For the first time since this sordid saga began, Jack caught a glimpse of Subject 0 during his enforced escort through the spartan steel corridors of the Roarcadian Sus' slower deck.
He'd spotted it through a partly open door just before they entered the elevator, lying on its side in a sturdy cage guarded by two NEST agents. He'd seen enough to know it was sedated, its big yellow eyes half-shut and glazed, its bald tail draped between the bars. Jack had felt a chill when he saw the beast. Seen the fangs that had mutilated Alyssa's beautiful neck. Seen the pale claws that had done so much…damage… to the late Doctor Slothfeld. Based on the reports he'd pictured a giant deformed shrew, or some kind of hairless wolf freak. The creature he'd seen seemed entirely of its own species, an elegant lifeform only the miracle of god could engineer.
Then again, he also remembered from the reports, this particular being wasn't made, it was born.
The elevator rose along with the foreboding feeling in Jack's heart. Being a prisoner of NEST was bad enough but knowing that he was on a ship sailing across the ocean, isolated with his captors and this thing… he didn't like this. Not one bit.
The three NEST goons carried him from the elevator and through the glamorous corridors of the cruise ship's upper deck, eventually reaching a meeting room. Jack eyed a red carpet. A mahogany meeting table shifted to the side. Chairs that probably cost a thousand bucks each. So decadent a Swineton had almost certainly stood in this room once, presenting their grandiose plans for the future to a herd of capitalists and politicians. He'd expected to find an empty chair waiting for him, not that Nicholas Wilde would be cuffed to a second chair right next to him.
One shortest of the NEST agents, a ram with black wool, bound Jack to the empty chair and moved behind the pair. The other two kept guard while maintaining a safe distance, along with the fourth guard already watching Wilde.
"What're you doing here?" Jack whispered.
Forgetting he was cuffed, Nick shrugged and subsequently winced. His facial fur was messy, a sign that he'd been roughed up. He had that scared but weary look, like this hadn't been the first time he'd suffered like this. "Hell, if I know. Where's Judy?"
"No idea." Jack admitted. He would have asked about Alyssa, but he doubted the male fox would know. "What did they want with you?"
"All sorts. How much I know about them, where Gabe and Starlight are, yada yada yada…"
He yelped when a kudu picked up the chair with him still cuffed to it and carried him from the room. The ram closed it quietly.
That left the big boar alone in the room with Jack, except for the ram guarding the door. The boar had no name tag and didn't introduce himself. Instead he grabbed another chair and planted it in front of the rabbit.
"That's an interesting pattern you got there." His eyes were as hard as his muscles as they probed the rabbit's dark stripes. He pulled a shining combat knife from the sheath fixed to his shoulder. It had been sharpened very recently. "Didn't think it was possible for a rabbit to fuck a zebra."
"They didn't." Jack said. The cuffs were tight. Even breaking his thumb wouldn't work here. Perhaps that universal handcuff key concealed in his tail tuft… "Theo couldn't wait until we got to the island, could he?"
"He's giving you a chance." The knife tapped against the boar's knee. "You can talk here, to me, or 'Theo' will make you talk to him when you get there."
Jack didn't say a word this time. He'd prepared for this. Worse than this.
The knife tapped against the boar's knee pad, making a light ticking sound.
"I am going to ask you the same set of questions I just asked the fox. You better give the same answers as he does, or else…"
He paused, waited for Jack to say, "Or else what?"
Jack said nothing.
"Or else I'm going to take a stripe. Don't worry, it won't be fatal. At least not compared to what Swineton will do to you. If you knew what he had planned for you… you and the rest of your friends…"
Jack said nothing.
"The point is, once we've finished with you, the vixen is next. The punishments will get worse with each prisoner we question, so the bits we cut off of her will be bits she willmiss."
Jack didn't enjoy killing as much as his freelance allies did, but he would make an exception to here. He just needed to make his mind up where to stick that knife.
The boar leaned back, his knife glinting under the ceiling light.
"How did you know Mayor Swineton was still alive?" The boar paused and grimaced. "Answer my question with another question and I'll take two stripes."
Jack smirked. Maybe the boar had good reason to rough up Wilde. In any case, the first question was one he didn't mind answering.
"The Red Queen told us, a little while after we apprehended her."
The boar tilted his head. Jack spotted an earpiece in the lower ear. Someone was speaking to him. "How did that cat figure it out?"
"She found out Slothfeld had created a cure for Swineton's condition."
"Do you condone her actions?"
"No. But I understand them."
"Because she's a predator?"
"No. Because she's a test subject."
"Where is the Red Queen now?"
"I don't know. On the other side of the looking glass, perhaps?"
The boar turned the knife in his hoof, perhaps contemplating taking a stripe just for that quip. Jack concealed his relief when the boar decided it wasn't worth it and moved on.
"What happened to Swineton's daughter?"
Jack paused. "I don't know. We weren't there when the helicopter crashed.
"We?"
"Me and Skyefall."
"Do you think she deserved what she got?"
"Yes."
Jack had the feeling that the boar wasn't properly trained in the art of interrogation. At least not the art of questioning without using his fists, and that would kill the rabbit before he could get a single truthful answer. Sooner or later, Jack knew as the knife spun in the boar's hoof, he was going to go back to what he did best.
"So you have no idea what caused that chopper to crash?" He asked snidely.
"Maybe the Red Queen had it sabotaged? I don't know."
"Cameras showed her going nowhere near the helipad."
"So, she didn't do it. I don't know who did."
The boar paused, visibly irritated by all the 'I don't knows' Jack was spitting out. Jack took that opportunity to look past the boar at the projection screen fixed to the wall. He spied a little glass lens in one corner of the screen. He wondered who else was watching the interrogation. Maybe good old 'Theo' himself. That, plus the fact that the knife hadn't been used yet despite the boar itching to do that, made Jack wonder about the true purpose of these questions.
"Where are Gabriel Mossberg and Starlight Foxtrot?"
"They're on a little side quest. I don't know where they are now."
"And your partner?"
"Also AWOL." Jack said.
"Have you read her file?" The boar leaned forward; knife propped on his kneepad tip down.
"Do I know that she's the cousin of Doug Ramses and Carlton Woolton? Yes, yes I do."
The boar scowled. Jack hoped the mysterious watcher was taken aback, too.
"You're not worried about who's side she's on?"
"I trust her. If that trust is misplaced, Mossberg and Foxtrot can handle her. They're not stupid."
"But you never told them the truth?"
Jack did a better job of shrugging in handcuffs than Wilde did, plucking the key from his tail in the process. The razor he also kept in there, for zip-ties and cord, stayed put. "Not my backstory to tell."
The boar's head turned slightly towards the earpiece he was wearing. The mammal on the other end was speaking again. Jack couldn't hear it, but he could see the micro expressions in the boar's face as he listened. Eventually he turned his attention back to Jack.
"Have you ever been betrayed by the ones you've trusted?"
"That…" Jack paused for effect. "is classified information."
"What's your real name?"
"I think you know. Anyway, classified."
"You never trusted your parents?"
"I like to think that most children trust their parents."
"So you don't consider being ignored for your entire pubescent life a betrayal?"
Jack smiled humourlessly. "Youhavedone your research. What is the point of asking these questions if you already know most of the answers?"
The boar snorted in begrudging agreement. "Hell, if I know. I'm just following orders."
If Jack was capable of mustering enough humour, he would have laughed. "Next question, please."
"Before the law was changed, were you for or against TAME collars?"
"I distrusted them, but I never advocated against them, either."
"So you consider yourself… apathetic to predators?"
A leading question. Now Jack understood. They were probably recording this interrogation, maybe all the interrogations. Sooner or later, those recordings would be altered and then used against them, to turn them against each other to make their imminent suffering all the more unbearable. Jack couldn't care less about their little mind games.
"Hardly. With my line of work, protesting on the streets would not have gone in my favour."
The NEST goon guarding the door was listening to his own earpiece now. He scowled.
The boar didn't notice. "So when you weren't on a mission, you'd stay cooped up in your little penthouse, leaving Skyefall and those other carnivores to fend for themselves on the streets where they belong…"
"Sir!" The door guard barked. The boar stiffened, then immediately got up and strode over to his subordinate. The door guard glanced at Jack and whispered something in the boar's ear. What he heard made his eyes go fully round for a second before they regained the stone glare of a professional killer.
"Take the rabbit back to his cell. I'll notify Mr. Swineton in a moment."
He stormed out past the door guard, who wordlessly walked over to Jack and picked him up by the chair. Jack bit the inside of his cheek at the sudden pain in his shoulders, but kept the handcuff key hidden in his paw. He held even harder onto the hope that whatever had upset his interrogator was someone escaping their cell. The chair had a thin metal bar fixed between the front legs. He hooked his legs beneath it and waited for the opportune moment.
The door guard met with the kudu from before outside, the second mammal holding a sleek tranq rifle. "Where's the fox? The red one?" The ram asked.
"Secure. The Sarge told me to help ya watch Agent Savage."
"We're taking him back to the brig. Watch our backs."
They moved cautiously, the kudu aiming his weapon at Jack at all times. They reached the elevator and went down. The kudu kept his weapon trained on the doors at all times. There was a seventy-five to twenty-five percent chance that he would go first. Jack poked the key into the handcuff hole and braced himself.
The elevator stopped with a light jolt. At the precise moment the doors opened, Jack grabbed the back of the chair with one paw, keeping it from changing position. The click of the key unlocking the cuffs was drowned by the clunk of the doors as they opened. The kudu went first, stepping out to search for threats.
That was when Jack released the back of the chair. As it slid out from behind him, his legs pulled the chair all the way up, past his chest, over his head and into the ram's face.
The conflict didn't last long. The ram went down. The second Jack's feet hit the floor he pounced, aiming straight for the kudu as he swung back round, weapon raised. Jack grabbed the collar, swung his body behind the kudu's head, and grabbed both hooves with both paws.
One neck snap later, Jack dropped back to the floor and pulled a combat knife from the ram's sheath. He thrust the knife into the ram's neck, cutting the spinal cord and his lifeline, and did the same to the kudu just in case.
"No-one ever checks the tail." He muttered.
Neither of their firearms could be wielded. Even the knife's hilt was too wide to be used in combat. Jack discarded the bloody weapon and took off, using his memory to guide him back to the brig where the others were surely being kept. As soon as he reached a blind spot where the cameras couldn't see him, he leapt up, hopped off the wall and climbed on top of the duct fixed to the ceiling.
He stopped at the last corner before the brig and peeked over the edge of the duct. There were two armed NEST agents watching the brig doors, a pig and a different, darker boar.
Jack hid just around the corner, conceiving one plan after another, until he heard one of the mammals speak.
"What? How many of them?" It was a deep voice, one Jack assumed belonged to the boar. "Want us to check it out? Okay, we'll stand by for backup. Out."
That meant someone was coming soon. Jack dropped down went to the nearest door, listened for anyone inside, and opened it as quietly as possible. He entered a small office, complete with plain wooden desk and two filing cabinets. Jack began looking for a weapon, eventually coming up with a letter opener covered in dust.Better than nothing.
He waited just behind the door for the backup to arrive. One minute passed. Then three minutes.
He eventually heard a second voice. "What did they say the ETA was?"
"Two minutes."
"Where were they coming from?"
"The tender, once they drop off the freak."
"That's not far from here. They should have shown up by now."
The deeper voice spoke into his earpiece. "Hey, where's that backup we asked for? What? He what? Damn it! Alright, we'll check the cells one at a time. We'll use the zipties, just in case."
Jack crept out the office and returned to the corner. The boar was keeping watch while the pig plucked out a set of keys and inserted it into one of the doors. Jack held the letter opener point up, ready to insert it into the back of the boar's neck the moment he took his eyes off the hallway.
The chance came when the pig opened the door and shouted in pain, making the boar turn around. Jack made his move. The boar paid a fatal price for his mistake. Jack rode his body down to the floor at the same time the pig collapsed too. When both swines landed, he found himself face to face with Alyssa.
She blinked in surprise. Jack blinked back, sparing a moment to admire her crystal blue eyes. "Hi."
"Hi, yourself." She replied.
"So how did you plan to take on two larger armed mammals by yourself?"
Alyssa pouted. "I wasn't. The plan was for one of us to give them the slip, find you, then double back for the others."
She took up the keys and unlocked the door next door. Judy rushed out, face turned left to right.
"Where's Nick?"
Before Alyssa could answer she snatched the keys and started unlocking the doors one by one. There were three others, and each one was empty. Judy kicked the door of the last unoccupied room, making it bounce off the wall. "Nick! Where the cabbage is he?!"
"We'll find him, Hopps." With a sinking feeling, Jack realised NEST would have no reason to keep their armaments around. "We need to find a way off this ship, while we're at it."
"The orange ferry." Judy said immediately.
"Excuse me?"
"The little orange ferry they carried us on. I woke up during the ride," Judy said.
Jack figured she meant the tender, the boat that would take tourists to shore back when the cruise ship was being used for its intended purpose.
"Blimey, that's convenient. Where is it?" Alyssa said.
"Follow me." Judy said.
They moved quietly through the corridors, Jack following closely behind Judy with his knife at the ready. He starting to feel that something was wrong. They passed at least one camera every time they turned a corner. They had to be under surveillance. Yet there were no alarms bells ringing. No NEST agents on patrols. The guards' backup still hadn't shown up.
They entered another hallway, and then Alyssa froze, making the other two stop.
"I smell blood." She murmured. Jack doubted she was smelling the blood-stained letter opener.
Judy moved a little further ahead and stopped outside a partly open door Jack instantly recognised. He grabbed her arm to hold her back.
"Careful." He whispered. "They're keeping Subject 0 in there."
He felt Judy's muscles tighten beneath his fingers. Alyssa also grimaced and held her neck. To both their credit, they almost literally swallowed their fear and turned to the male rabbit.
"It's contained." Jack added. "But there'll almost certainly be an armed guard in there." His ears caught no signs of life beyond the door, but he knew better than to assume.
"This door leads to the boat." Judy whispered. "We need to see what we're dealing with, at least."
Jack couldn't argue with that. He motioned for her to stay back and let him take a look. As he approached the gap in the doorway, he smelled the gruesome scent Alyssa had been talking about. He wiped the blood from the letter opened and carefully held it out, using the blade as a crude mirror. The reflection was blunt, but would be sufficient to see any tall figures guarding the creature.
He saw nothing. He tilted the makeshift mirror. He saw vague figures on the floor. His stomach lurched. He poked his head around the door to confirm his worst fears.
The guards lay dead before the open cage, their throats ravaged, their heads, shoulders and chests drenched in gore. A TAME collar lay between them. Near the TAME collar was a hole in the floor were a panel had been torn free.
Behind him, he heard Alyssa curse and Judy whimper. For the first time in years, Jack Savage felt his nose start to twitch.