When he finally spoke, it wasn’t the question itself that startled her. She had heard that same question several times over the course of the previous week from Luke. It was the sound of his voice in an empty prison cell after a long silence. It startled her the way a champagne cork might startle, as you wait for it to pop.
“Who are you, really, Ms. Iris?” Was what Dr. Young said. Iris drew back slightly and leaned forward again, as the phrase registered and she realized that unlike Luke’s, Dr. Young’s added “really” seemed to imply something.
So instead of a reply she stared back at him until he looked away and sighed again and shrugged, saying, “Perhaps you’re right. Although I can hardly see of what use—”
The door slid open silently, but they were both immediately aware of the additional space beyond it. Two white-uniformed guards walked in. One pointed at Iris.
“You’re coming with us.”
“Where are you taking her?” Dr. Young demanded, rising.
“With us. You’re staying here.”
There was no point fighting, but Iris had a hard time controlling herself nonetheless. She rose to her feet, and the guards, one of whom had a black eye from her elbow and the other a patch on the cheek from her nails, stiffened and glowered. There would be no surprising them this time. She glanced at the old man.
“See you soon, Dr. Young,” she told him.
He nodded, face comforting, eyes hopeless.
Outside the cell two other guards joined the first pair, leaving another two to guard the door. The four assembled in a tight box around her. The door slid shut and they began to move along a curving hallway. Neither shoving nor blindfolds this time. Somehow, Iris did not think that was a good sign.
His fury was not an emotion any more than a storm’s fury would be. And like a storm’s fury, his would seem chaotic and purposeless to half-breed creatures that called themselves “human,” simply because human emotion of fury was such. Because all of human emotions were such. Nothing but a hindrance. When humans realized it, they began to build tools and machines, like the elevator, on top of which he presently waited, emotionless, driven by purpose, to do things they could no longer do themselves.
Sobak built tools too. They also built Seekers.
He watched the wavering, dancing forms of the three humans through the walls. Another Sobak creation. Moving back and forth, sitting down, standing up, bending, straightening, waving their arms. Blind to his presence. Blind to everything, including the fact that the only quality separating them from animals they called “monkeys” was the ability to imagine themselves standing higher on the imaginary evolutionary ladder.
Like monkeys, humans copied from others.
He had watched their attempts at Seekers even since the war ended. Pathetic. He had broken several himself. Easier than a kaluuk. Easier, because a kaluuk had no emotions. No one could break a Seeker. A Seeker could be destroyed, as the traitor had shown, but never broken. A human wouldn’t see the difference.
The three shapes began to move towards him. They advanced through the hallway, talking in hushed, terrified voices. The elevator came to life and descended a floor, fast and silent, as a Seeker would. When the doors opened only a brief moment later, all three humans showed fear, their most common trace. It subsided when they walked into the tiny space under him. Had he not been a Seeker, he would be amused.
The elevator started down. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling of the machine. He could come down on top of them without ripping the roof off. He could slide in and sink his fangs and claws in their flesh, tearing the life out of all three before they had the chance to scream. He wanted it. His fury demanded it. An elevator is designed for one purpose — to move cargo between floors of a building. A Seeker’s single purpose is to seek and destroy humans. Those may seem like two separate tasks, but to a Seeker they are one. If a Seeker is sent to find a human, then that human is dead. That is a given.
He peered at one head in particular. The fear fog around it reappeared and began to grow thicker rapidly.
Had been a given, until he and his partner failed their mission. Now his partner was destroyed and he punished. He was sent back to find the human whom they had failed to eliminate. And he was ordered not to kill him.
He felt the fury rise within him, as though it was flexible as an emotion. But he was not human. He would not move. Before a Seeker was taught how to despise a human, a Seeker was taught to obey. They would keep their lives. For now.
The descent halted. Doors opened. As they did, his target launched his body through, twisting his neck and stumbling. His companions caught up before he collapsed on the concrete floor of the underground garage. They talked for some time, then walked away hurriedly. He watched them impassively now, fury controlled.
They would get in a car, he knew. A car would not help them evade him. He waited as instructed, giving them several minutes of a head start. He had been told not to get too close after they leave the target’s home. A traitor could be near by and on alert. If he followed later, slowly and carefully, he would detect the traitor first. The traitor might have destroyed a Seeker, but he was not a Seeker himself.
The humans drove away. Soon it was time to follow. Suddenly, the elevator started and began to rise. He slid inside through the trapdoor and considered stopping the elevator and pulling the doors open. Instead, he slammed through the floor and fell several stories down. Sending twisted and torn doors flying across the parking lot, he started after his prey.
They called Seekers the Lower Caste, because all Seekers knew was to seek, kill and obey. Humans also thought themselves superior to the machines. How many of them looked under their feet before entering an elevator?
The city was dark and empty and white, and the trace lay thick and clear. He followed it at the pace of the car, instructed not to close in until the targets reach the beacon. Had he not been a Seeker, he would soon note the familiarity of the targets’ destination. He would suspect foul play. But a Seeker was not taught to suspect.
Only when the same gray building he and his partner had once started their hunt from appeared in front of him did he understand that he had lost the human again. The car was parked inside the fenced yard; the trace disappeared in a tangle of leaping, flashing fakes that surrounded the building in a ball, with threads leading in every direction. He would find the right one, there was no doubt about that, but it would be too late.
He circled the building twice ands stopped, facing the planet’s pole. In the grayness in front of him, a short distance beyond the city, was the beam of the beacon. Without disturbing the fresh snow, the Seeker started towards it, fury rising.
Brome wasn’t enjoying the ride in the shotgun seat not just because there was an actual shotgun strapped between the front seats of a civilian vehicle, but also because the vehicle was a “Yukon” and riding shotgun in it reminded him of Brighton.
“What was that all about?” he asked the driver, who had folded almost in half to fit behind the wheel.
“Just a precaution,” Vernon Gulli boomed. It sounded reassuring, but explained little. In the back seat, Whales, pale as their future, and his friend did not speak. They hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised to find the bartender of a gay bar waiting for them at the rendezvous point. Nor had they been surprised that the rendezvous point was Whales’s girlfriend’s place. To tell the truth, Brome wasn’t sure if he had been surprised by any of it. What he did know was that he was irritated. Illegal weapon and “Yukon” aside, the case of telepathic conversation relayed to him by Whales seemed a bit too crazy even in light of recent events. Especially now, after the “elevator episode.”