by Chris Ward
‘This is it,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘This is where he lives.’
‘Who?’
Karin, too, looked ashen-faced. Akane lifted a hand at a painting on the wall. It was of a bird with dark features sitting on a tree branch, the mutilated corpse of a mouse caught in its talons.
‘The man O-Remo saw,’ she whispered. ‘The one they call Professor Crow.’
35
The Professor plans an escape
Kurou glared at the screen, his nose-beak cocking to the side and pinching at the air. ‘No, no, no, no!’ he shouted, banging a clawed hand down on the tabletop. ‘You can’t get away! You can’t!’
The helicopter was a crumpled, burning mess of metal. Three people were dead, but the one whose blood was supposed to be staining the pristine snow had escaped, dragged away by two of those stupid, interfering guests. One of them had even had the audacity to set fire to one of the creatures. The flames had shorted out its systems and it lay burning inside the entrance to the Grand Mansion.
A second bear was now on fire. Caught up in the bloodlust of a hunt, the stupid things were showing none of the intelligence Kurou had hoped to have bred into them, and while they were making an unholy mess, the body count was distressingly low.
He ordered the bear to retreat, but whether it would listen, he couldn’t be sure. Some did, some didn’t. They weren’t designed to be controlled, merely to be released into a localised area and left to their own devices. The organic part of each creature required regular sustenance, while the mechanical part had a thirty-year shelf-life in the absence of any servicing. Or so he had thought.
He tutted and shook his head. He had tried to press Forbes into more live trials, but the stupid Englishman had been too cautious. Test them in a controlled environment, he had always insisted. That’s why he had captured elderly hikers and thrown them into the enclosures. But it was a waste of time; this was a real life trial, and for all its faults it would be invaluable to Mr. Park when he was delivered his shipment.
Forbes, though, was proving to be an irritation. His use was over; it was time for the companies in his name to be turned over to his rightful heir. After all, Kurou had masterminded everything. All Forbes had ever done was put up the cash.
Looking over the monitors again, Kurou saw the second bear had given up the chase and retreated back out into the snow. The sprinkler systems were losing their battle with the fire in the Grand Mansion, and it had already caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to the interior. Kurou smiled; he would just charge the repairs to Forbes’s expense account.
He checked the radar systems again, looking for the other bears, frowning at the way they seemed to be meandering aimlessly about. It was perhaps time for a little more testosterone.
Since the day his mother had sold him to Rutherford Forbes for the price of a first-class bus ticket to Shanghai, Kurou had found it difficult to trust women. That it had been infinitely easier to build and breed female bears was irrelevant, the five female prototypes paled in comparison to his one special favorite.
The male.
Lolo.
The others had numbers, but Lolo was the name Kurou had given to the first robot he had ever built, the one Rutherford Forbes had broken with his big clumsy foot on that very first day, and then kicked aside like a piece of trash. Kurou wasn’t a resentful type, but there was a case for a grudge right there.
No, females were overly emotional in all shapes and forms, and a partially computerised brain made little difference. The female bears were headstrong, confrontational, and resistant to his attempts at controlling them.
Lolo, however, was another matter.
Down in the forest, waiting patiently for instructions, the huge bear was larger and more powerful. The females were prototypes in every sense of the word, but Lolo was a representation of the future.
‘It’s time,’ Kurou whispered, fingers racing over the controls as he connected with Lolo’s radio frequency. ‘Let’s put on a good show now.’
Somewhere deep in the forest, he could sense Lolo leaning forward off his haunches, dropping into that bear waddle and striding quickly up through the trees in the direction of British Heights.
‘The games are just beginning, my little rats,’ Kurou whispered, tapping one claw against the radar screen. ‘You’ve had your little fun in my maze, but it’s time to start closing off the exits.’
Lolo, are you there?
The huge, shaggy head lifted, ears pricking up. The instructions seemed so close, so clear, as if his master was calling him from outside his cage like he often did. Lolo swung his head from side to side, but the forest floor was empty. Keen eyes detected no motion, sharp ears no sound.
Lolo.
He grunted, looking up towards the grey sky peeking between the trees, but it wasn’t coming from there either. He understood now. The sound was coming from inside his head.
It’s time, Lolo. Are you hungry? There are lots of good things for you to eat. Head north, up the hillside. I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.
Lolo grunted again. He pushed himself up to his feet, feeling the trees bend aside as he began to move. Some of them snapped, their trunks splintering and their snow-covered leaves making a whooshing sound as they fell, sometimes to the snowy ground, sometimes into the waiting boughs of other nearby trees.
Lolo’s powerful legs pushed him forwards through the forest with increasing urgency. His master was waiting, and Lolo was hungry.
Kurou glared at the TV station he was streaming on one of his monitor screens. The rescue operation around the landslip was getting dangerously close to the buried entrance to the underground facility. They would find it by tomorrow, and then Forbes’s secrets would be exposed.
The prototypes, of course, could be destroyed. Kurou could detonate them at any time, leaving just a twisted tangle of metal and flesh, something that would fascinate the rescue workers but not necessarily incriminate Forbes’s enterprises. Kurou was too good, too careful. Bribes in certain areas of government would help turn eyes away, but if it got out into the international media there could be big problems.
In general, he had learned that the world didn’t care about what went on within other borders unless it was detrimental to their own survival or deductive from their economic gain. No one cared what a secretive Asian state was doing to its people, because a country squeezed up into a climatically worthless part of the world and developed on dull, valueless rock was of little consequence.
With a rusty, fading military that survived on handouts and ran on third grade oil, no one worried about a few threats. If the same state were to suddenly be in possession of cutting edge military technology, then that was another matter.
Kurou had big plans for his de facto company. He dreamed of world domination as much as the next man, but unlike most of the brainless masses, he had the knowhow to achieve it. Getting derailed at the first hurdle was something he was keen to avoid.
He dialled a number on his satellite phone.
‘I need a transport,’ he squawked into the receiver. ‘The back entrance, the one by the lake. Road is safest as they’ll be watching the skies soon once they discover the base.’ He ran a finger over the figures on his computer screen, calculating how much space he would need to remove all the embryos and infants in production, then barked a series of numbers into the phone. ‘Prepare a safe route to Niigata. We go by container ship to Vladivostok, and once there we’ll go to ground until the client is ready to receive his shipment. Pay off who you need to pay off. As always, the fees are arbitrary. Use your discretion.’
A single word came back at him: ‘When?’
Kurou paused. Every minute that he stayed at British Heights put the delivery at risk, but he so wanted to see the results of his experiment.
‘Tomorrow,’ he whispered, his voice coming out as a snakelike hiss.
36
O-Remo remembers the best show
Through the little l
attice window beside the pub door, Ken watched the events over at the Grand Mansion. He saw the flames destroying the entrance, then Karin climbing up on to the roof with a curtain tied around her waist, which she used to haul Akane up beside her. A few minutes after that, a second bear appeared and rushed inside the building. Ken listened with tears in his eyes to it destroying the inside of the Grand Mansion, then Jun suddenly appeared at a front window on the second floor. Karin and Akane helped him up to the roof, then the three of them disappeared from sight.
‘Can they get back down from up there?’ he asked, turning to Forbes, who was sitting on a stool in front of the fire, his head in his hands. ‘Can they get down from the roof?’
Forbes nodded. ‘Yes, yes. There’s a fire escape. There are also … other ways down.’
Ken looked back out of the window. The second bear appeared through the entrance, a few tendrils of smoke drifting up from its coat. It rolled in the snow of the courtyard and then disappeared around the side of the west wing.
Everything seemed hopeless. One way or another, they were all going to die. The bears would smash the buildings to pieces one by one until all the humans were caught. There was no way to protect themselves, and no way to get off the mountain.
Fire…
The flare had worked for Jun. Just a simple flare, it had set alight one of the bears, and as it hadn’t come back out of the Grand Mansion, Ken could assume it was dead, or decommissioned, whatever the correct term for a destroyed half-animal, half-robot abomination might be.
‘Do you have more rescue equipment?’
‘What?’
‘Flares, that sort of thing.’
Forbes waved a dismissive hand. ‘In the Fort. There’s ski gear in one of the rooms. A lot of tour groups like to take daily skiing trips, but we always give our instructors flares and emergency beacons. We’ve got a room of ski gear.’
‘How many flares?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know. I’m the owner. I don’t do the inventory and other crap like that.’
Ken stood up. He marched over to Forbes, grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him up. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You can help me look.’
‘Where’s Karin?’
Ken remembered the way Karin had shimmied up an outcropping buttress like an experienced climber. Obviously condition training for girl bands went to some extremes.
‘She can take care of herself, and those two kids with a bit of luck. We’ll go check on the boys and the friend of mine whom you abandoned.’
‘I hope that scoundrel dies!’
Ken slowly lifted a fist. ‘I’ll turn your words on you, old man, if you so much as dare say that again.’ For a moment he stared at Forbes, wanting nothing more to slam the old prick’s head into the fire and set it alight. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get moving before any more bears show up. Is there a secret way over to the Fort?’
Forbes shook his head. ‘Not from here.’
‘Let’s get going then.’
Ken figured they were just as likely to die regardless of which exit they took, so he opted for the front door. He slipped out first, dragging Forbes by one arm until he figured the English businessman would follow on his own, headed down the alley between the shop and the pub, then down another between the back of the pub and the staff residential buildings behind it. From there they had no choice but to head out across the main access road. Ken counted down from three and then ran as best he could through the snow, hoping Forbes would follow. A few seconds later he reached the cover of the nearest dormitory building and ducked into the entrance. Forbes, huffing and puffing like he’d never done a day’s exercise in his life, came barging in behind him.
There were four more dormitories, then a stretch of open space between themselves and the Fort.
‘We move one at a time,’ he said. ‘Any sign of one of the bears and we get inside and hide, and hope to Buddha that it doesn’t see us.’
Forbes just nodded breathlessly.
‘Okay, move!’
Ken ducked out of the building, running low along a clear space beneath its eaves. At the end of the building he paused and looked around. A short section of open space and a fence poking up out of the snow separated it from the next building along. As Forbes came up behind him, Ken stepped out, hurdled over the fence and went into the next building, ducking straight down out of sight. A moment later Forbes followed him in.
‘Can’t we rest a minute?’ he said, puffing out his rosy cheeks.
‘The Fort is the only building that looks strong enough to keep those bears out,’ Ken said. ‘You’re welcome to stay here.’
Forbes shook his head. ‘I didn’t expect any of this, you know. British Heights was a perfectly legitimate operation. Thousands of students have passed through our doors.’
‘Lucky them,’ Ken said. ‘Unfortunately, I’m keen to leave again.’
He saw no more sign of the bears as they moved from one dormitory to the next. Finally, all they were left with was a hundred-metre stretch of open snow up to the entrance of the Fort.
‘Look.’ Ken pointed at a cleared path in the snow. One of them has been through here.’ The trail led from the front entrance to the Fort back across the road and through a visitor car park towards the tennis courts.
‘If we follow it, we’ll be able to move quicker,’ Ken said.
Forbes just nodded, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.
Ken took a deep breath and started out across the snow. It was sun-warmed and thick like mud, making his thighs ache as he frog-walked through it, constantly turning his head to look for bears. When he reached the open trail he paused for Forbes to catch up.
‘Can’t keep going,’ Forbes muttered, dropping to his knees. ‘Need to … rest.’
‘Get up,’ Ken said, anger creeping into his voice. ‘You think I’m going to just leave you here, you bastard? You’re facing justice for this.’
He reached out and hauled Forbes up, but as he turned back towards the Fort something caught his eye.
In the woods behind the last dormitory, something was moving in the direction of the Grand Mansion, something huge and terrible, far bigger than any of the others, as black as the shadows beneath the trees.
‘M01,’ Forbes muttered. ‘Oh, Heaven on Earth protect us.’
‘What?’
‘Male Number One. The one that deformed bastard calls Lolo.’
Ken didn’t waste time replying. He grabbed Forbes and dragged him towards the Fort, even as a roar filled the air from the direction of the tennis courts. As they broke into a run across the brown grass exposed by the bear’s trail, he glanced back to see another bear appear from behind the snowdrifts against the side of the tennis courts and turn towards them. With a thunderous roar, it broke into a bounding run.
‘Open the fucking door!’ Ken screamed as he approached, running as hard as he could. He could almost feel the thing bearing down on them. ‘Open the door right fucking now!’
He didn’t want to see the bloody remains of a person on the ground in front of the door, but he did. He stopped in his tracks and stared down at what had once been a schoolboy, chewed up and spat out by one of the creatures the man running after him had designed.
‘You evil bastard,’ he shouted at Forbes, even as the bear came racing towards them. ‘You sick, evil bastard…’
Hands closed over his shoulders and hauled him backwards. He stumbled, then saw the wall of the Fort rising up around him, the door pulled open. ‘Get inside!’ Ogiwara shouted, shoving Ken back through the door.
Ken stumbled to the floor and rolled over, looking up as Ogiwara dragged Forbes inside after him. The older man crashed into the wall, grunted and fell over. Ken caught a glimpse of the bear still racing towards them as Ogiwara worked to close the door. He jumped up and slammed his shoulder against it as Ogiwara pulled across a huge bolt.
The reverberation of the bear striking the outside of the door knocked them
both off their feet. It howled in rage and the door shook as huge paws smote it, but the heavy Medieval-style beams in their metal frame held.
‘Mishima got crunched,’ Ogiwara said, but there was no hint of amusement in his voice. ‘Your friend is in a room down the hall. Think that door will keep the bitch out?’
None of them spoke. No sound came from outside, so Ken peered out of a small portal window beside the door. The bear had gone. Then, as his eyes searched the road and beyond, he saw it disappearing back into the forest.
‘It’s gone,’ he said. ‘For now, at any rate.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’
‘Where’s O-Remo?’
‘This way.’
Ogiwara led them through a set of double doors into a room that reminded Ken of a hotel corridor. Ogiwara went into the first room and Ken saw O-Remo lying in a comfortable double bed, a thick duvet covering everything except his face. Ogiwara had found a kerosene stove heater from somewhere and the room was far warmer than the corridor outside.
‘There wasn’t anything else I could do except make him comfortable,’ Ogiwara said. ‘I don’t know if he’s going to die or what, but he’s still alive at the moment.’
‘Thank you.’
Ken leaned down and pressed a hand to O-Remo’s brow. To his surprise, the singer’s eyes popped open and O-Remo’s pale face broke into a wide smile. ‘Where’s Karin?’ he said, his voice strained and weak.
‘She’s on her way.’
O-Remo’s eyes closed again. ‘Good. Wake me when she comes.’
Someone behind Ken cleared his throat. ‘If he can hang on until tomorrow there might be another helicopter–’