“I do…if it sounds furry like a sim. I sent a couple of volunteers out there to track down the sightings, and they returned with Kek, suffering from starvation, frostbite, and half dead from exposure. Dr. Cannon and I nursed him back to health and—”
“Who’s Dr. Cannon?”
“You met her at Beacon Ridge,” Romy said. “She was the woman doctor who tried to save the poisoned sims.”
“Right,” Patrick said. “I remember her. But whatis Kek? Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know,” Zero replied, watching as the creature taped the still unconscious Ponytail into the chair. “But he’s obviously the product of a recombinant lab, an advanced one. He looks to be part mandrill and part gorilla, and I’d be very surprised if he didn’t have a fair amount of human DNA spliced into his genome as well.”
Patrick shook his head in wonder. “He’s scary looking.”
“I doubt that’s by accident. Nor his aggressiveness.”
“But why?” Kek had finished his task and now squatted by the prisoner, his eyes fixed on Zero as he awaited further instructions. “Who’d want to create something like that?”
Zero walked back to the cab of the van and reached through the window. “I’ll show you.” He withdrew one of the silenced pistols and held it up. “A .45 caliber HK SOCOM. Ever seen one before?”
“Never,” Patrick said. “What’s ‘HK’ mean? Hong Kong?”
Zero laughed. “Hardly.” He swiveled the pistol toward Romy. “Romy? Know it?”
“It’s Heckler and Koch, but beyond that…sorry, no.”
“Heckler and Koch Mk 23 Special Operations Command model. Its barrel comes threaded and suppresser ready.” Zero held it out to Kek. “Kek? Would you break this down for me please?”
“Are you nuts?” Patrick whispered as Kek loped forward. “That’s a loaded weapon!”
Zero didn’t respond. He placed the pistol in Kek’s outstretched hand and said, “You can use that workbench over there.”
Kek took the pistol and inspected it, turning it over in his hands a few times before he ejected the clip and then worked the slide to remove the chambered round.
“He knows guns!” Patrick said, his voice hushed in awe.
“You ain’t seen nuthin yet,” Romy told him.
Kek stepped over to the workbench and Patrick watched in amazement as his long, nimble fingers removed the silencer and disassembled the gun with practiced speed, then arranged its innards for inspection, all in less than thirty seconds. When finished he took one step back and stood with his hands behind his back, awaiting approval.
“He’s military!” Patrick said.
“Or paramilitary. Or perhaps intended as some sort of semi-human mercenary. Who can say? But he can break down just about any weapon you hand him, and he knows no fear.”
“A perfect soldier.”
“Maybe not perfect, but damn near.”
“What happened to his left hand?” Patrick said as he noticed that Kek’s ring and pinkie fingers were missing a joint or two.
“Frostbite,” Zero replied.
“So he owes his life to you?”
“And Kek knows it,” Romy said. “He’s totally devoted to Zero.”
“An overstatement, I assure you,” Zero said.
Patrick didn’t think so. He’d noticed that Kek’s eyes had stayed focused on Zero since his arrival. Even now, as he awaited approval of his breakdown of the pistol, his eyes never left Zero.
“I believe he’s waiting for your okay,” Patrick said.
“Oh, sorry,” Zero replied. He saluted Kek and said, “Excellent job, my friend. Please reassemble it.”
Patrick had no way to gauge this creature’s emotions, but he sensed a burst of pride and pleasure in response to Zero’s approval. Oh, yes, Kek might be hell on wheels when it came to confronting an enemy, but he was Zero’s kitty cat.
“Who made him?” Patrick said as Kek’s flying fingers clicked the pieces back into place. “SimGen?”
“The most likely suspect,” Zero said.
“But if so, how did he get from New Jersey to Idaho?”
“Our guess is he was put aboard a truck from the SimGen basic research facility; the truck was driven aboard a plane at the SimGen airstrip and flown to Idaho.”
“Why Idaho?”
“Because it’s largely empty. Because you can buy big parcels of land that allow you to operate in near absolute privacy.”
“But who?” Patrick said. “Who wants to operate in secrecy? Who wants to stockpile a bunch of Keks?”
“Kek might be just one of many new species quartered in the hinterlands.”
The possibilities made Patrick more than a little queasy. “There’s a thought to take to bed with you.”
Just then Ponytail stirred, groaned, and lifted his head.
Zero glanced his way and said, “A font of information on these very subjects is about to become available to us. I hope.”
“I don’t think you have to hope,” Patrick said. “I’d swear he recognized Kek when he jumped him. He even tried to say something. It sounded like, ‘Kree—’ but he never got to finish it.”
Ponytail’s eyes were glazed and it was obvious to Patrick he had no idea where he was or why he was tied up or what was going on. Tell him he’s at an S & M beerfest in Sydney and he’d buy it. After ten seconds or so his chin dropped back onto his chest.
“We’ll have to ask him about that,” Zero said. “He should be ready to talk soon.” He turned to Kek. “Take your position upstairs at the window now.”
Kek turned and scrambled up a metal ladder affixed to the rear wall.
“The garage comes with a loft,” Zero said. “The window up there affords an excellent view of the street. It also serves as Kek’s home.”
“So it was him I saw peeking down on us that day,” Patrick said.
Zero nodded. “Kek has a curious nature.” He turned to Romy. “Where did we put that inoculator kit?”
“Right here,” Romy said, and handed it to him.
“The moment of truth, as it were,” Zero said, opening the kit as he approached the captive. “Now we find out if Luca Portero is as involved as we think he is.”
“How safe is that stuff?” said Patrick, eyeing the amber fluid in the inoculator’s chamber.
“I’ve never used it,” Zero said. “But they were willing to dose you up with it. Any objections to returning the favor?”
“None at all,” Patrick said.
“I didn’t think so.” He handed the inoculator to Romy. “Would you do the honors?”
“My pleasure,” she said.
She tilted Ponytail’s head to the side, exposing his neck.
“You know what you’re doing?” Patrick said.
She nodded. “Used to work research. Injected a lot of animals before I decided I’d rather work the other side of the street.”
She placed the business end of the inoculator gun against the side of Ponytail’s neck. She look as if she were about to execute him.
“What about the dose?” Patrick said. “How do you know how much to give?”
“Haven’t the faintest. But this is the dose he was planning to put into us, so that’s what goes into him.”
“And if it’s too much?”
She shrugged. “That’ll be his problem, won’t it.”
Patrick realized he was seeing another side of Romy, a new persona, cold, efficient, almost ruthless in simmering fury. Was this the “someone else” she’d mentioned before? Not that he could blame her: This man had invaded her home, bound her, watched as his partner had mistreated her, and had been about to invade the very core of her privacy—her mind. Add to all that the possibility that he might have had a hand in the deaths of dozens of sims and the guy was lucky she wasn’t jabbing the inoculator into his eye.
Patrick felt his shoulders bunch as the Romy pressed the trigger and injected the liquid through the skin of Ponytail’s neck with a softpop .
The man flinched, his eyes fluttered open. He raised his head and looked around, dazed. Patrick saw the purpling welts on his throat, mementos of Kek’s fingers. He blinked. Patrick watched a look of utter horror flow through his features when he saw the inoculator in Romy’s hand.