Tom Durham stared with the others and could not believe what he had just seen. The nightmare they had just entered began in slow motion from that point forward. They gawked at Tony’s lifeless body in front of them. Looking around at each other, they realized they were not alone.
Will Jenkins had been watching Rick closely and saw him drawing his pistol. He drew as quickly as he could and had his pistol out and ready, trying to confirm with his mind what his eyes had just seen. When they all turned to see the monsters behind them, Will acted. He managed to fire one poorly aimed shot at a Provenger, and the bullet stopped short of him with a buzzing sound surrounded by a small glowing circle. It dropped to the ground. They all tried to assimilate the image of the four Provenger standing immediately behind them.
They forgot about the murder they had just witnessed and jumped back to draw their weapons, but they had none. By now, any pistols the men had with them disintegrated on their bodies. Will looked with disbelief at the powder in his hand.
Rick fell to his knees, Tony’s body face down in the dirt before him, and watched in horror. Two men ran for the trees. Two Provenger reached them within three strides, running them through the torso with the two long blades of their gauntlets. They turned back on the group as both men continued to run away, mortally wounded. Now there were seven left. The two Provenger that stayed with the group had immediately cut down the two in front of them, and the rest followed with blinding speed that Rick could not have imagined. The Provenger wore excited grimaces and were obviously enjoying themselves. Rick saw moments where the Provenger had an open path to slit a throat but instead struck for a limb, increasing the gore and prolonging the terror of their victims. Every swipe of their gauntlet knives struck the men’s flesh. Then every slash to a throat sent blood pumping through the air and another body to the ground.
My work. My murders, Rick thought. He had known this day would come, almost from the beginning of this nightmare, when he would have to betray his kind. He had now done the worst. He’d broken a trust and a bond. “God help me if this is not for the greater good.”
The Provenger collected all the bodies in a heap and sent them, transported somewhere to be processed. They then disintegrated the vehicles and all the blood in the sand. They left no trace. It took them about three minutes.
When Marcus Holliday pulled up, there was no one at the meeting place. He was only an hour late and nothing was there, only one set of tire tracks to be seen by his headlights. He tried to call Tony but there was no service. He shook his head and drove home, cursing his friends for either having fooled him or making other plans without telling him. No one was left that knew of the meeting, no one but Marcus and Rick.
Chapter 32
A thousand spEars
Utu had just come in the back door with a chunk of meat from the second deer carcass he had hanging in the tree. He’d been gorging himself every day and loving it. The temperature outside was perfect for the meat. The combination of cold nights and cool days with the dry air helped the meat keep wonderfully, the flavor intensifying every day, although he could tell now by the smell that he’d have to start cooking the meat a little hotter and longer with a few more spices from Rick’s huge collection.
Utu heard Barnes and Nobelle outside and could tell by their barking that someone must be starting up the driveway. It must be Rick, he thought. He wasn’t expected home until later. Utu quickly stuck the meat in a pot, added some water and a stick of butter, put on the lid, and turned on the heat. He listened. Still coming up the driveway, driving awfully slowly, he thought.
Utu grabbed some granulated garlic, curry, paprika, oregano, and salt out of the cabinet and dumped a copious amount of each into the pot, closed the lid, and listened again. Utu heard the gravel, then silence where the Jeep would be driving over the concrete pad in front of the garage, then… crash! The sound was unmistakable. Rick was in trouble.
Carson was in his room listening to music and Shainan was on the internet looking for home. She heard the impact and looked up at Utu, worried. He instinctively pointed to his own eyes and twirled his finger in front of him, as if pointing to the entire room, silently signaling for her to stay put, watch, and be ready. Committing one of those errors people make when new to a language, Utu called out as calmly as he could, “Carson, your Dad just drove into the garage.”
With the calm that indicated only the interest of his father returning for the evening, Carson let his song end and casually closed out his computer.
Utu dashed through the mud room and into the garage to find the Jeep had missed it by about three feet, and impacted the left side of the door opening, creating a lot less damage than he’d thought from the sound. Rick was slumped over the steering wheel. Utu helped him out of the Jeep and guided him into the house.
Carson came into the kitchen right as Rick entered. “Dad, where have you been?” Carson could immediately tell something was wrong. Rick was babbling incoherently and falling down. He was obviously drunk and ultimately shaken from the impact.
Utu grabbed Rick under the arm, almost lifting him off his feet. Shainan approached to help, but Carson waved her off. “I’ve got this,” he said, taking his father under the other arm. “Let’s get him to bed. Something bad must have happened. He’s never done this.”
As they carried Rick to bed, Utu looked him over for injuries or any sign of blood. He found none. “I’m going out to the Jeep to see what’s happened.”
“I don’t know what that was all about,” Carson said to Shainan when he returned to the kitchen.
“He…” Shainan put her fist to her mouth and tossed her head back.
“Yes, drinking,” Carson said.
“Trinking,” Shainan repeated, nodding in agreement.
“Drinking,” Carson said slower.
“Trinking.”
“No, d,rinking, drinking.”
“Drinking,” Shainan said carefully, with a smile, proud of herself.
Utu was back in the kitchen almost before they’d realized he’d left. He had an astonished look on his face. It was a combination of being a witness to a disaster and a little boy on Christmas morning. “Look what I found in the Jeep.” Utu threw a Provenger battle gauntlet, without the knives, onto the kitchen table. They stood looking in silence.
Early the next morning, with a terrible headache preventing him from sleeping, Rick sat at the kitchen table staring into space. Carson and Utu were sitting with him. Shainan was coming in from feeding the dogs. Rick’s face was pale, and he looked terribly ill. “I’m such a fool. I can’t believe I had that much to drink last night. I actually stopped at the liquor store on the way home and drank from the bottle while I was driving.”
Utu stared at him without speaking.
“Utu said it ruined his people,” Carson said.
“Carson? Could you go play videogames with Shainan, please?”
Carson looked back at his father in disbelief. “Sure, Dad.”
After Carson had taken Shainan off by the hand to the other room, Rick took a long look at Utu. “Last night I killed ten men on the off chance that it would help me get that thing,” Rick confessed, nodding to the gauntlet that Utu had in front of him.
“Well, now you have it,” said Utu, surprised at Rick’s confession. What made Rick such a killer, he wondered? Utu checked again to ensure that the tag was on the counter so they could talk without being watched. “This will enable you to cloak yourself. It even has a transport mechanism on it. Anywhere on Earth.” Utu looked up at Rick. “How did you get such a thing?”
“Synster gave it to me. Because…” Rick paused and swallowed, “I delivered to him a group of people that were going to tell everyone they were here, harvesting, then try to kill as many Provenger as they could. Nwella helped with the decision. My new assignment is to hunt down and terminate resistance groups, identify and eliminate anyone who may know or does know and may tell. The Provenger will harvest who I’ve targeted, or if it serves
a purpose, they will have me kill them. Can you imagine? I think Synster believes I’m enjoying myself.”
“Rick, you took an incredible risk to get this. I think you have done an incredibly stupid, horrible, and great thing. With this,” Utu leaned in closer to Rick, “I think we may be able to rid ourselves of the Provenger.”
“How?” Rick was confused. “It only cloaks and transports.”
“Synster must have his hands full to be so careless to give you such a thing,” said Utu, shaking his head.
“How can we fight them with it? It doesn’t have any function as a weapon.”
“Leave that to me. We must find where I lived before we run out of time. I left something there that I need. Rick, we can defeat them.”
Rick looked back at Utu with doubt. There was much more that Rick didn't feel he should share with Utu just yet. Synster had given him an assignment that seemed to indicate desperation regarding the Project and one that Rick didn’t know if he’d survive. Utu had said that the Provenger only broke their own laws when they went rogue. He didn't mention anything about having others do their dirty work for them.
Rick recalled his last communication with Synster. It seemed that both Synster and Rick had a problem with a certain Provenger. That Provenger had caused the grievous injury to Carson in the belief that he was injuring Rick. Synster had informed Rick that Ryvil had attempted to kill him to remove him from the Project, and to make the U.S. government officials more difficult to manage. Ryvil needed the injury to look natural to his fellow Provenger and authorities on Earth, while making it seem suspicious to those humans who knew of Rick’s work with the Provenger.
"You see," Synster had explained, "if you turn up dead, your brother will panic and believe that his life is in immediate jeopardy. The others in your government that I've contacted will believe the same. The only thing that keeps everyone working together is some hope that they can save themselves, that they have some kind of future. The fear of imminent death would likely cause them to panic and divulge everything they know. If they all did that at once and supported each other's story…now that would be difficult to undo. That would take us one step closer to Managed Collectivization."
"Can't you run this attempt to kill me through your algorithm to see how it happened, or can happen?"
"Unfortunately, no. All such assessments are strictly regulated. It would leave a record. There would be no other logical explanation for this event. Ryvil was trying to kill you. After failing with this stunt, I can't imagine he'd try the same thing again. But he will continue to thwart this project at every opportunity. He has demonstrated that. He must be neutralized. And this is something I cannot do.”
Rick thought about the prospect of successfully killing a Provenger, and, while highly preferable to killing a person, he doubted his efforts could bring success.
Chapter 33
The last of the CaRRian gang
The disappearance of Tony Carrian and nine other men of the area, labelled by the media as the Carrian Gang, created considerable consternation among the populations in town and the surrounding counties. Vigils were held, rumors were traded, and theories were thrown about.
Marcus Holliday, a notoriously unpredictable character, did one of the most responsible things he could have done under the circumstances. He went to the county sheriff’s office and told them what he knew about the incident. He started off belligerent about locking up the pistol he had on his belt and ended up spilling his guts. Obviously, he changed the story a little to make it seem innocent. He’d told them of the planned meeting “to go shooting” and related that it seemed to him that none of them had ever arrived at the designated time and place. He also mentioned that his friend, Tony, had said that if anything bad happened to him, that it probably had something to do with Rick Thompson. He insisted they confront Thompson immediately. When they didn’t indicate that they would, Holliday tried to start interrogating the deputy taking his information, questioning their motives for resolving the disappearance and threatening to go to the media.
What Holliday didn’t mention was that Tony had said that Thompson was with the NSA. Holliday wanted to implicate Thompson, but he didn’t want to sound like an antigovernment kook doing it.
It was a Wednesday evening when a Montezuma County Sheriff’s Deputy rolled up the long driveway to Rick’s place. Detective John Robby had spent the last week running down leads on the case, and this lead seemed to have the most interesting prospects. He knew from talk in the office that Rick’s wife in Denver had recently disappeared and wondered if there was any connection. But then again, there appeared to be a great number of people disappearing lately, all over the world. Now it had come to Cortez.
Robby had come alone for two reasons. The first was that resources in the county were stretched thin and detectives usually worked their cases alone. The second reason was that he didn’t expect to delve too deeply with this interview. He was there to find out what Thompson’s association with Carrian was and assess its relevance and importance. If there seemed to be anything there, he would keep it to himself, act disinterested, go away, and come back with reinforcements.
He’d already done his homework on Thompson: no record, good credit, everything looked standard. He lived in a nice home that appeared to be well kept. A number of deputies in the department knew and liked him. They’d told Robby about his ex-wife. Foul play was not suspected as she was an alcoholic and had been getting herself into trouble lately. Her condition had worsened since she’d lost her son to Thompson, and more recently she’d lost her job. The real intriguing thing about the Thompson angle was that a link to Carrian was made when his home had been searched. Certain paraphernalia at the house indicated that antigovernment sentiments were a general theme. Also, documents, a hand-written log, and a map were found that looked like Carrian had been following Thompson. Robby needed to get this worked out.
Marcus Holliday, the source of the information, on the other hand, was questionable. He had a record; a couple assault charges, no convictions, a DUI reduced to a misdemeanor, a poor credit history, and, according to the deputy that he spoke to, very bad breath. Holliday was known around the county as a self-proclaimed gun slinger. He had the credentials to back it up. He’d won the Four Corners Cowboy Action Quick Draw Championships the last three years in a row. This competition was fired with single action army revolvers and included a variety of stages where the draw and numerous shots were fired at a variety of targets, all usually within a second or two. His significant abilities with this weapon, his habit of carrying it with him everywhere, and his propensity to be a hothead, potentially made Holliday a very dangerous man. In Robby’s mind, these conditions, together with Holliday’s accusation, almost made Holliday the better suspect.
Rick saw the unmarked Crown Victoria rounding a curve about a mile away. He’d been working out front fixing a latch on his gate. He put down his tools and casually walked inside. He found Carson and Utu at the computer reading intently about some place in Turkey. They seemed excited. Shainan wasn’t there. She’d been sleeping late since she started getting morning sickness a couple days ago. Utu had told Rick the day prior to her illness that he could tell she was pregnant.
Rick quickly got their attention. “Guys, police coming up the drive: plan A.”
They acknowledged plan A and turned back to their reading. Rick walked back outside and continued working on the latch. It was getting colder as the sun was setting. The cruiser rolled to a stop and, after making a radio call, the Deputy emerged from the car.
Rick put down his tools and walked over, slowly, expecting either to get grilled about his wife or about Tony Carrian. Here goes, he thought.
“Evening, I hope you have good news about my ex,” he said with some actual sincerity.
“No, sir,” the detective said shaking his head while walking up to Rick. “Actually, no news. I did hear about that, and I’m sorry she hasn’t been located yet.” He stuck out his hand
and they shook. “I’m Detective John Robby, Montezuma County.”
“Rick Thompson. Pleased to meet you.”
“I wish I had some good news for you but I’m actually not here for that.” Robby paused, like a good investigator, waiting for Rick to volunteer whatever might be on a guilty mind.
“What can I help you with?” Rick inquired.
“How do you know Tony Carrian?” Robby began abruptly, carefully observing Rick’s reaction.
“Oh yeah,” Rick responded, without much emotion. “Not well. Is this about his disappearance? I saw it on the news and heard people talking.”
Primal Estate: The Candidate Species Page 35