Hunting Will (9 page)

All three Hunters teleported ahead, appearing in a circle surrounding Clint, who nearly ran into Aramis and ended the Hunt before it had started. He recovered and fired an Energy blast at Aramis, catching the Hunter in the sternum and knocking him to the ground, giving Clint an opening to continue running. Athos teleported in front of him, attempting to grab the suspect’s arm, but Clint teleported away.

“Got him,” Porthos said, as Aramis scrambled to his feet. “Range appears to be approximately five miles.” He oriented himself on Clint’s Energy scent, and his clairvoyance skills detected an image of the man’s surroundings. He was panting heavily, drained of Energy from the blast and the teleportation, and feeling the effects of the sleeping drug more heavily.

The Hunters teleported again, once more surrounding the fugitive. Their Energy stores were more expansive than Clint’s. By forcing the man to continually move, they’d eventually drain him to the point where he could no longer teleport, and then they’d complete the capture

That point wouldn’t come yet, however. Clint, breathing heavily, teleported away again.

“Only a mile this time,” Porthos said. “He’s draining pretty quickly.” He projected the image of Clint’s surroundings to the team. They vanished again.

Clint was on his hands and knees, clearly unable to stand any longer. The Energy became so great a part of an Aliomenti’s life that its deprivation would render them immobile and inert, even while their more “human” energy could still be fine. Physically, Clint was quite healthy, and should be able to run at high speeds for quite a distance. But his mind told him that his remaining Energy was precious to his very life, and as such he felt as if he was dying.

But he still wouldn’t give up. As the Hunters leaped toward him, he vanished again.

The Hunters whirled around. Clint had only managed to move a dozen yards, and was lying prone on the ground. “He’s drained,” Porthos said. With Clint no further threat to teleport, the Hunters jogged toward him, conserving their own precious Energy. Clint would recharge eventually if left alone; the Hunters knew it was still critical to get him into a protective cell as quickly as possible. But the man’s chance to escape had ended.

Aramis rolled the man to a seated position, but Clint’s head lolled as if in a deep sleep. Aramis applied his Damper anyway, ensuring the man wouldn’t recharge; they were still paranoid after Will Stark had seemed subdued, only to draw on hidden Energy stores and escape again. Clint was no Will Stark, but the Hunters weren’t in the mood to take chances. Athos stepped forward and pressed his palm against Clint’s forehead, and nodded to Porthos. “Ready.”

Porthos nodded, and began to read off each of the charges Aramis had compiled against Clint. Athos’ skill enabled him to test the truth of each charge with unerring accuracy, even as the man sat propped up and unconscious. After each charge, Athos would announce the verdict, and Porthos would record on Aramis’ notes the official decision rendered.

When they completed the inquisition, Athos teleported away to fetch the rental car they’d left parked at Clint’s house. The Hunters would use the car to transport Clint to the transport vehicle for the flight back to Headquarters.

“Not bad, Aramis,” Porthos said. “Looks like you got about 91% of the charges right. A new record for you?”

“I got 98.6% correct on the one two weeks ago.”

“That’s rather inflated since the guy sent an email to several people inside headquarters stating what he’d done. How could you miss any at that point?”

“He bragged about something he hadn’t actually yet accomplished. I’d rather get a few wrong than miss including a critical charge.”

By the time Athos pulled up in the vehicle, Clint had regained consciousness, but was still groggy. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

Athos smiled. “Back where you belong, of course. A jail cell twelve stories below the surface at Aliomenti Headquarters. You’re going to be there for a very long time.”

Clint’s eyes widened, and then he hung his head, defeated.

●●●●●

The woman called Eva crawled out of the burning barn without being seen. It had been a close call, but she’d known the risks when she’d volunteered for this particular assignment. There’d been a very real chance that the new sword splitting technology would fail, and she’d be dead by an assassin’s sword.

For real this time.

But it had worked. The plastic pouch of fake blood she’d planted in her dress had ruptured. The sword splitter had literally split the sword in half at an atomic level, turning it into a jellylike substance on contact, and the blade had wrapped itself around the outside of her body, reforming on the opposite side as if the blade had gone through her. She’d marveled at the technology when they’d tested it in slow motion the first time, and held her breath when she’d worn the final product and they’d taken turns plunging various blades through her. The technology also seemed to work on bullets, though such devices were never employed by the Aliomenti. She wasn’t complaining. She’d done her job, and Clint had been properly set up to do his.

She sprinted away from the barn and the driveway. Eventually, she knew, the party guests would smell the smoke or see the flames, and would come to investigate. They’d never find her body, but would blame that on the total immolation of the building. As such, Eva Elizabeth Lowell would be considered dead, and the Aliomenti Leader would believe his Assassin had completed another successful execution of a human believed to have suspicions of their existence.

The name chosen for her human identity had been selected by Will Stark months earlier to send a private message to the Aliomenti Leader. It was a means of reminding him of his past, using names only a very few knew about. Perhaps he’d realize then that he’d walked into a trap; then again, the man believed himself incapable of making mistakes, and he’d likely brush the name off as sheer coincidence. Then again, making such an assumption was probably unwise.

Once she’d entered a grove of trees and had a minor bit of privacy, Eva pulled out a special satellite-based mobile phone that was secured against any form of tracking and dialed a number from memory. “Adam, it’s me. I survived; the Assassin thinks I’m dead. It looks like the Hunters are chasing Clint right now. The plan is working as defined.”

“Good job, Eva,” Adam said. “I hated the risk with the sword splitter, but…”

“It was a risk I was willing to take, Adam,” Eva replied. “It was my part in getting our spy in place at Headquarters. Do you really think he can spring all of our captives?”

“I don’t know, Eva,” Adam said. “But we’ll never know until we try.”

“Very true, Adam. Very true.” Eva paused. “Have you heard from Will?”

She could almost see Adam shaking his head. “I haven’t, Eva. I don’t think the Hunters got him or we’d never stop hearing about it. We know the plan going forward. All we can do now is follow it.”

Eva sighed. “I hope all of our converts withdrew their funds already. After this stunt, after choosing the name we planted in the local news stories… The Leader’s going to be shocked enough that he’s going to get suspicious. They’re going to start freezing funds and assets.” She paused. “If we haven’t gotten a lot out by now we’re going to struggle for funds in the not-too-distant future. Our operations are
not
cheap.”

“Will gave me an assignment that should give us a large infusion of cash down the road. But we’ll need to do what we can in the interim. We may need to buy or create our own bank.”

“That’s good to hear, about the infusion of money,” Eva replied. “We’re going to need to recruit from the outside more and more. They’ll
really
start to ramp up eavesdropping efforts to prevent migrations here. The devices we took out of Clint were incredible in their complexity.”

“We’ll make do, Eva,” Adam replied. “We always have. And somewhere out there, Will’s waiting to make his appearance yet again.”

“I know,” Eva said. “I just hope he’s not in hiding for very long.”

They both disconnected their phones, and Eva vanished from the grounds surrounding Clint Jones’ manor.

Part III

Fortress

“I still don’t understand how so many of the criminals that have been Hunted down and imprisoned in
Energy dampering
cells
could be escaping,” The Leader seethed.

He was meeting with the Hunters and The Assassin. The Hunts had gone well; the Hunters had yet to fail to capture their assigned targets, and The Assassin had performed well in eliminating any potential exposure risks from human. Yet many of those who’d been captured had escaped.

Porthos shrugged. “Not sure, sir. Do the scientists who built the cells have ideas?”

“No,” The Leader said, scowling. “The cells are functioning fully. I have tested them myself. I tested the cell that the woman called Selena used, and I can assure you it fully incapacitated
me
. Yet somehow she escaped from the cell and from Headquarters. How?”

“It has to be Stark,” Athos said, and Aramis nodded.

“Of course it has to be Stark,” The Leader snapped. “The question is: how? How is he doing this? These cells have worked flawlessly for years. It’s only recently that they’ve stopped working.”

“Perhaps the people from the Alliance have stronger Energy stores than we suspect,” Aramis suggested. “The cells may need to be redesigned for that possibility.”

“I’ve just stated that the cells incapacitated
me
, Aramis,” The Leader replied, his tone deadly. “Are you suggesting that there are members of the Alliance more powerful than
me
?”

“No, sir,” Aramis replied, almost too quickly. “Nothing like that at all, sir.”

“If you’d like, sir,” Athos said, “I can Read the next target we Hunt down with that question.”

“Won’t work,” Porthos said. “You need to ask true or false types of questions, right? How can you ask them how Stark is pulling this off and get an answer?”

“I won’t ask them anything in that fashion,” Athos replied. “But I
can
ask them if Stark is behind it, and if they themselves know how it’s being accomplished. If they do, then… perhaps we can think of ways to persuade them to talk.” His face curled into an evil smile, accentuated by the scar provided by Will Stark in their most recent encounter.

“A sensible approach, Athos,” The Leader replied. “I’ll expect immediate updates if you identify a source of information on this matter. The threat of being Hunted loses its deterrent effect if word gets out that our prisoners keep escaping.”

“Sir, do we have any idea why so many of our people are going to Stark?” Aramis asked.

The Leader’s eyes flashed. “No, Aramis, we do not. And I’d prefer not to have a conversation on that topic.”

“It might make for a good bit of marketing with our people,” Porthos mused, so quietly that it was nearly inaudible.

But the Aliomenti had exceptionally powerful senses, and The Leader picked up on the comment. “Excuse me, Porthos?”

Porthos blinked, as if only then realizing he might have been heard. “Sorry, sir. Was thinking of something I learned from the humans about a topic they call marketing that might be applicable to Aramis’ idea.”

The Leader scowled. “You’re suggesting a
human
idea can solve an
Aliomenti
problem?”

Porthos snorted. “Not as they’ve defined it. The humans have a saying: ‘The grass is always greener on the other side.’ It means that many people believe what they’re
not
experiencing is somehow vastly greater than what they
are
experiencing. For some reason, some horrifically
stupid
reason, too many of our people believe that Stark’s Alliance is that greener grass. Perhaps we need to tell them that the grass with Stark is poisoned…”

The Leader finally seemed interested. “You’re saying that Stark has somehow been telling people lies about the Alliance, and that by countering those lies with the truth we can stop the outflow of people?”

“As always sir, you state it better and more succinctly than I could ever hope.” Athos snorted, muttering something derogatory in Porthos’ direction, but Porthos ignored him. “Yes, if we specifically know what Stark is saying to attract the weak-minded, we can certainly counter those lies. I think we also need to make sure that our people see the effects of the dampering cells; they feel a miniature version of it in the main parts of Headquarters, but actually spending time in a cell, as you so bravely did… that might be enough to convince others to behave.”

The Leader nodded. “I’ll consider it. Athos, do you have your next Hunt target?”

Athos nodded. “I do, sir. We expect to leave in the next few hours.”

“Good. Keep me posted.”

As the men stood from the conference table to leave, a massive burst of Energy rocketed through the building, knocking all of them from their feet as if the Headquarters had been struck by an earthquake. Porthos, the most highly attuned to Energy, wrapped his arms around his head and screamed in agony.

“What was
that
?” The Leader roared.