Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel (5 page)

Chapter 9 Michael

When Michael Scott was sixteen, he brought a woman home for the first time. Gwen. He would have described her as winsome. She was the one to take his hand first, so sure of what she wanted. Michael liked the attention.

She looked at him a bit funny when he walked around the house, shushing her, as if he was trying to hear something. She giggled when he looked through the windows, searching for his father. She squeezed his hand and grabbed his arm at the same time, resting her head against the firm muscles of his shoulder.

“Michael, isn’t your dad at work?”

“I never know where he is. His work
. . .” Michael stopped at that. His father had cautioned him about his work. Not even the army should know about this project. So Michael shut up.

The kitchen door opened easy,
and the fridge too, after he had popped it open a millimetre and peered in, looking for the thin, almost translucent wires his dad had started using. Gwen walked in, carefree, her skirt swaying as she walked.

“Come on
, Michael, show me your room.”

He saw the glint of the wire as she walk
ed through the living room arch, imagining the way it would press against her ankle as the pressure built up, the skin indenting, knowing it was too late to stop her from triggering it. There was only one hope. He stepped from beside her to in front of her, pressing her against his chest. Gwen thought it was play and she kissed him, her eyes open and wanting to see his face as she pressed her tongue past his lips. Something one of her girlfriends had told her about.

The bang wasn’t very loud. Michael was used to that. Training wasn’t supposed to alert the neighbo
urs. The steel pellets, though, they hurt as they punched past his clothing, the same way a dog’s bite will, not marking the cloth at all. His flesh would be peppered with heavy bruises by morning. A hard knock on his skull told him how lethal this trap had been.

Gwen screamed.

Blood trailed down her face, one beautiful eye burst open and ragged, that part of the body too soft and fragile. The guilt sat in his chest just as battered as the orb in her face.

He
stayed with her, all the way to the hospital.

The doctors commended him on his triage. Told him he had saved her eye with the speed and care
with which he had applied aid.

He didn’t tell them it was his fault. Didn’t explain that it was training for his way into the army
, or that his choices could have possibly killed someone.

He knew that
. Saw it in his mind every time he passed Gwen in the halls at school after that.

She never smiled at him again.

That hurt more than anything else did.

Michael
stumbled into the house with Faelon at his side, holding him up and guiding him to a seat. His breath was ragged from the exertion and the high altitude, and he didn’t have any more medication. Somewhere along the half a klick back to the house, she had shifted into her human form. One second she was a wolf—then, she wasn’t. It had been as fast and as instinctive as breathing for her.

“How do you do that?” But she hadn’t answered him
. She had just whined at him in that plaintive hurt tone of hers as if she was still a wolf and pushed him toward shelter, her body a gentle warmth beside him.

Michael
took the med kit from his pack and rifled through it. He found painkillers and took one to dull the pain running through his shoulder. It worked fast and he was able to breathe easier in moments as the pain settled down to a throbbing ache. Then he stripped out of his clothes so he had a better view of his wound, peeling back the bandage, letting in air so it could heal. He’d have to disinfect it again. “God, that’s ragged.” But looking at it, it was cleaner than he had expected. The blood had stopped flowing, and while it showed muscle damage, it wasn’t as much as he had thought it would be. And no broken bones.

Michael walked over to the desk and his military P.A.C. unit there. It looked like an old style watchband, but the meta-materials it was made out of and the biologicals contained within it were a secret only his father knew about. He put it on his wrist; the unit needed to be touching for this. “PAC. Go to Medical Mode. Response and reply.”

“You’re hurt,” P
AC said, its voice holding just a touch of emotion.

“Analysis?”

“Considering . . . anti-biotic regimen. Starting. Why did you wait so long?”

“I
. . . it just happened.”

“Healing is two days along.”

“Funny, PAC.” But Michael knew the computer wasn’t lying. It was military grade support—better than a medic, able to manufacture almost any medication he might need, and capable of logistics and communications on a scale that most countries would envy in a war situation. He just didn't use it in a military capacity anymore. Hadn't for almost three years.

“You’re stable,” PAC said. “No infection I can see. Unknown saliva sample in wounds. You have a low level of poison in your system. Flushing.”

“Research both of those. Suppositional. Extrapolate from past events.”

Faelon wrapped her arms around
Michael carefully. “PAC?” she said.

“PAC
, this is Faelon. He’s . . . I don’t know how to explain him to you.” For all that, she seemed to accept.

“She wasn’t with us earlier. Where did you find her?”
PAC asked.

“In one of my traps, from last year. Animal prints going in, nothing coming out.”

“I . . . see.” Michael was sure PAC did. Though it was indeed a machine, it had a personality and was as smart as Michael, with the same experience to base logic on.

“I want you to teach her.”

“Conversational.”

“Yes.”

“Sleep, Mike.”

“I didn’t ask
. . .”

“You invoked Medical Mode.
Sometimes you’re a bit . . .”

“Yes
. You had better get to bed unless you want to sleep on the floor.”

Michael
felt the drugs entering his system and moved to the bed. “I’m going to sleep, Faelon.”

When
Michael awoke, the sun was just setting. He stretched, the pain in his shoulder blocking that action. His shoulder was stiff, but he could move his hand better than he could earlier. And the wound looked five days healed, at least. The edges were red, rounded, with a scab forming over the flesh. No sign of infection. The fever he’d expected hadn’t appeared either. The scratches on his arms were now pink scars as if scabs had recently come off, the skin still rough. He’d been asleep for at least six hours from what he could tell. Even PAC didn’t heal him this fast. So what was it?

A weight rested on his feet
, and then Faelon lifted her head, the amber eyes of a wolf staring at him. His mate. “How long have you been this way?” Wonder crawled out of his throat like a butterfly from a cocoon.

If he blinked
, he would have missed her change. The only thing the same was her eyes, the rich amber sparkling.

“From cub,
Michael. I am Naklétso.”

“What is
. . . ?”

PAC answered hi
m, his voice surprised. “It’s Navajo. It means the Grey Wolf People. You named her ‘little wolf’ in Gaelic. Did you know?”

“I
. . .” Michael shook his head, saving the questions for later. “Give her Home Advantage access to your systems. Add a medical scan to your profile.”

PAC was silent for a few minutes. “There is an error in my systems
, Mike. Faelon is . . .”

“
There’s no error, PAC. Classify that secret and don’t bring it up when any possibility of surveillance exists.”

“Acknowledged.”

Faelon moved, then stretched, and leapt off the bed, taking to two legs with such grace that Michael was taken off guard, the breath hissing between his teeth.

“Hunt now,
Michael.” She shifted back into a wolf after she opened the door. Then she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her.

He shook his head again. Would he ever get used to that?

“There is a military satellite over top of us. Would you like me to use it to follow Faelon?”

“No. Military? PAC
, is that the satellite’s usual course?”

“No. It was diverted two days ago. There are currently no military targets in this area. The satellite is Blackwater owned.”

“What does a mercenary company want with us?” The P.A.C. units hadn’t been designed by the military, even if Michael’s father had been in military R & D. Though they thought they had a right to his inventions, even if they didn’t know what they were. It was why he had left the Army, and none too gently.

“Unknown. This unit has no confirmed presence in the military. Updating previous search requests. Obituary records show that Jackson Huer is dead. Capt
ain Michael Scott is the last survivor of his army unit.”

Michael’s
voice broke over his next words, his chest tightening. “How did he die?”

“A motorcycle accident.”

That could fit, given Huer’s interests. But Michael’s entire unit had died in the last year. And he couldn’t remember the last days of his final mission. “Go to alert mode, PAC. Anything relevant to this area or the last mission of said unit.”

Michael
didn’t notice the lack of response from PAC as he went to the kitchen and started dinner late, given the time of day. He thought of Huer, Ariyan, and Boyen. All dead now. All from the past. And his father missing, in self-imposed exile, running from the army’s suspicions. Whatever—this all meant that someone suspected the existence of the PAC unit.

“Are we writing today?” PAC said.

“Yes.”

“I have an idea.”

“PAC, we’ve had this conversation before. I’m the writer, you’re the research assistant.”

“There’s nothing stopping me from changing the file before I send it to your publisher.”

“Too right. If my publisher was threatening my life.”

He wasn’t sure how a personal adaptive computer formed its personality but it was related to the imprinting involved.
PAC had Michael’s own ethical code, with a wry sense of humour Michael didn’t have. So there was individuality there. Did his dad know that when he built the original units?

Recently, Business Models had emerged on the market, but they were only adaptive from a software viewpoint. Sophisticated yes, but still not his father’s tech
—he didn’t think. None of the P.A.C. units his squad had owned had been appropriated, to his knowledge. Ariyan’s had been destroyed in Saudi when he died. The unit had gone into some form of post-traumatic shock and had never worked after his death. Michael had left it on the body, an inert band of cloth that could have been a T-shirt for all its activity. Boyen’s took the form of a belt buckle and left with him into retirement. Huer’s was probably a part of his motorcycle, considering. But all the software would be slag if Ariyan’s was any indication. And that meant the tech behind it was useless. Simultaneous inventions weren’t unheard of though. Had someone else been copying his father’s research?

His chest tightened again, the emotion wanting
, needing, a response. Tears were a good thing, releasing the pain, telling him what and who he missed. His men had died in accidents related back to him and PAC—a thought he had to consider at least. And now someone was trying to kill him. After twenty minutes of memories, moments shared, he pulled himself together, wiped the moisture from his face, and spoke.

“Open a story file, working title
, “Military Wolf.”

The computer
began a variety of search functions geared off the given heading, started a log file and a branching tree that contained the history of the animal, the last fifty years of military advances, and footnotes for where in history those inventions had any roots or cross references. PAC also introduced a search on Aboriginal legends relating to wolves, since the novel was a series. And that led to First Nations’ involvement in various wars. It also led to stories from other genres, but PAC filtered those out unless Michael asked specifically for them. The computer would fill in any other searches as Michael asked for them. Or would extrapolate from how the work grew.

“Previous med analysis done. Saliva properties. Healing properties: enhanced Lysozyme, Peroxidase, and a Heme-cofactor. Non-infectious agent for a healthy immune system. Existing anomalies preventing further analysis,” PAC said.

“What about a compromised immune system?”

“Unknown.”

“What anomalies?”

“Bone ash, quartz, other.”

“Bone ash and quartz? I haven’t been anywhere near those items. Widen analysis parameters and continue. Start file . . . what is “other,” PAC?”

The door opened.

“Home, Michael.” Faelon walked in. She dropped a small deer to the floor and walked over to him. Other than a few claw and bite marks, this carcass was whole. She leaned in, sniffed his neck, and then kissed the skin below his collarbone. “Mmm.” She rocked back on her heels and looked up at him, a hand brushing over his cheek as if she knew what he had been feeling just moments before. Her eyes looked concerned, but she didn’t say anything.