mark the rebirth of a nation. Her sovereignty had been all too short. Less than thirty years after throwing off the communist yoke of the Soviet Union, the entire world had been conquered by the Government. That ended today.
Most of the fighters had wanted to strike directly at the military garrison. Thankfully, Vasily and his good friend Sasha had managed to convince them of the foolishness of that plan. The soldiers’ body armor would stop an AK-47 round. The same unfortunately could not be said about the altogether too rare Kevlar vest’s ability to stop a Packwood’s deadly hail of flechettes.
Instead, they would strike at the broadcast station. With that in their grasp, the plan was to broadcast a Declaration of Serbian Independence. Sasha would stand before the cameras and read the declaration that he and several others had helped Vasily draft.
Once their message was broadcast across the net, and had hit every television and PDT on the globe, they would fade into the hills and begin a guerrilla campaign. The people of Serbia who longed to be free would flock to their cause, and soon the Republic of Serbia would stand proud and free.
Let the Kosovars and Croats bend to the yoke of subservience if they wanted too, Vasily and his people would fight to the last drop of blood in the last man standing.
“People, people, quiet please,” Sasha shouted, trying to gain the attention of the 116 men and boys gathered inside the old barn. Then jumping up on an old crate and shouting louder yet, “Quiet! Good, now that I have your attention, Vasily has a few words for us all.”
Jumping up beside Sasha, Vasily began, “My friends, no, my brothers, today we make history. Today marks the beginning of our future. A future not as citizens of the One World Order, or the ‘Government’ as they like to be called, but rather a future as free men, as free Serbs! Our path is a dangerous one. Many of us will not live to see the end of that path, but I for one would rather live a free citizen of the Republic of Serbia, if only for as long as it takes for a soldier’s carbine to cut me down, than to live to a ripe old age in bondage.
“To live on food grown in Croatia! Since when have Croats ever loved Serbs? Our people have fought for thousands of years, and now in this enforced peace, do the Croatian farms send us their best food?
“I tell you, no! They send us the dregs. Food they wouldn’t feed their sows comes to Serbia.
“No more. We will live as free men. If we wish to farm, we will farm. If we wish to build factories, we will build factories. We will raise our own children to be proud of their country, to be patriots. No longer will we meet in secret in old barns, but rather we will march boldly down the main streets waving our flag, waving this flag,” Vasily shouted as he raised the Serbian flag high above his head.
The roar came from 116 throats, but it was the roar of an entire nation.
Vasily nodded to Sasha, who opened a crate and began passing out armbands emblazoned with the Serbian flag to each person present. Next to him a table was set up where rifles and ammunition were issued.
As the men drew their arms, Vasily continued, “Tonight we will hit the broadcast station. Sasha will read our declaration and we will head for the hills. I hope all of you have said your goodbyes to your families, because once we start this every one of us in is mortal danger. Your families should know where to go should they need to evacuate. I trust none of you gave them the location of our base camp? Good. What they don’t know they can’t tell. If they are forced to flee, we will go to them. Trust me in that we will never abandon them. They too are proud Serbs, and together we will re-forge our nation!
“Now go my brothers, each of you knows his assignment. God willing, we will all meet at the base camp by morning. I love you all and am so proud to be your chosen leader. Serbia forever!”
Three hours later all that remained of the 116 men and boys who’d attacked the broadcast station were twelve fighters, most of those so badly hurt that calling them fighters was stretching it quite a bit.
Vasily had never known such despair in all his thirty-two years. He and Sasha had had such dreams. They were going to usher in a bright new age. It was to have begun tonight.
It had all started well enough. Vasily, Sasha and six others had taken the studio, while others had moved on the control room, the circuit breakers, the security facilities, and the satellite uplink and control center.
That was where the trouble began. Sasha was still uncertain if it was a leak or just a freak coincidence that had caused the takeover of the satellite control center to go wrong. The team leader had been on the command frequency like all the other team leaders. He had reported all was going smoothly, and Sasha had proceeded with his speech, while Vasily maintained command and control of the mission.
About midway through Sasha’s speech one of the techs at the satellite facility got suspicious that the feed to the uplink didn’t fluctuate at all. As he began to run diagnostics on the control boards, he discovered that the reason the boards showed no fluctuation was because they were disconnected. He hadn’t noticed earlier because they were still powered up. That he discovered anything amiss was remarkable since he was a radio technician and way out of his depth.
He’d reported the problem to Vasily, who had opted to let Sasha continue his speech rather than inform him of the glitch, after all, they were broadcasting across Serbia and into some of the surrounding territory as well.
That decision would haunt Vasily for the rest of his days. While Sasha declared the independence of a nation, soldiers were busy surrounding the broadcast center.
Sasha had been among the first to die. Vasily hadn’t even had time to tell him he’d only reached the local audience. As they emerged from the front entrance, the Packwoods had opened up. With a muted buzz they’d filled the air with a deadly rain of razor-edged death.
One moment Sasha walked beside his lifelong best friend and coconspirator, the next his entire upper torso disappeared in a pink mist.
Vasily had scored a lucky hit with his AK-47. Only a shot to the face would take out an armored storm trooper. He hadn’t even aimed. In point of fact, his eyes had been firmly shut and he had fallen back on the axiom of American combat troops during that country’s war in Viet Nam, namely, “spray and pray.”
The only reason any of the men had survived was because the local garrison had only dispatched four quads. Sixteen veteran storm troopers had massacred one hundred four armed fighters. Granted, the Government soldiers were better equipped and had armor, still they had triumphed over better than seven-to-one odds. Vasily was reasonably sure that his troops had accounted for no more than the single soldier who’d gone down on the opening barrage. That any of them survived was due only to the fact that sixteen carbines can only be directed at sixteen targets.
Vasily sat beside a small fire in the mountains and wept silent, bitter tears. Tears for the dead comrades-in-arms, and tears for the dead dreams of a nation.
18
New York, North American Territory
May 17, 2080
Hu Li was possibly the best lover Malone had ever had. Minister Fadwah had a way of taking care of those in his employ that left little to be desired.
She was insatiable. Her technique rivaled the best Malone had ever been with. Hunters included sexual technique among the many skills they had received training in, but wherever Hu Li had learned, they taught so much more than the academy had ever dreamed of.
She had kept him at it all night and well into the following day. Long past the time he thought himself no longer able to respond she found new and astounding ways of causing him to rise to the occ
asion. She used every part of her body. Hands, tongue, lips, breasts, even that long shiny black hair, to coax him once again to the heights of pleasure.
Just now, however, she was showing him other ways she could be useful. Displayed on an entire wall of her apartment were the files of Hunters who met the criteria Malone had specified for his team. Hu Li was an absolute wizard when it came to personnel matters.
“This one,” she breathed into his ear as her hands played across his chest “I think you should take a look at.”
Hu Li called up a file and the image of a young girl with huge blue eyes framed by fly-away blonde hair and full pouty lips. A column next to her photo showed vital statistics, age, height, and weight, special skills all were displayed, along with career highlights.
“She’s a cold one,” Malone commented as he read from the list. “Angel Halsey-Smythe, list of commendations almost as long as my own. She specializes in interrogations.”
At Hu Li’s raised eyebrow, “Okay, call it what it is, she’s a torturer, she does have a way of getting what she’s after. Probably very effective coming from someone who looks like your kid sister or what you wish the girl next door would look like.
“Yeah, she’ll make a fine addition to my team. Set up her transfer.”
“It’s all set and waiting only for you to approve it,” Hu Li purred in his ear, her hand working its way lower.
His breathing coming a little faster Malone commented, “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“In everything I do,” she whispered as she began to work at Malone’s belt her tongue in his ear, all the while shrugging out of Malone’s shirt, the only article of clothing she’d been wearing. It was some time before they got back to work.
“Kournikov, Wallace, and Mtumbe are all three deadly. You could not ask for better men. Kournikov is quite possibly the strongest man alive. He is almost seven feet tall, and weighs 395 pounds, none of it fat. Don’t let his size fool you; he is quick, agile and very bright. The only real drawback he has is he’s too damn big to go unnoticed.
The Hunted Page 13