“Hoo ha hee heh,” Laughing Boy spluttered. It might have sounded like a laugh, but it had plenty of anger in it.
“No toes,” Chapel said. “No fingers. Pretty soon you’ll look like me.”
“I’m no fucking — ha ha — cripple!” Laughing Boy shouted, and he leaned out from behind the boulder to fire three rounds at them, one after another. Chapel shouted for Julia not to take the bait — he could visualize Laughing Boy dropping into a roll, lowering his visual profile, making himself almost impossible to hit — but it was too late.
She fired wildly, squeezing her trigger until her hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Wasting all her bullets. She screamed in frustration and stared down at her weapon, then dropped behind her rock just as Laughing Boy started firing again. Chapel dropped into cover as well, throwing his arm over his head to protect it.
The shooting stopped. Chapel risked a glance over the top of his rock. Laughing Boy was gone. He’d exhausted the six rounds in his revolver. Chapel was certain, absolutely certain he had more, and had just gone back into cover to reload.
“Jul… ia,” Taggart said.
Chapel looked over and saw the scientist slumped behind his own rock. Blood slicked Taggart’s neck. He’d caught a round.
“Dad,” Julia gasped, and ran to him before Chapel could tell her to stay in cover. Maybe she could do something for him.
Maybe Chapel could do something for both of them. He jumped up from behind his rock and ran toward the boulder as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Hee heh ha,” he heard as he ran.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:06
Ian saw it all. He saw blood explode from Dr. Taggart’s neck. He rose halfway to his feet in terror. If Dr. Taggart died — how would he ever learn the final answer? How would he ever know what his life was to become? No one else could tell him.
He had followed the snowmachines, crept after them, keeping himself out of sight. Knowing if he showed himself one human or another would kill him. He had followed and stayed close on the off chance there would be one more opportunity, however unlikely, to talk to Dr. Taggart. To ask the final question.
Even if he was beginning to think he knew the answer. Even if he was terrified of what it would be.
Indecision was not a trait common to the chimeras. Their rages led them on, made everything simple. But Ian had mastered his rages. Mostly.
He crept closer, careful not to show himself, and watched.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:07
Chapel kept his head down as he ran, knowing that at any second Laughing Boy could start shooting again. The boulder loomed overhead. Its irregular shape made a hundred deep shadows, a dozen good hiding places. Smaller rocks lay tumbled against it, creating natural cover. Laughing Boy could be anywhere in there.
Up ahead he heard rocks patter and fall. He raised his pistol. Kept his trigger finger loose. He couldn’t afford to snap off a hasty shot. He had one bullet left. He had to make it count.
He ducked low under an overhanging ledge of rock. Padded across bare stone and came upon a patch of snow that glared in the sun. The sky was clearing, and light was streaming down in thick golden beams that lit up every patch of lichen on the rocks, made every crevice a vein of impenetrable shadow.
Click. Click. He heard the sound and knew what it was. He’d heard it before. Laughing Boy was loading shells into the cylinder of his revolver. It was taking him a while.
“I don’t know — ha heh — how you do this one-handed,” Laughing Boy said, not shouting now. At a conversational level. He knew Chapel was close enough to hear him.
“You learn to do all kinds of things. You want the chance to learn them? You can put that weapon down and come out with your hands up,” Chapel said, because there was no point in stealth now. Laughing Boy was right around the side of the boulder. He couldn’t be more than ten feet away. “I’ll let you live.”
“Oh — ha — will you? Wonderful! Except, heh heh, that’s a terrible, heh, deal for you. You kill me, you — ha ha ho — let me live, doesn’t matter. They’ll send — ha — more like me.”
“There’s no one else like you,” Chapel said.
Laughing Boy seemed to find that amazingly funny. He laughed and chuckled and guffawed. “Guess you’ll — heh — find out!”
Chapel dashed around the side of the rock, his arm held out straight, the pistol an extension of his arm, his eyes focused on where his shot would go, his—
Laughing Boy was crouched among some rocks, looking right at Chapel. Revolver shells lay scattered on the ground around him. The cylinder was full, with the brass casings of six new shells loaded into its chambers. All Laughing Boy had to do was snap the cylinder shut and he’d be ready to fire.
Chapel took his shot.
The noise of it was enormous. It blasted around the rocks, came caroming back from the cliffs to deafen him. The stink of the gunsmoke filled his nostrils and he had to blink as it stung his eyes. He forced his eyelids open, forced himself to see if he’d fired true.
He’d aimed for Laughing Boy’s center of mass, just like he’d been trained to do. The heart lay just to the left of the sternum, but it was a thick mass of muscle and it was not unknown for a bullet to just graze it, to be turned by its knotty texture, and leave the target alive. You shot for the aorta, the swollen blood vessel just above the heart. Pierce that and death was almost instantaneous.
A red dot appeared on Laughing Boy’s parka, just left of center. Blood welled from the wound. But it didn’t spurt.
Laughing Boy screamed and gurgled and choked on his pain.
But he didn’t die.
His eyes stared into Chapel’s, as if he couldn’t believe it either. But the light didn’t go out of those eyes.
“Must have — heh — missed it by… by a — he heh — hair.”
“Guess so,” Chapel said.
Laughing Boy flicked his wrist, and the cylinder of his revolver snapped shut. He cocked the hammer and was ready to fire again.
Before he could, though, Ian dropped from the rocks above them, to land in a catlike crouch.
His eyes were black from side to side.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+85:10
Chapel could only stare in utter surprise as Ian rose slowly to his feet.
He didn’t think he had the capacity for any more shock, but then it happened and he was left reeling.
“Good,” Laughing Boy said, “you’re — heh — here. Kill this fucker for me.”
Ian turned to face Chapel. His nictitating membranes were still down, and his eyes were unreadable. “You didn’t know, did you? You didn’t know who the Voice was.”
“He — you mean—” Chapel had no idea what to say.
“He freed me from Camp Putnam. He showed me how to get here.” Ian turned to look at Laughing Boy. “He told me what to do.”
“Yeah. Heh ha hee. Yeah,” Laughing Boy said. His face was turning pale, and sweat was forming beads on his forehead. He was hurt, and badly, by Chapel’s shot. But he wasn’t bleeding out. He would live through this, Chapel knew. Laughing Boy was going to survive. And Ian — Ian would—
“I was supposed to be the father of a generation,” Ian said, softly. “Instead they made me a weapon. I was supposed to live on after the greatest war, and instead, I am a foot soldier in this petty little squabble.”
“Ian, just — let’s talk about this,” Chapel began.
The chimera lashed out with one hand and knocked Chapel away, sent him flying. The empty pistol leaped from Chapel’s hand as he threw his arm back to arrest his fall.