“Kek! Don’t kill him, Kek! We need him alive!”
“Youknow this thing?”
She didn’t respond but stayed focused on the creature that continued to throttle Ponytail. The man’s mouth worked spasmodically as his eyes bulged and his face purpled.
“Kek! Let go! Let go now!”
Finally her words seemed to get through to the thing. It released its stranglehold and leaped up, but it didn’t stay still, didn’t seem able to. It wandered back and forth, growling, flailing at the air, as if working off a rage. On the floor, Ponytail coughed and retched, sucking in air, but it was purely reflexive. He was out cold.
As for Duke, he wasn’t breathing at all. And the unnatural angle of his head on his shoulders made it clear that he would never breathe again.
Nipple-twisting bastard, Patrick thought. Good riddance.
“Good, Kek,” Romy was saying in a soothing voice. “You did good, very good. Zero will be so proud of you.”
That seemed to calm the beast. It stopped its agitated pacing and cocked its head as its dark eyes peered at Romy from beneath a prominent brow. The crimson coloring atop its snout was fading. Still staring at Romy it made a chirping sound.
Patrick didn’t know what to think. It looked like some bizarre sort of gorilla, but nothing like Patrick had ever seen in any zoo he’d visited. More like a mutant sim who’d overdosed on steroids. The creature seemed to be on their side, but just barely. Patrick had never sensed so much aggression packed into a single being.
“Whatis that thing, Romy?” he whispered.
“Just be calm,” she said, nodding and smiling at the creature. “He’s been told you’re on our side but he doesn’t know you, so he’s not sure of you. Whatever you do, don’t make any sudden moves.”
He glanced down at his duct-taped legs and arms. “As if I have a choice.”
“I’m about to remedy that.” She looked at the creature. “Kek, you’ve got to cut me free,” she said softly, as if talking to a child. “So I can call Zero. Use your knife to cut me free.”
Kek unsnapped a safety strap from a scabbard attached to the belt around its waist—Patrick hadn’t noticed the belt till now—and whipped out one of those huge, saw-toothed Special Forces knives.
Patrick’s gut clenched. “Oh, Christ! Someone gave that thing a knife?”
“Quiet!” Romy hissed. “Kek’s a ‘he,’ and you owe him.”
“I know, but—”
“I’m not talking about tonight. Now be quiet and I’ll explain later.” She turned back to Kek and dipped her head toward the tape around her right arm. “Could you cut that, Kek? I can’t call Zero and tell him what a good job you did until you cut that tape.”
Kek loped over and Patrick gasped as the creature raised the knife and, in a move so casual in manner yet so blindingly fast in execution, slashed the duct tape with a single thrust. He expected blood to gush from Romy’s wrist, but only the tape parted, leaving her without a scratch.
“Good job!” she said as she wriggled that arm free and began the laborious task of unwinding the tape trapping her left wrist.
“Ask him if you can borrow his knife,” Patrick said. “To speed things up.” Being trapped in this chair was making him claustrophobic.
She gave him a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t advise you or anyone else to try to take Kek’s knife away from him. Even if you say, ‘Pretty please.’”
She freed her left and, then began to work on her legs. As she did, Kek retreated to a corner where he squatted and watched.
When she was finally free she rose and walked away.
“Hey!” Patrick said. “What about me?”
She stepped through an alcove and Patrick heard the rattle of cutlery from within. A moment later she emerged holding a wicked looking carving knife.
“Ginsu,” she said. “Cuts through tin cans.”
“But will it cut duct tape?”
“We’ll see.”
It did, of course, and seconds later Patrick was free. He started to rise, then sat back down. He looked at the two men on the floor, one dead, the other halfway there, then at the creature squatting against the wall, watching them, and felt weak, as if someone had pulled a drainage plug from his ankle and all his energy had run out.
“What’s going on, Romy? What have we got ourselves into?”
“Life!” she said, turning, bending at the waist, and leaning toward him. “Don’t you feel alive, more alive than you’ve ever felt in your life?” She held the Ginsu blade before her face. “This is it! This is the cutting edge! This is where your vote is counted! This is where you make a difference!”
She’s high, he thought. Stoked on adrenaline. And me? A total wreck.
“You’re very scary right now,” he told her.
“Am I?” She straightened. “Sorry. That was someone else talking.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” She pointed to the unconscious man. “Can you believe it? We’ve finally got one of them!”
“One of who?”
“They’re from Manassas, or whoever’s behind Manassas. And the people behind Manassas are behind SimGen. This blows the lid off, breaks everything wide open. We’re finally going to get some answers.”
“What if he doesn’t want to talk?”
“Oh, he’ll talk.” She turned and lifted the inoculator from the kit on the coffee table. “Do unto others what they were about to do to you, right?”
Patrick stared at the amber liquid in the vial. They’d been about to inject some of that into Romy and him.
“You think that’s the truth drug we heard about? The one they found in the dead globulin farmers?”
She nodded. “Totuus. I’d bet my soul.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.” She gestured to the dead man. “Maybe we’d have ended up like him.”
“Speaking of him, how do we explain a dead body to the police?”
“We won’t.”
“We can’t very well say he broke his own neck.”
“I’m sure Zero will have a way to handle it.”
Romy picked up her coat from the floor. “Kek, you did good,” she said soothingly to the creature as she rummaged in a pocket.
Patrick noticed that the red coloration had faded completely from its snout, replaced now by a bright blue.
“Can I ask again: Whatis he?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled a phone from the coat pocket. “I’ll introduce you.”
“That’s okay.”
She motioned to the creature. “Come over here, Kek. I want you to meet Mister Sullivan.”
“Really,” Patrick said out of the corner of his mouth as Kek rose and started toward them. Something about this creature stirred a primal fear in him. And the way its gaze veered to Patrick’s left and right, never making eye contact, didn’t help. “That’s okay.”
“Kek,” Romy said, “shake hands with our new friend, Patrick Sullivan. And Patrick, meet the fellow who saved your life back in October.”
“My life? You mean, when we were knocked off the Saw Mill?”
As Romy nodded Patrick relived the moment in the inky grove as the massive arms of the man named Ricker wrapped around his head and shoulders, felt them tense as he prepared to snap Patrick’s neck, and then the sudden release. Moments later, Ricker and his friend were dead.
He considered Kek’s muscular arms, sensed the power in the thick shoulders bulging through the sleeveless coverall. Yes, power to spare, more than enough to take out two hardened pros, especially if they didn’t see him coming.
“I guess I owe you big time, Kek,” Patrick said, thrusting out his hand. He still didn’t know what kind of mutant monkey thing stood before him, but he most definitely wanted Kek on his side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you very much.”
Kek pulled back his shoulders and puffed out his chest. Finally he made eye contact. His hand was warm and dry as his long fingers wrapped around Patrick’s. He bared his teeth, revealing those fangs. An attempt at a smile?