White Steel Serenity
Chapter Four: Trickster Coyote
FOUR HOURS AGO - TORY
"Tracking practice," Sergeant Smith announces. "You'll be tracking the scent on this - " he produces a square of cloth " - through the town. Without alerting or alarming the townspeople that anything unusual is going on. We'll be watching you closely. And, of course, you'll be wearing the bracelets."
Tory steps forward, takes the square, inhales. The scent isn't over-powerful, but it's not exactly faint, either. She passes it to Ben and looks at the sergeant. "How do you know we won't try to escape?"
Sergeant Smith just looks at her. "We'd catch you."
"Alpha," Ben says quietly, using her call-sign. "Pluto has the scent over there, Rin Tin Tin has another starting here."
Tory considers - two opposite directions. Both the same strength. She glances at the sergeant, who gives her no signal. "Follow both. Pluto and Balto, me and Rin Tin."
Ben nods and goes to join Hi.
Tory sniffs the air discreetly, mouth open to catch more of the scent. She leads Shelton down the street, turning at a stoplight, cutting across traffic, down a back street, between two row houses, through a small park. Then the trail splits.
She sends Shelton down one and follows the other through the park, up to the door of a house. She picks the lock on the door - a new skill taught by the Professor - and follows the scent in, up the stairs, out a window onto the roof. The gap between houses here is less than a foot. She jumps across three before coming to a yard with a trampoline in the back, where the scent suddenly leads to the edge and vanishes.
That's when Hi disappears.
Tory feels it like the world's volume has been turned down. Things go very quiet. She thinks about the practicing. She thinks about the Doctor Smith, who is trying to create more of them.
She thinks, they split us up -
Ben - gone. In the dark forest inside her head, where they live, his flame goes out.
She thinks, they try to control us -
Shelton - gone. Flickering, struggling. Then nothing.
She thinks, alone -
I am alone. I am ALONE.
Tory howls. No one answers.
ONE WEEK AGO
Agent Smith lays the status report down on his desk, considering the outside of the file for a moment. It's stamped [CONFIDENTIAL] which to him has always seemed like a useless gesture. It contains good news, though.
He picks the folder up and makes his way down to the lab, where Doctor Smith is bent over a microscope, sketching something with her left hand and making notes with her right as she looks at something. It's an impressive feat of multitasking - but that's why they hired her. She's very good at what she does.
"You've succeeded with the virus?" Agent Smith asks, although he's just read a report saying as much.
"Just got the results back this morning. The virus is almost an exact match against the subjects' antibodies. It'll work."
"Start human trials again, then. Three to begin with. Be more careful with contamination this time."
"I've already taken the liberty." the doctor says, waving her hand at a computer screen. On it, three people sit around in rooms with beds. Two are reading, the last is asleep. Their vitals show below their panels on the screen.
"And everything's good so far?"
"It's too soon to tell, but yeah, I think we might have it."
FOUR HOURS AGO - TORY
She doesn't carry the howl for long. There are enemies here - she can almost smell them. They've gotten her pack - they won't get her. She knows where the alpha is, and she's going to get him first.
Tory has known for months about the tracking chips in their arms. With it active she'll never be able to escape them, and she has no way of getting it out. She can feel it there, in the muscles of her arm, but the thin scar where it was first inserted is long since healed and she can't afford the blood loss of digging it out. She has another idea.
The bracelet beeps when she reaches the edge of her radius. Tory takes one more step, and another, every muscle tensed. Her arm is raised out in front of her. One more step -
ZZZZZZZ! -
Tory stumbles backwards off the edge, and the bracelet deactivates. She's panting, and it takes her a moment to remember - pack, enemy, hurt them.
She doesn't know for sure that the electricity coursing through her shorted out the tracker, but at this point, as she tears the bracelet off her wrist, she doesn't really care.
SIX DAYS AGO
"How are subjects five, six, and seven doing?" Agent Smith asks, stepping into the lab. Doctor Smith looks up at him, frowning.
"Not great, that's for sure. The original subjects have said that they were horribly sick for a few days, so maybe this is only to be expected, but I find it hard to believe that they were vomiting blood and had fevers over a hundred and two. These three are delirious, and starting to get violent."
Agent Smith regards the monitor with a displeased expression, like he thinks they might be doing this on purpose. "Hm. Keep me updated."
Doctor Smith snorts. "What was I doing before?"
FOUR HOURS AGO - TORY
She can't say for sure where the compound is, but a sense inside her is pulling this way, so this way she goes. Her top speed is not forty-two miles an hour, not anymore, but it's one she can sustain for hours if she needs to, and if she knows there will be food at the end. This time she catches her food on the go - anything that crosses her path, and she doesn't stop to cook it like they used to do.
As she runs she spits blood and teeth to the side. All of the ones up front are gone now, replaced by fangs sharper and more powerful. Better for tearing. Her stride evens out more, until it seems the most natural thing in the world to fall forward onto four legs, because of course it's faster that way.
When she bursts out of tree cover to find an small office building out of place in the middle of nowhere, she knows she's found the right place.
The guards outside are no match for her. They try to shoot, but she's not the same girl she was six months ago. She knows now there's a certain distance with guns, and once she's inside that distance she can get to the guard before he can get a bullet off.
She takes the rifle he was holding and turns it against the side of his head with all the momentum she has just then - not a lot, but he probably won't live without medical attention. She descends into the warren of tunnels beyond his guardhouse.
FIVE DAYS AGO
Agent Smith glances up from the papers on his desk just long enough to say, "Come in," and Doctor Smith enters. She looks pale.
"What went wrong?" Agent Smith asks, resigned, because he knows that look.
Doctor Smith sits down. "Subjects five and seven are dead. The virus killed them."
"How?"
Smith takes a deep breath, and begins. "The virus hijacks the cell, changes the DNA, and the changed cell reproduces. Eventually leading to a human hybrid, like subjects one through four. But in subjects five, six, and seven the hijacked cells didn't reproduce fast enough, and the virus's other symptoms ran rampant in the meanwhile, worsening, until eventually it killed the host."
"Then why didn't the originals die?"
"I only have a theory about that, but it's pretty sound. It's proven fact that children's cells reproduce much faster than adults - they're still growing. I think that, for them, the hijacked cells - the W2 cells, I call them - grew faster than the virus, and provided a sort of immunity against it. Their DNA didn't change because they recovered - they recovered because their DNA changed."
"And how can we use that?"
Doctor Smith leans back in her chair, sighing. "Get me test subjects between the ages of twelve and fifteen. That's the optimum range."
"That'll be more difficult than adult subjects, and they won't be of much use for a while until they grow up." Agent Smith observes.
"I can't help that," Doctor Smith snaps. "This whole project is more than I asked for. It's dirty science. I don't like not knowing what I'm doing."
"With time, could you find a way to reproduce the effect in adults?" Smith asks. "I need some good news to give my boss."
The doctor rubs her eyes tiredly. "I don't know, maybe. I might be able to speed up the cell's process, but that sort of thing always comes with drawbacks. Just - I need time. With time, I can do anything."
"Isn't that always so?" Agent Smith says humorlessly, and laughs anyway.
ONE HOUR AGO - TORY
She shoots the locks off the doors that have them, and smashes the ones that don't. Later she'll feel the bruises, but right now all she feels is rage. It's like a forest fire inside, consuming everything.
She breaks another door, and on the other side stands Doctor Smith. The woman is shocked for a moment, then fumbles for the handgun hidden under her desk. She doesn't do more than touch it before Tory is moving forward again, pointing the rifle, growling.
Smith looks into those sun-bright eyes, no longer frozen with impotent fury but alive, searing, burning her alive...
She doesn't know how long she looks into the abyss, but she can feel it looking into her. Searching - finding nothing. Smith crumples when Tory is gone, and stays there on the floor, trembling, unable to move for fear.
FOUR DAYS AGO
"Yes, the project is going well." Agent Smith says into his phone, trying to force a light tone into his voice. "Some minor setbacks, but we almost have the virus perfected."
"Ah - well. I do know what a risk the original subjects are, but they are still very valuable as far as observing how the changes affect - "
Agent Smith nods, making the appropriate noises of agreement.
"Well, yes, basically what I'm saying is we can't do it without them yet."
He listens again, and halfway through starts shaking his head. "Inadvisable. Taking even one of them out of the equation would cause the rest to revolt and become completely uncontrollable. That's not something I want to risk."
"No, I'm not afraid of them." He remembers the dangerous look in the girl's golden eyes, and thinks that might be a lie. "I just don't want to take unnecessary risks and make unnecessary enemies."
"They're not just kids."
"They've been trained as soldiers, by your command. Anyone with their training is a threat."
"To put it as bluntly as I can, sir, we still need them."
ONE HOUR AGO - TORY
Finally she breaks a door and finds Agent Smith on the other side.
"You killed my pack," she says as she hurls the rifle at him. He's still frozen in shock, doesn't get out of the way in time. It slams into his left leg and the bone breaks with a snap.
Smith runs. Tory lets him. She likes it when the prey runs, tires itself out, makes it easier on her. Nothing outruns the wolves.
NOW - TORY
She levels the rifle at him, then reconsiders and discards it. She wants to do this right - like a monster should.
"I didn't kill them." Smith babbles. "I didn't - it wasn't me."
Tory crouches in front of him, baring her teeth. "It may not have been your hands, but you are to blame." She leans forward and almost gently pulls him by the front of his disheveled suit towards her.
"I didn't order their deaths!" Agent Smith screams. He grips her arms tightly, but isn't trying to push her away.
Without meaning to, Tory smells the truth on him. She's never been this close to the man before - she can smell a lot of things. She thinks she can tell his whole life.
His car is still new, he spends a lot of time there. He lives with a woman and a child. He eats healthy food at home but indulges himself at work. He drinks more than he probably should.
He has a family he barely gets to see. He loves his wife enough to change for her, but feels so guilty. He knows that quitting is not an option - that it means a quiet death somewhere his body will never be found. He wants out, but he doesn't want to leave his wife to rise their daughter alone.
Tory lets go of his suit, pushing him back. It's more than she has ever wanted to know about him, because now he's not just a face she can hate. He's a living person. And she was about to kill him.
"I'm - I'm sorry." Tory says, though she's not sure why. He's done worse to her.
"I can help you - " Smith tries to say.
Tory remembers her anger then, lost in the sudden revelation - how and when had she forgotten that there are other people than her pack in the world? "You've done enough." she snarls. "If you ever come after me again, I'll rip your heart out. Then I'll do the same to your family." It's a low blow, but she justifies it - he's threatened her pack plenty of times.
He goes pale. Tory takes the chance to slam the heel of her hand into his forehead, knocking him out just long enough to let her get away.
She's going hunting.