by Tania Hutley
The lights are bright in here, and the atrium in the center of the building gives it a sense of openness, in spite of not having any windows.
People dressed in white lab coats are gaping at us. In the glass-walled rooms, more white-coated people are working.
They’re laboratories. Just like in the Morelle scraper and in Deiterra, the Beast’s scientists are working on Skins.
Ignoring the gaping scientists, Cale limps slowly toward the central atrium. I pad along with him, peering into the labs we pass. Like they were at the Morelle Corportation, the scientists are experimenting on dissected brains and body parts.
“No wonder the Beast has hidden his research department away,” says Cale. “This work is illegal. Skin research is supposed to be regulated.” He’s limping slowly, like every muscle hurts. I stick close to him, ready to support him if he can’t stay upright.
“Why can we only see five floors?” He flicks his ears toward the atrium where the other levels are visible. “According to the blueprints, there should be eight.”
“Let’s find somebody to ask.”
As we walk down the open, circular staircase to the next floor, we get a good view into all the labs we pass. Some of the experiments are stomach-churning, although I saw similar things in the Morelle scraper.
Word quickly spreads that two large Skins are moving through the department, and some of the scientists decide it’s time to leave, heading toward the elevators with worried expressions. I watch them closely, looking for the right person to interrogate. Someone with an air of authority about them.
I spot a couple of likely-looking scientists in one of the labs, and plant myself in front of them, doing my best to loom over them menacingly.
“Been working here long?” I growl.
One of the women has allowed some fine wrinkles to develop around her mouth and eyes. The other looks younger, though she could just be more thoroughly tweaked. but I have a feeling both are senior scientists. Neither of them cower, and they don’t smell like fear. In fact, they peer at me curiously, as though fascinated by my Skin.
“I’m Doctor Moss and this is Doctor Sinjay,” says the wrinkled woman, frowning at the cuts on my shoulder. “Would you mind if I take a closer look at the composition of the subcutaneous tissue—?”
“Where’s the Beast’s human body?”
The two scientists glance at each other, nervousness finally flickering across their expressions. “Not here,” says the younger one.
“Then where?”
Doctor Moss shakes her head. “I have no idea.” Though her tone is brisk, it’s obvious she’s lying.
“You know how to get to the hidden floors?” I ask.
“Hidden floors?” She opens her eyes too wide, and purses her mouth in a perplexed expression. She’s a terrible liar.
“Why don’t you show us around?” I snarl and feint toward them, so they back away. Then I herd them the way I want them to go, directing them down the stairs.
Doctor Moss keeps glancing back at Cale, who’s limping beside me with glassy eyes. “You should let us take a look at that Skin,” she says. “Wounds that serious are susceptible to bacterial infection. If enough tissue is corrupted, it may be beyond repair.”
I glance sideways at Cale, hating the thought of his Tiger Skin dying that way.
Cale lifts his head but doesn’t meet my gaze. “Just keep going.” His voice is strained.
“When we get to the bottom floor, you’ll need to remember how to get a little further,” I tell Doctor Moss.
On the fifth level, we come to a locked door, and I motion to the band reader beside it. “Unlock it,” I order the two scientists.
They both shake their heads, their eyes wide with fear. “We don’t have access—” starts Doctor Moss.
“Prove it. Swipe your band.”
“But it’s a secure area, and strictly off limits.”
Cale leans against the wall. His head is hanging down, and his sides heave. He’s obviously hurting badly, and I don’t know how much longer he can stay on his paws.
“Swipe it. Now.” I lift one paw, extending my claws to her throat.
Doctor Moss swallows hard and holds her band to the reader. The door opens with a click.
Gunfire blasts out from behind the door. I leap sideways to shove both women to the ground. Too late. Doctor Sinjay cries out with pain, and blood soaks her white coat at the waist.
Leaving them both on the floor, I charge through the door.
Five businessmen fire at me from behind the pods they used when they transferred their consciousness into the ape creatures. The shots are deafening. Bullets slam into me, searing through my flesh and knocking me backward.
I force myself to keep struggling forward anyway, bounding toward the businessmen. The one in front of me fires at point blank range, and the bullet gazes across my forehead. For a moment I’m deaf and blind, the top of my head on fire with agony. A sharp chemical stench fills my throat, then I choke on smoke. Blood runs into my eyes.
Lashing out, I strike flesh. My ears are ringing, but I catch the clatter of a gun hitting the floor.
Dropping my head, I swipe at my eyes with one paw, trying to wipe away the blood. The room comes back into blurry focus. Instantly, I launch myself at the next man. From the corner of my eye, I see Cale push a third man to the ground.
The last two businessmen fall just as fast, and I try not to injure them too badly as I disable them. I don’t want them dead. Not yet, anyway.
As painful as the gunshots were, they don’t seem to have done any major damage to my Skin. I’m bleeding, but only from surface wounds. The men’s guns are on the floor, and I swipe them into the hallway.
“I know who these men are,” pants Cale, swaying over the man he knocked to the ground. “Big shots. Billionaires. They were the ones using the Ape Skins?” He presses his long fangs against the man’s neck.
The man moans with fear. “Please, don’t kill me.”
“Big shots? They’re criminals.” I force another man onto the ground, holding him easily with one paw. When I first met these men in the Beast’s boardroom, they were contemptuous and arrogant. Now, they’re pale and afraid. The one who landed a shot in my forehead is the most badly hurt, with his shirt in tatters and deep lacerations in his shoulder. He’s on the floor sucking in loud gasping breaths. He must be in shock, but I think he’ll live. Now I have the time to look at his face, I see he’s the man the Beast called Harrison.
“I’ll give you anything,” says the man under my paw. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
“I want the Beast.”
“If I show you where he is, will you let me go?”
“I’ll show you,” another of the men volunteers quickly. “I never wanted to attack President Morelle. I advised against it, but the Beast didn’t listen. Let me show you where he is.”
I glance at Cale as he staggers sideways and sits heavily. To add to all his other injuries, I think he’s been shot. His fur is a mess, so soaked with blood that I can’t see all his wounds. His eyes are dull and his breaths rasp in and out with a faint gurgling as though he has blood in his lungs. We need to get his Skin repaired before it’s beyond saving.
“What’s your name?” I ask the volunteer.
“Piero. I’m the largest clothing manufacturer in Triton.” He seems a little offended I didn’t already know that, but all the men look so alike, they could be brothers.
I let him lead us out of the room. Doctor Sinjay is on the floor in the hallway. Doctor Moss has both hands pressed over her gunshot wound, but blood is slowly leaking around her palms.
“Come here,” I order one of the businessmen. “Put pressure on her wound.”
The man obeys, taking Doctor Moss’s place.
“If you stop pressing on her wound, or if she dies, I’ll come back and kill you,” I growl at him. Then I turn to Doctor Moss. “Go and get help for her. Hurry.”
I’d do more if I
could, but we need to find the Beast while Cale’s Skin can still walk. At least, I think he can still walk.
“Can you keep going?” I ask him.
“Of course. Just a scratch.” Even talking sounds like it’s difficult for him, but he pushes himself back up to standing.
I shut the rest of the businessmen back inside the room, lock the door, and put a claw through the band reader. Hopefully it’ll hold them secure until I can decide what to do with them.
Piero, our volunteer, leads us to a wall that looks like all the others. It’s not until I peer closely at it that I make out the hairline cracks where a hidden door can be opened.
“Nobody but the Beast can get in there,” he says. “His security is state-of-the-art, and the Beast is the only one who can open the door. I don’t know what’s through there. Nobody’s been in but him.”
“Who is he?” I demand. “What’s his real name?”
His eyes widen. “You don’t know?” The way his voice cracks on the question is a giveaway. Whoever the Beast really is, Piero is afraid of being the one to tell us.
I rear up and plant my front paws on his chest, slamming his back against the wall. Bringing my muzzle close to his terrified face, I let my hot breath gust over him. “Tell me.”
Twenty
Piero is hard against the wall, and with my front paws on his chest, my full weight is pressing into him. Thanks to his colleague who shot me in the forehead, the fur on my face is clumped with blood, so I guess I don’t look as pretty as I normally do.
When I growl, Piero nods quickly, his head jerking up and down, and his eyes large and frightened. Judging from the smell, the biggest clothing manufacturer in Triton might be in need of a clean pair of trousers.
“His real name is Kriston Welcon,” he gasps.
My limbs feel suddenly weak. “Welcon Pharmaceuticals?”
Behind me, Cale draws in a sharp breath. “The Beast can’t be the head of Welcon Pharmaceuticals. Kriston Welcon went to jail.”
“He didn’t.” Piero’s voice sounds strangled. With my weight on his chest, he must be struggling to breathe. “Edward Morelle gave him a Skin. That was the deal. It was the price he demanded. A new identity and a Skin that meant he could live forever.”
“The deal?” I lean on him a little harder. “What do you mean?”
“His payment for the Welcon disaster.”
“You planned it all, didn’t you?” Cale’s tone is blunt, but I can hear his rage simmering under the surface. “When Welcon put out his cancer vaccine, he knew what would happen. He knew it’d cause a fertility spike and millions of unplanned babies. All of you knew in advance. I’m sure Edward Morelle did.”
“Did you know too?” I snarl at Piero.
The man’s eyes are starting to bulge. I’m tempted to lean harder and crush him. Instead, I ease my weight a little so he can drag in a loud, gasping breath.
“I knew about it,” he pants. “But it wasn’t my idea.”
Dropping to four paws, I pace up and down in front of the cowering man, my anger too intense to keep still. I can trace everything bad that ever happened to my family back to the Welcon disaster. It caused misery for millions. My father worked himself to death trying to pay second-child taxes. And they did it on purpose?
“Why?” I snarl, too furious to manage more than one word.
“It was just business,” Piero says, rubbing his chest. “We had the president where we wanted him. We could make Triton better. Back then, there was only one Triton. One city for everyone, and nowhere to get away from the crowds. We needed to expand upward, and the surge in second-child taxes meant we could build New Triton.” He’s speaking fast, the words spilling out in a rush. “Before Welcon, there was a labor shortage. Afterward, plenty of people needed work. Our factories were at full capacity again, and in New Triton we had the room to build proper houses. We built safer communities for our families, and better—”
I swipe him hard across the face with one paw, sending him sprawling against the wall. I’ve never experienced fury like this. My vision has gone red, and my blood feels like it’s boiling in my veins. I want to kill them all. I want to rip every one of the cruel, greedy industrialists to pieces, and make them scream their regrets.
Cale moves in front of me, putting himself between me and the cowering man. He growls, and my rage is reflected in his eyes. “Let’s go and find Kriston Welcon,” he snarls.
I hesitate, fighting for control. Then I manage to nod. “Go,” I hiss at Peiro through clenched fangs. “Before I kill you.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. He pushes himself to his feet and staggers quickly away.
Turning to the secret door, I unleash my fury by tearing into it with my claws. The door is thick and solid, but I splinter it into matchsticks.
Beyond it is a narrow stairwell going down. There are cameras in the ceiling, and at the bottom of the stairs is another metal door with a band reader next to it. The door looks thicker and heavier than the others, and it has a seal around its edge.
Too bad for the Beast, the door was built to keep humans out, not raging Leopard Skins. I slash my claws through the metal, and after gouging out the lock, I rip the whole thing out of the wall.
“Stay back,” I warn Cale. “The Beast might be armed.”
Stepping cautiously through the hole, I find myself in an apartment. One sweeping glance shows me the place is empty. There’s a shiny, new-looking kitchen, and a luxurious living room. Instead of windows, large screens set into the walls show a picturesque view of trees and a waterfall, as if the apartment were in the middle of a forest. A bedroom is screened off in one corner, and beyond it is a bathroom.
“I think we found where the Beast sleeps,” I say.
“It’s more than that.” Cale replies from behind me. “The seal on that door was to keep the place airtight. I bet it has its own air purifiers and clean water supply.” He limps into the kitchen and swipes open a cupboard so roughly, he tears the door right off. The entire cupboard is neatly packed with food packets. “Ready for the apocalypse,” he says.
“So this is what?” I ask. “A place he can hole up in case something bad happens?”
“A billionaire bolt hole.” Cale limps slowly through the apartment toward a door at the far end, past the bedroom. “Can’t wait to see what’s on the next floor.”
“Let me go first.”
The next door is as thick as the last one, and sealed so it’s airtight. I deal with it quickly. Beyond it is a stairwell, and at the bottom of the stairs is yet another locked, sealed door.
“So many airtight doors,” growls Cale. “If someone poisoned the air outside, he would have survived. Just him and the cockroaches.”
“Not anymore.” Rearing onto my hind legs, I tear the door out of its frame. I’m ready to rush in and disarm the Beast, but no gunshots ring out, and I can’t catch the scent of a person from inside.
I step through the damaged doorframe into a long hallway with doors coming off it on either side, and turn back to make sure Cale manages to limp through as well. We move down the hallway together, warily opening each door as we come to it. In the first room, crates are stacked from floor to ceiling. Each crate is stencilled with a list of its contents, which turn out to be meal bars. The Beast has stockpiled enough food to last for years.
The next room is full of crates holding other types of supplies, including water purifiers, medicines, gas masks, bio protection suits, and communication equipment.
In the final room we find hundreds of guns stacked in giant racks, and enough explosives to blow up all of Triton.
“Shit,” breathes Cale. “Is he ready to survive an apocalypse or to start one?”
I pad down the long rows of weapons, my head spinning at how many there are. With these, the Beast could arm his own soldiers. Is that what he planned? Did he mean to create his own Skin army?
At the far end of the hallway is another door that presumably leads down to the
last level. There’s a good chance the Beast is past that door, in the deepest bowels of his bunker. And he’s not short of munitions, so if he’s rigged a booby trap, he could blow us to hell.
I turn to Cale. “Transfer back into your human body now, so you can call Spade and Keren. Tell them to come here with trucks, ready to take the Beast’s supplies. All this food should go to the shelters. And I want them to take the weapons and explosives somewhere safe until I decide what to do with—”
“I told you, I’m not leaving you.” His ears flatten. “You’re only trying to get rid of me because the Beast must be waiting for us at the bottom of the next stairwell with some serious fire power.” He flicks the tip of his tail angrily from side to side. It’s probably the only uninjured part of his body. “I’m not going anywhere, Milla. You need me.”
“But I’m strong enough to—”
“My Skin is expendable,” he interrupts. “I’ll go through the door first and if he manages to kill me, I’ll transfer back to my real body. No harm done. And hopefully it’ll buy you time to take him down.”
“But your Tiger Skin will be destroyed.”
“Skins will be illegal soon anyway. Wasn’t that the deal we made with Otho?”
I drag in a breath, reluctant to let him sacrifice himself so brutally. “You love that Skin.”
His eyes are dull with pain, but as he stretches his muzzle toward me, the golden flecks in their depths seem to reignite and glow with warmth. “I do. But I love you so much more. And if it comes to a choice between you or my Skin, I’ll choose you every time.”
My heart swells to fill my chest. I touch his nose with mine, breathing in his bloody, burned-fur scent, and tangling our whiskers together. My throat is almost too full to talk, but I manage to whisper, “I love you, too.”
The words take up all the space between us. They seem too big and important for the moments before both our Skins could be torn apart. I want to say them again when we’re somewhere safe, when we have all the time in the world to explore them and discover what they might mean.