by J P Waters
“Bad! Bad Gerry!” said Olie, as Jayson examined Mona’s torn clothing.
“It appears to be a predatory species,” said Mona, nonplussed by the wound in her side.
Jayson shook his head. “That thing moved so fast. Olie, come look at this.”
Olie knelt to the point of attack to investigate. The teeth-marks made a perfect circle in the Seba’s side, and despite her durable composite skin, Gerry had burrowed past the artificial skin and made a small tear through Mona’s insides. Mona’s clothes were eviscerated, and if Olie had hesitated a few moments more then Mona’s internal organs would have been exposed.
Olie’s mind went to the desalination plant. Dim, Leon, the victims on the news. They had all been bored into before having their fluids drained. The mysterious water that appeared after Olie’s interruption of Dim’s attacker. The scurrying sounds that followed. Newton, the man Olie had found after the explosions at SeaCrest, who had mentioned an animal. It all made sense.
“It’s them, isn’t it?” said Olie, as the horror of the realization spread through her body.
“What? Who?” said Jayson.
“Other Gerrys. Think about the serial killer’s wounds they’ve reported on the telesphere. Always holes burrowed into victims’ sides, drained of fluids. It was the same with Dim. There must be more of them out there. Gerry isn’t alone.”
Jayson stood and contemplated Olie’s theory for a moment. Olie watched as Jayson’s analytical mind worked it out in his head. This is how he had looked in Mars, always thinking, always analyzing.
“Oh no. This will create chaos. Absolute fucking chaos.” Said Jayson, after a few minutes.
“It depends on how many there are. If there is one other Gerry out there murdering people, maybe he can be caught. It would be good… the murders would stop.”
“Alright here, let’s say we’re right, and there’s more Gerry’s running around out there. What do we do next?” said Jayson, less of an actual question to Olie and more just working out the details out loud.
“I can destroy the creature,” said Mona.
“No!” Olie shouted, getting between the terrarium and the Seba.
“Olie,” he said, “we can’t risk letting Gerry getting out of this cage. It went directly for Mona’s midsection. That thing is a killer.”
“Most likely instinct. The human torso is a weak point,” Mona affirmed.
“We’re not killing Gerry.” Olie glanced down at the small, helpless creature. Well, maybe not so helpless. But he was hers now and she felt an unusual need to protect him.
“Ol, you can’t keep him. If we’re right, then that thing is a murderer and I can’t let you stay here with it.”
“He isn’t threatened by me! You just saw how he let me pick him up.”
“Okay, what if it kills someone else?” asked Jayson.
“He won’t. If no one else reaches in his terrarium, he’ll be fine. You wouldn’t like it if a stranger tried to pick you up, either.”
“Olie…”
She shook her head. “I’m not budging on this, Jayson. We’re not killing Gerry. If you have any other ideas, let’s hear them.” Olie said. She’d lost too many friends recently, and Jayson was quickly back-pedaling out of her life. She couldn’t bear to lose Gerry right now; her connection with the animal was too deep.
Jayson looked at Mona, then said, “Fine. We don’t have to kill it. But we do have to take it to the police. They have to hear about this. Maybe if they have Gerry it can help them figure out how to find the other animals.”
Olie tried to stop and think. Maybe Jayson was right. Gerry could play a vital role in preparing the authorities for whatever was happening. But there was a better than 50% chance that they’d exterminate him. What if the police were wrong? What if Gerry could be vital to genetic studies too? Would turning him in throw that away?
“What do you want to do?” Jayson demanded.
“I don’t know, Jay. My gut says we shouldn’t turn him in. I think we need to keep him here.”
“Well, I know two things for certain,” Jayson said.
“What’s that?”
“One, we need a better cage. Two, I’m not staying here in the same room with this thing, and I don’t think you should either.”
After thinking to herself a moment, Olie nodded.
“Okay, let’s get him a better home. Can you make something for him?”
A smile spread across Jayson’s face.
“Oh yeah I can. I’ve got some new toys in the lab I’ve been dying to use. I’ll fabricate something that should work.” Jayson said. “We can talk about the next steps on the way.”
Chapter Twenty
The three of them rode together back to Jayson’s home, brainstorming possibilities along the way. Jayson was still firmly in favor of delivering Gerry to the authorities, while Olie was still too conflicted between a strong pull to protect Gerry and her concern for the public to commit to anything. What’s worse, she now felt somewhat complicit in the epidemic. If she’d reported Gerry earlier, would Dim have been more prepared? Would Dim be alive? Mona, on the other hand, displayed only her typical ambivalence, offering insight only when spoken to.
On arrival they descended to Jayson’s basement—a fully equipped lab stocked with servers, 3D printers, and rows upon rows of micro-crops growing in glass enclosures. It was the bare minimum for the high-level genetic work Jayson was doing, but Olie still found it impressive. He’d need to commute in to work to do anything more ambitious than the occasional basic experiment.
“Mona has downloaded some blueprints from NOVA on the way over, so I’ll start printing Gerry’s new home right away. Do you want anything? I’ve done some work on re-creating cannabis. The genetic integrity isn’t entirely there, but it still helps with stress.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Olie replied.
“Suit yourself. Mona and I are going to go get the cage printed. Just hang out here, it will only take a few minutes.”
When they were still dating, she had hardly seen Jayson’s work first-hand. He spoke about it with such excitement, but there hadn’t been much for Olie to see other than research papers. She looked the lab, and she realized just how much he’d invested in his work—both personally and financially. She wondered how much a home lab like this had cost him to setup. Jayson’s family was wealthy, but Olie wondered if she had underestimated just how wealthy.
Before long, he returned with a small but sturdy-looking cube with a hatch, handle, and lock on the top. The walls were made of layer upon layer of clear, industrial-grade plastic, slightly warping views of the interior but fortifying against escape. It wasn’t nearly as spacious as the terrarium, but it was far more mobile. Olie suspected that Jayson’s emphasis had been on mobility, not comfort. Moving Gerry to a secure but less comfortable enclosure meant Jayson expected a relocation for Gerry sooner rather than later.
Olie was a little miffed that there wasn’t more talk of a long-term home for Gerry, but the mobile cage looked solid, and after the incident with Mona, Olie was starting to think solid was important.
“Thanks, Jayson.”
“Hold on—I also made these.”
Jayson laid out three syringes on the table. They were filled with a cloudy substance, and the tips looked sharp enough to pierce even Gerry’s hide.
“What are we going to use these for?” asked Olie.
“Well, if you decide to take Gerry in, or even if it goes on the attack again, we’re going to need a way to subdue him. I’d still recommend keeping him at a distance at all times, but I think these would be nonlethal.”
“What’s inside?”
“It’s a number, but a synthetic one I cooked up,” answered Jayson.
“A number… isn’t that Hydrocodone? Where did you get that? It’s illegal, isn’t it?”
“Yes, kind of, but the components to make it aren’t. Plus, I added a few other things that should really knock him out but shouldn’t kill h
im.” Jayson replied, quickly turning back to the printer. He paused when he saw the worried look on Olie’s face. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll work.”
“But, Jay—”
“I said, don’t worry about it. Here, I made something else for us.”
Alongside the syringes, he placed what looked like three handguns on the table—one for each of them, including Mona.
“Jayson. What am I looking at here?”
At first glance Olie thought they were handguns, but she noticed that the barrel was too wide. They had to be dart guns. As if he was reading her mind, Jayson laid the darts themselves out next, each full of the same cloudy liquid. Then he set down three small canisters to hold the ammunition.
“You said it yourself: there has to be more than just Gerry out there. Attacks are on the rise, and those are just the ones we know about. Who knows how many of these things haven’t been discovered or reported? We need to be ready to take them out if they come for us like they did for Mona.”
Jayson placed the dart gun into Olie’s hand. It was lighter than the pistol she’d been trained with on Mars, but more solid than she expected. She hadn’t had to fire personal assault weapons during her time in the service, but she’d put in hours of required target practice on the range. She’d never expected to have to use the skill back Earthside.
“We need to get going,” Jayson said. “I can’t tell you what to do, but now that we know what Gerry’s capable of, we need to transfer it to this new enclosure ASAP. It’s the only way you’ll feel safe having it in your apartment building, and it’s the only way I’ll feel safe leaving you there with it.”
Olie was happy Jayson wasn’t pushing the issue of turning Gerry in to the police. “Right… you’re right. Let’s go.”
Olie slid the gun into her waistband and made her way up the stairs. Jayson did the same, while Mona snapped her pistol and latched it on her belt.
Olie felt good with the dartgun at her side and the new cage ready for Gerry. She felt prepared.
After a short ride back to Olie’s aparment, Jayson, Mona, and Olie arrived. The three rode up the lift in silence, with Olie mentally preparing for the steps that would come next.
Stepping off the elevator, Olie immediately felt as if something was different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but after opening the door to her apartment, her eyes went wide and her stomach sank. The apartment had been trashed. There were broken water tubes and used food containers everywhere.
She looked over at Gerry’s makeshift terrarium and then noticed that Gerry was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
“No! No, no, no, no…”
This was Olie’s nightmare—the worst possible situation. Gerry wasn’t safe—and neither was anyone else in the apartment complex. If he attacked someone—if another friend died—she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.
There was a circle the size of Mona’s wound in the glass of Gerry’s terrarium, giving him direct access to a box of dried soy cubes that had been left too close to the cage. It looked like he’d torn through them and proceeded to decimate the kitchen, breaking into any exposed spices and foodstuffs he could find before turning to the cold-unit. It was marred with bite-marks, but the metal had managed to keep him out. At a certain point he seemed to have given up and started exploring the rest of the apartment.
Jayson turned to Mona and told her to call the police station.
As Mona connected to the station, Jayson looked cautiously at Olie. “It’s okay. Everyone will be okay,” he said. “The sooner we get a squad over here, the safer everyone will be.”
Mona maintained a blank stare while she connected with the apartment’s comms system to put in a call to the police. After several minutes she said, “It appears that I am in a call queue to connect with an officer. The wait times are approximately 12 minutes, Jayson. Would you like me to continue to wait?”
Olie nearly screamed. On queue at a time like this?
Jayson slammed his fist down on the kitchen countertop. “Fuck it! Mona, disconnect,” he said as his eyes scanned the apartment.
“Olie, can you give Mona access to your security system? Mona, you check the door’s camera feed. See if anyone—or anything—came in or went out while we were away.”
“Um, yeah. Okay.” There was no time for Olie’s personal issues with Mona.
Mona nodded briskly. “Certainly, Jayson.”
Olie unlocked her personal security system from her band as Mona stared forward, wirelessly connecting to the system. It was only a matter of seconds before she’d processed and reviewed the day’s footage.
“There are no unaccounted-for entrances, Jayson, nor any sign of the unknown animal’s escape. I’ve reviewed both the visual and thermal feeds.”
“That means he’s still here.” Jayson drew his gun and held it at the ready, loading a single dart.
“Worse,” Olie said from the other side of the room. “Come look at this.”
After exhausting his food options, it seemed that Gerry had decided to try his luck elsewhere. Another exit hole at floor-level had been cut into Olie’s window. Olie remembered her encounter at the plant. These creatures were capable of spider-like mobility when necessary.
“Fuck,” said Jayson, the resolve in his voice replaced by an air of defeat. “Mona, keep checking the apartment—we need to be sure. This is bad, Olie. Bad.”
Olie was angry at herself. She would be responsible for more deaths. All she’d wanted was a project, a friend. In some weird way, Gerry had given her that, but now he was on the loose.
Jayson looked over to see Olie staring vacantly at Gerry’s path of destruction. “Olie, are you okay?”
“All clear, Jayson,” Mona cut in. “More signs of chewing, but no organisms were found inside the apartment."
Olie couldn’t just resign herself to the situation, though. It was clear the police wouldn’t be of any help so that left one solution. She needed to act—and fast. She wasn’t going to lose any more friends, human or otherwise.
“We need to find him,” Olie said, turning to Mona and Jayson. She pulled out the dart gun and loaded a dart. It slid into the barrel with a click, ready to fire.
“Okay, but how? And where?”
“Mona, you know Gerry’s taxonomy best. Where would you expect an animal like him to go?” Olie’s reservations about Mona were gone for the moment, and the walking supercomputer was their best bet for tracking the creature down.
“As I’ve stated before, this is an unclassified organism,” Mona replied. “I have no knowledge of its behavioral patterns.”
“Just guess, then!” Olie said, her frustration growing. They had no idea how far Gerry had already gotten.
“That would be intellectually irresponsible,” Mona flatly responded.
“Mona,” Jayson addressed her in a calm voice, barely concealing his own tension. “Olie’s requesting that you make an educated guess. A hypothesis. Where would the animals most like this one go? Penguins, for example. Or starfish.”
“Hmm. Fascinating,” Mona said. Then she stared blankly for a few more moments, once again accessing NOVA’s wealth of human knowledge. “Behavioral trends suggest most animals would return to nests or hunting grounds in such situations. Is this of assistance?”
“Yes, thank you,” Olie said, starting towards the door. “I found him on the beach a little way from here—I run there each morning. We’ll search there first. Come on.”
Before Jayson had time to argue, she was out the door, making her way to the complex’s lift.
It was the middle of the night, but the full moon reflected brightly off the incoming tide. Jayson had grabbed a mini searchlight from his car, and Olie was illuminating her own path with a beam of light from her band. Mona seemed to have no trouble seeing in the darkness, so she hadn’t bothered with a light source of her own.
“You have thermal vision, right?” Olie asked the Seba.
“Affirmative.”
&n
bsp; “Are you getting any readings? There isn’t much other life out here anymore.”
Mona turned to Jayson, waiting for his approval.
“Go ahead, Mona. Olie’s a friend. Treat her requests as if they’re coming from me.”
“Affirmative,” Mona repeated to Jayson, her eyes taking on a greenish hue as she scanned. Olie might have been imagining things, but she swore she heard a tone of jealousy in the android’s voice.
“No heat signatures detected.”
“Damn it.”
That moment Jayson jumped as something skittered across the searchlight’s beam.
“What the fuck was that?”
Olie drew her dart gun. “It’s one of them.”
Jayson drew his dart gun as well, scanning the sand and shoreline with the spotlight in his free hand.
“Where is it, Mona?”
“As stated, I can’t find a heat signature. Switching to sonar scanning.”
“Gerry! Is that you, Gerry?” Olie called out. “Here, boy!”
“Shhhhh…. Let her search,” Jayson said. “To my back, Olie,”
The pair stood back to back in silence, turning in a slow circle as Jayson widened his search with the light. Mona paused and listened for movement.
“From the right,” Mona said just before a creature skittered past the three of them again.
Olie took a shot and missed.
“Did you get it?”
“No.”
Jayson turned to Mona again. “Good job, Mona. It’s here, just tell us where.”
“I’m sorry, but the waves are creating interference.”
“You don’t think he’s hunting us, do you?” Olie asked.
“That’s exactly what I think he’s doing. Mona, we’re going silent again. Execute the search again.”
“I’ll try, Jayson.”
The three stood in silence, not even shuffling their feet this time. Each of them was on edge, their eyes darting at every sound. This couldn’t be Gerry, Olie thought. He wouldn’t flee from her or hunt her. He loved her. Or at least she had thought he did.