The Hunt for Pierre Jnr

by David M Henley

  He kissed each of them in turn and wished them goodnight. ‘Go to sleep, Jasmin. Wake only when you hear me calling your name.’

  ‘Goodnight, Belle ... Poco ... Tiffani.’ The experience was too erotic for him and the packing was interrupted when he came to Sanchal, but went smoothly after that until all eighteen were stowed and the cases sealed so only he could open them.

  The only thing left to do was christen the new doll he had ordered. He always acquired a new doll for landmark times in his life, as rewards. Mostly they had been for breaking down a wall that blocked his data mining, or when he had succeeded in blocking his parents from entering his level of the palace.

  He was moving out from the family home and needed the distraction, or a motivator. And this one was special. It looked just like his sister Sato. He planned that she would walk with him all the way to his new home. Arm in arm they would stroll to Ryu’s needle and she would enter with him, never to leave.

  It would drive the real Sato crazy. The Weave would figure it out quickly and forever remind her that her fat little brother kept a sexual surrogate in her form doing who knows what, who knew how often. But first things first.

  Takashi had a ceremony for new dolls. A mesh tea ceremony. He took a long time brewing his mix. Turning the pot, adding ingredients, greedily breathing in the waft of the steam. He sweetened it with cardamom and lime. Then he sipped, sipped, sipped.

  From the box stepped a woman that wasn’t what he ordered. She was tall and her hair was fair. There must be a mistake, he thought — then thought again. She had a fierce body and surprise was a rare arousal for him to come by.

  The doll pointed her finger at him, cocked like a pistol.

  Don’t move, Takashi. I’m going to probe your mind.

  ~ * ~

  Within five minutes Tamsin had everything she needed. It was more than she’d hoped for. Takashi had monitored the Prime’s communications, everything, including the hunt’s investigations. She had suspected the brothers were close, but the bounty of data was beyond her imagining. Of particular interest was the contagion projection from her former colleague Geof.

  Ozenbach, you beautiful hairy man.

  She stood and looked over the spread of the megapolis with a new feeling inside her. Through the bedroom window she saw everything. She saw the data that Geof had collected, the viral spread they were so afraid of. The difference for Tamsin was that she knew what they didn’t. She knew how many psis it would take to turn the Will.

  All she had to do was get this information to La Grêle as soon as she could. Her network could use it. She took his now cold cup of tea and poured the contents over Takashi’s face. A man with mesh-induced memories was always an unreliable witness, even to himself.

  Tamsin walked calmly to the elevators and headed down to the market level. There was never any trouble at the Shima market, only times when the throng became so thick they had to push the crowd back to keep the elevator clear. The area around the gate was kept restricted by a barrier and a line of armed men and women in armour, wearing the chameleon sigil. When she had come in, she kept their attention elsewhere. This time she let them see her and their weapons located her instantly.

  The flies in the room gathered to watch what would happen next and Tamsin rolled back her second skin and changed her hair to the colour the records knew. When everyone was watching, she began kinetically carving her symbol into the doors behind her, deep gouges cutting through the filigree of family decoration. It didn’t take long to complete, but before she was finished the crowd had begun to babble and gasp.

  Look at me, she said with her fighting stance. Camera flies buzzed above the heads of the crowd. The guards tried to turn to face her, but she collapsed them where they stood, bringing another gasp from the crowd.

  ‘Know this symbol,’ she spoke. ‘We will leave it wherever we pass. If you see it, it means we have been there. It means: Psi Freedom Now.

  ‘If you wear it, it means you support us and we will know you mean us no harm. Put it up in your workplaces. Put it on the windows of your homes. Tell the World Union that you don’t want this war.

  ‘We don’t want it either. The psionic people are just like you. We are human. We wish you no harm. But as humans, if the choice is put to us, then we will respond.’

  There was too much noise from the crowd. Most seemed confused by what was happening, but so long as the cameras were getting her message then it didn’t matter. The Weave had to capture her declaration.

  Services were coming closer, she knew. She didn’t have much time. The chatter she picked up from the connected crowd was that they were sending every squad they had against her.

  ‘To my fellow psis. We did not choose this division. Like you, I have tried to exist peacefully and in harmony with all around us. But we have been hunted and confined, like criminals. Like animals. Though we have done no wrong.

  ‘What you have seen in the Cape is the beginning. We have created a zone free of the Services dictatorship. The Cape is now rid of permanent Services interference. We do not know how long this will last.

  ‘If the Primacy allows us to remain in peace, then there will be no more need for conflict. But if they come to imprison any more of our people, then we will fight back.

  ‘Brothers and sisters. Those who have spent their lives pretending not to be special, to not have the gifts you have and to those who are still to discover them: you must take great care. Greater care than ever, for the Prime will not stop. He will not rest until every one of us is disabled.

  ‘If you can hide, then hide. If you can run, run. But if you can hide no longer, and you are tired of running, then join us. We’ll be waiting.’

  Even before her final words she was reaching out and nudging the minds of the nearby spectators. You didn’t need to put a thought in someone’s head. It was nearly impossible to craft a clear thought with compatible reasoning. People had stray thoughts all the time that they dismissed. Overheard lyrics, news items, a glanced conversation on the Weave. Rejected from the mind as alien.

  Emotions on the other hand were rarely questioned. If someone felt happy, they rarely asked why. And when someone feels fear they don’t stop to wonder, they just look for what is causing it. Emotions are primal. She didn’t know why she hadn’t tried this before. It was so simple. As La Grêle had shown her and just as Arthur did it. Feel the emotions around and then push it back upon them.

  Tamsin stepped down from the Shima gate and spread fear in pulses. They feared the psi before them and she created a feedback loop to turn their fear into panic. Tamsin pulsed again, stirring the pot until they started to move. Like spooked cattle, like the frightened herd they were, they began a stampede and she raised her cowl and disappeared into the maddened crowd.

  ~ * ~

  Epilogue

  ~ * ~

  Shen Li sat at his workbench, continuing to fuss with the metal sphere he had constructed. He was using a hot pin to seal in the fluid he had just injected. It was a delicate and repetitive process as each time he raised the temperature even slightly, the liquid expanded, forcing itself through holes he hadn’t completely sealed. He had been at it for hours.

  ‘Nearly done,’ he said to himself.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ somebody responded.

  When he next looked up, the sensors told him that someone was in the room, but looking around he could see no one. It was impossible that anything could make it down here without him noticing, without him allowing access through the cage. He didn’t think he remembered doing that.

  ‘Who goes there?’ he ventured.

  ‘I am Pierre.’

  A chill ran through him. ‘Are you the one they are looking for?’ No answer. ‘Can I see you, please?’

  Shen blinked and in a chair beside him sat a boy. His head looked painfully large, but his eyes were placid.

  ‘Hello,’ Shen said.

  ‘Are you not afraid of me?’ the boy
asked.

  ‘Are you as terrible as I’ve been told?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I suppose I should be honoured that you have come to visit me.’

  ‘I heard a lot about you. You have an interesting mind.’ ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You don’t think like others do.’

  ‘I try not to.’

  ‘Do you like it here? By yourself?’

  ‘Enough. I can’t think around the distractions of others.’

  ‘What are you working on?’

  Shen sighed. ‘A toy.’

  ‘May I see it?’ The boy’s small hand reached toward him and Shen uncomplainingly placed the metal ball in his palm. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It is meant to react to your thoughts. I’m not sure it works yet.’

  ‘Oh, I see now.’ The boy laughed, making Shen laugh too. ‘It is a good toy.’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone.’

  ‘I understand. Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tears began flowing from Shen’s eyes.

  ‘It’s okay.’ The boy patted him. ‘You don’t have to say. I know already.’

  ‘Can you make it stop?’

  ‘Yes. I can do that for you.’

  Shen wondered why he had been crying. He felt more buoyant than he had in a long time. He took a screwdriver to the far end of the room, to the reinforced door that ticked as if someone was on the other side. He tapped back to it with the tip of the screwdriver and the ticking stopped.

  ‘Why did you call him Kronos?’ a voice behind him asked. He turned to find a young boy standing near him. He seemed a boy of seven or eight, young at least, and dressed in fitted linen. Shen couldn’t remember where he had come from.

  ‘He was my eleventh experiment: K. I didn’t mean to name it; the word just sprang to mind.’

  ‘Why do you keep it?’

  ‘He was alive ... he is of my mind. It would be like killing myself and I couldn’t do it.’ He tapped again at the door. ‘Hello, me.’

  ‘Does it hurt you?’

  Shen nodded. ‘He is going mad in there.’

  ‘Would you like me to make it better?’

  Shen nodded again. There was such a pain in his heart for what he had done, birthing an innocent monster.

  He didn’t know why he was leaning with his head pressed against the cool metal of the vault. He didn’t quite know where he was. Everything in the room looked familiar, it looked like he had been here before. He knew the tools, the scraps, where he was up to with each project. He knew this door.

  ‘Where does it go?’ he asked. No one answered. He seemed to be alone. Wasn’t there someone with him?

  The door was secured with a code lock and a thick pin. It opened easily.

  ‘Kronos?’