Hunter and Hunted

Chapter Four

"I've finally got another inlet." Jim had been up top with his daughter as they traveled to the northern most tip of the Martha's Vineyard. They had feared they'd used up their luck at the last location and so had moved on to search more of the island. After leaving and heading north, all Jim had seen was a whole lot of nothing. Not even one single house. "People do live here, right?" he'd commented dryly. Kate knew he was speaking rhetorically and wasn't really looking for an answer so she had said nothing.

Just like last time Kate did her best to sail in close and cross the front of this inlet.

"I don't see anything. Definitely man-made. It's just that this one doesn't look like it is being used except maybe a few homes deeper inside. I say we pass on this one and keep going." Jim put his binoculars down and watched as Kate took them back out to sea.

"I'm getting some more houses now. One looks really big. Easily 5,000 square feet." Jim was impressed. They had just kept going and now they were starting down the eastern side of the island.

"It looks like a big bay, Dad. There's land farther to the east." She didn't need to binoculars to see that.

"Keep going, I think I see something promising." Jim urged her on just as Johanna showed up with dinner.

"You two are busy so I thought we would eat up here tonight. Find anything else yet?" She had kept herself busy in the kitchen and hadn't poked her head out much.

"Looks like another marina is coming up soon. I can see a man-made barrier and a lot of buildings beyond." Jim glanced at Kate. "Is it too deep to drop anchor here and spend the night?"

"We'll need to get a little closer to do that unless you want me to put it on autopilot. It'll cost us some fuel." That was the only down side that Kate saw.

"FUEL!" Jim was ready to kick himself. "I didn't even think of that at that marina. I was so caught up on getting propane that I didn't even think of it." He proceeded to kick himself anyway.

"It's okay, babe, none of us did. I'm not sure where we would put any extra that we got anyway. I still don't see how we're still floating with as much weight as we've added." Johanna was smiling while she said it.

Kate countered her thinking, not noting that her mother was joking. "We're a cat, Mom. Until the pontoons develop holes and start flooding, we'll always stay afloat."

They got in closer, pulled down the sails, and got even closer by engine alone.

"What's that big one over there?" Jim pointed to a much bigger ship that was docked.

"That, Jim, is a ferry. I wonder where it goes." Johanna pointed, "Off to the left, Katie. I see a dock that we can either tie up to or get closer to and drop anchor." They needed to get there and fast since dinner was getting cold.

Kate chose to only get just so close and had her dad drop the anchor. They were still several yards away from any dock, let alone that one. Eating their dinner was next on the list of things to do.

Unfortunately none of them got much sleep. Tonight was their first night spending time close to a town. Worry about what was in that town had them awake. Worse were the sounds they did or even thought that they heard.

"What's that noise?" Jim heard it again.

"Go to sleep, Jim. Unless they can swim they can't reach us." Johanna was thinking of the infected.

"Not them. I mean what if there's a gang in that town and they want this boat?" That was what had Jim awake.

"Why would they want this boat? There are boats all over this place, not to mention that big ferry." Johanna didn't see cause to worry.

Jim kept quiet but was sure he was never going to get any sleep as he listened to each and every noise that was made. Even if it was their own boat making it.

Kate had never seen her room look like this. They had gathered so much stuff and she only used one of the twin beds to sleep in, so the other was piled up high with a lot of the canned and packaged food and other goodies that they had gotten from the Shell station.

Every time the boat moved a little so did something in the pile. She was beginning to think of trying to sleep somewhere else. It was just the more she thought about it the more she knew the rest of the boat was just as crowded with supplies. "So why are we here if we don't need more supplies?" she wondered. They had even filled the little coolers they had with frozen seafood. It wouldn't keep long but it gave them something to eat while what was in their refrigerator and freezer could remain untouched.

It did have Kate smiling a little. They had food now and lots of it. However, her dad was right. They should have gotten a couple of cans of marine gas while they could. It wouldn't take long to go back if they wanted to. But maybe this place had gas that was close.

None of them noticed when they finally went to sleep for the night.

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"We've arrived, Dad. I'm putting us in orbit over one of the bigger continents for now." She could adjust the orbit later after she had done some scans.

Rick moved over to a different station and started scanning. "We don't have any shuttles so we're going to need to land somewhere. See if you can scan for the chemicals we're after then we can decide where to land. Preferably on water where I can do some swimming.

"Got it." Alexis began scanning while at the same time she started wishing that she still had a body. Going swimming in a nice warm ocean sounded nice. To lay out in the sun doing nothing, while trying to get a tan.

"Dad?" Alexis needed someone to talk to and her dad was all she had.

"Find something already?" Damn she was fast.

"No, it's just…" Alexis trailed off as her resolve to talk about it faded.

"Just what?" Rick hadn't heard her talk like this since before… well, before she became nothing but a thought, a program in a computer. "Just what? Talk to me, sweetheart."

"We've got this beautiful yacht and I can't do anything." Alexis was ready to cry over her situation all over again.

Rick lowered his head. It had been hell once Alexis had figured out what had happened and realized that she had a lot of limitations in her life now. She was effectively trapped inside a computer.

He was ready to collapse when it occurred to him that he had opened up his big mouth about going swimming. It was something he could do and something his daughter would never get to do again. He'd bought this ship partly for himself. But he had also bought it for her. To try and add to her life just a little. He did have one ace up his sleeve, though. Problem was it was still a few weeks away.

"I know, pumpkin, I know and I'm sorry. I've got a plan if you're willing to wait a little." He had wanted to surprise her. He had them and had been doing his best to hide them. Getting this ship was part of that plan.

"Plan, what plan? …Dad, what plan?" Alexis wasn't big on waiting. Plus it sounded like her dad was holding out on her and that was beginning to piss her off.

"I have a big mouth." Rick sat down in the chair instead of standing.

"DADDY, what plan?" To Alexis she was actually giving him her best puppy dog look that she could. If that didn't work she was starting to think of having an actual temper tantrum.

Rick knew that voice and knew it well. He never could resist her and wasn't sure he ever wanted to be able to. "I was saving it for your birthday present." He sighed heavily. "But now is a good time. I'll just have to think of a different birthday present."

He gave her a clue. "Scan your memory for Kelley optics." Alexis raced to find all she could about the topic.

"Kelley optics… Kelley optics invented… REALLY, DAD?!" She'd put two and two together and had come up with an answer.

"I have 24 of them hidden away. I just need time to install them all and route the wiring back to the computer for you to use them." She still needed one thing in order to use them, though.

Alexis started dancing and when she stopped what she really, really wanted to do was hug him and kiss him for this. "Thanks, Dad!" Rick could hear her crying. It sounded to him like a happy cry.

"You're still going to need a program to use them properly. We'll need to find something to barter with to get the best. I was thinking of doing that after we gather what we need here and go get our Beam," Rick cautioned.

"I'm all over it!" Alexis began her quest to find a program that she could use now and not have to wait. Maybe this other program would be better but waiting was not her style. Her search only took a couple of minutes and sadly, there was nothing in her memory bank. However… "What's this?" This planet had something and all she had to do was hack into it. She knew she should wait until after she had finished her scans of the planet, but she couldn't. Alexis let part of her continue to scan the planet for the chemicals they needed as well as scanning the planet itself. Based on all the junk that was in orbit, this planet was inhabited by locals. The question was, would they put up a fight while they gathered the chemicals they needed?

Another part of her scoured their information web for a program she could use after she got her dad to install all of the optics. Getting him to do that was the easy part, waiting for him to finish was going to be the hard part.

"Oh my!" Alexis had easily found a lot. It seemed this planet had something they called the internet. It provided online access to anyone that had the means. She quickly found fifty 3D modeling programs for her to study. Autodesk, Blender, OpenSCAD, Sculptris, Sketchup, and a whole bunch of others. Now she had to test all of them while looking for others. She was pretty sure she would be ready by the time her dad had installed all of the optics.

It wasn't so much that she was going to see better. This was going to do nothing for that. This was about allowing her dad or others to be able to see her. She was going to have a body again. It may be true that it was only going to be a bunch of lights but they would have someone to talk to instead of talking to the ceiling or nothing. Being nothing was what she feared the most about her present situation.

Part of her found something. "I've got a lead, Dad. We're over the wrong continent. I need to adjust our orbit so I can focus my scans."

"Move us then. I'm not finding much in the way of communications being used." It was a big planet but it was looking like it was a silent planet. Then he saw something. "We're being scanned. It's simple really, just ordinary waves, but someone's noticed us."

"Found it. It looks to be a dish. Likely a satellite location, not someone who's actually looking," Alexis informed him. "Ten minutes to our new location. I'll do a detailed scan once we reach it."

They were both silent for a time. "Dad?" Alexis had noticed something. "There really isn't much moving. Based on the amount of debris in orbit there isn't anything moving. Nothing in the air, nothing I can find so far on water. I'm finding a lot of paved roads but nothing's moving."

That had Rick doing his own scan. "Just normal background radiation. I'm not detecting any contagions. …Oops, check that. This planet is infected." He sighed; he'd found signs of it.

That had Alexis racing to search everywhere and even put all of it into her search. "Life signs are…limited across the entire planet. I estimate that there are just about one billion life forms that aren't infected. You're going to need to wear your suit. This planet is dangerous."

Rick had already planned on using his suit to gather the chemicals. For one it gave him greater strength as well as greater stamina. Plus he would always be armed. It was just safer that way.

"We've arrived. Putting it on your screen." Alexis moved it to his screen. "It looks like most of it's inland instead of on the coast. Still there is some. I've got another location. It's on a different continent. This location may actually have even more of the chemical we need. And another location. Same continent, just farther north. It's a little more scattered, though like the other location, it appears to be grouped into larger sites. I need to do some more research." She wasn't willing to land just yet.

"Pick a water location for us to land. I'm going to go change. A nice beach spot would be good since we don't have a boat yet. Speaking of which, you can search for one of those if you want. Small enough to fit in one of our docks." They had spaces but they were small.

"I'll be ready when you are." Alexis picked a spot and began her descent.

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Alexis landed, informed her dad that they were down, and that he could begin his search. "We're in what the locals call Mexico in case you're interested. Go west and inland; when you're close I'll let you know." She watched him leave, though it was more that she felt it rather than actually watched.

Rick was jogging fast after first using his boosters in his boots to actually reach land. Alexis had landed on water as he'd requested, but she hadn't landed on the beach. Since it was an easy hop, he didn't complain.

Now he was running through what looked like a residential area; it was just that all of the houses looked quite old while some appeared to be more like dumps. Maybe it was the norm on this planet.

"You're close. Pick a building and go inside and look around," Alexis suddenly told him. He stopped in his tracks.

"What exactly am I looking for?" He had no idea what it looked like.

"I'm not really sure. What little I've read so far indicates that the stuff is usually made at home, not by a big company." Alexis was a fast reader but actually finding something to read was turning out to be the problem.

Rick didn't think that sounded hopeful. He needed tons of the stuff. Home-based operations would barely have anything. This just might take longer than he would like.

He chose a house and went inside. He was instantly confronted by what to him looked like a dead man. Rick put a round in his brain and moved on. He had already killed thousands so he didn't blink an eye. To his way of thinking, he was doing them a favor. Better to be totally dead than one of those things.

"It's a caramel color and it's a liquid." Alexis had finally found something on what this planet called the Internet. "Eight point four pounds per gallon means we might need to build a holding tank somewhere, somehow." Especially if they needed tons of the stuff.

Rick had little trouble finding a couple of plastic things with thin metal tips filled with a caramel liquid. "I may need to find a portable scanner." His suit didn't have one built in. "Picking up what I find and bringing it back to be tested is going to take us forever." Tons of the stuff. He hung his head. They were in big trouble.

He walked into the kitchen. "Jeez, what a mess." He wasn't even sure if this place even made food. Looking around, he found a pot full of a rank-smelling caramel liquid and a few more of those plastic things with metal tips.

He had come prepared for a liquid and poured what was in the pot into it and went back outside. "Where next, Alexis, while we still have the light." He had learned over the years that they tended to avoid sunshine. Being in sunshine didn't seem to have any affect on them that he could tell, but he was used to only finding them in dark places or inside something. That was what had made cleaning that carrier so difficult and time consuming.

"More east and a little south," Alexis answered.

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It was night now and Alexis was taking them a little farther out into what she had learned the locals called The Gulf of Mexico. Rick had finished stowing the liquid, removed his suit, and was presently in the kitchen making his dinner.

"Emitters, Dad?" Alexis really wanted her birthday present now. She wasn't interested in waiting.

"What have you learned about the chemical on this planet?" Rick inquired instead as he continued to cook.

Alexis groaned but told him anyway. "It's called Krokodil by the locals. Also called Crocodile, Croc, Krok, Russian Magic, and Poor Man's Heroin. The active ingredient is codeine. They mix that with a brew of paint thinner, iodine, hydrochloric acid, and red phosphorus. That gives it that murky yellow color with an acrid stink. Wherever on the body a user injects the drug, blood vessels burst and surrounding tissue dies, sometimes falling off the bone in chunks. This side effect had earned it the name, Zombie Drug.

"The skin of Krokodil injection users can also become black, gray, and/or green, scabby and can flake off, resembling the skin of a reptile or a crocodile at the site of the injection." It was how it earned its name. "If for some reason they miss a vein, the skin dies, turns black and begins forming sores that leak a slimy yellow pus."

"Good God! Aren't there enough Zombies in the universe without intentionally turning yourself into one." Rick was starting to lose his appetite. Regardless, he finished cooking and sat down. "What else have you learned?" Meaning how hard was it going to be to get tons of the stuff.

"It's all made at home, though we could do it if we wanted to make our own; we just need the ingredients. However, most of it is in a country called Russia. Apparently it originated there and a million people or more are addicted to it. They are calling it an epidemic. Oh, and the average life span of a user is two to three years, and yes, most users know they're killing themselves." Alexis figured these people were already sick and looking for a way to die while getting a cheap and easy high.

"And where is this Russia?" How far away was it?

"Basically the other side of the planet from where we are currently. Though if Mexico has it there may be other locations between here and there where we can stop."

Rick ate silently for a time. "Fine, set a course and start taking us that direction. Scan for any of this Krokodil along the way and begin looking into how we can make it ourselves. Preferably not on this ship." They needed tons of the stuff and if they had to make it to get it, then he would think about it.

"We need to come up with a plan on how to store it all and if we have that kind of space." They had a really big ship now, but was it big enough?

Alexis pressed him again. "Emitters, Dad?"

"I'll get started on them in the morning." Rick really did want to be able to see his daughter again.

"YES!"Alexis started dancing and would have hugged and kissed her dad if she could. In her mind she did just that. He just didn't feel it. She was going to have a body again. Even if it was just a combination of lights. She got back to trying to make a reconstruction of herself with the software she'd found while still looking for a better one to use. She wanted to look her best.