If you or Susie get a chance, run this out
to Zimmy, my bud I told you about. He's a cryptology freak who plays with this
kinda shit when no one's looking after-hours. He ties ten sun solar
mega-workstations together & does complicated decoding problems for fun.
He'll jump at this challenge, but keep it to yourself, Strock, 'cause if they
catch him he'll get booted for misuse of computer time. Zimmy should be able to
break this in a few nights of gut-tickling fun (heh-heh-heh).
PS: There was something else in the
Gen-A-Tec computer that was encrypted—a short line that I'm doing myself. (I
need my workout, too.) I'll let you know if it turns into anything juicy. In
the meantime . . .
I remain the one and only. MASTER OF THE
GAME
ATTACH
After he sent
the e-mail, Roland went back to work decoding the short line of code he had
found in the Gen-A-Tec database. Like his buddy Zimmy, Roland thought that
breaking code was a wonderful mind game. He had been working for a half hour
and already had three letters. He wrote them on a paper cocktail napkin on his
bedside table, then looked down at the letters once again, wondering what they
might stand for:
OCT
He was just starting the cracking
sequence on the fourth.
OCT. October, maybe? But why would Gen-A-Tec go to all the trouble
of decoding the name of a month? Probably because it wasn't a month. It was
something else. Then his program beeped and he quickly had the next letter, 0.
OCTO
October: the tenth month. Ten maybe? He wrote it down. October?
Octogeneric? Octopod? Keep going, he thought. He was already over halfway
through deciphering it and started running sequences on the next two symbols.
The windowless van had been parked
outside the new Fairview Hotel for almost ten minutes when Ranger Captain Dave
"Hi-Ho" Silver returned. He was dressed in a black business suit, and
he immediately began stripping off his tie as soon as he got back inside the
vehicle that was loaded with video and sound monitors.
"I think Valdez must be psychic," Captain Silver said.
They have security cameras on all the floors. . . in boxes. We could disable
the one on his floor, or maybe throw the hotel video system into temporary
phase jitter, but it's not gonna be covert and will take too much time, so I'm
gonna put a DU down."
The entire response-retrieval team looked at the heavy metal cage
on the floor of the van. They couldn't see the DU but they could smell it and
hear it breathing.
"Pan," Captain Silver said. "It's time."
P
an is sitting in
the box, his Geega thoughts coming
slowly at first. Most times Pan uses only his strange
language of the dark place. His memories of a shadowed past are verdant, humid,
and atmospheric. Murderous urges are at times just below the surface, more
powerful than even the Geega's commands. He has to fight to keep these urges
under control, to do what the alpha Geega wants. The murderous impulse is
natural to him, like tasting blood, or eating meat, or the savage instinct of
the kill. Hunting and killing are deep inside Pan, although shadowed and
obscured. The other things the Geegas want him to do are much harder. Geegas
feed him and tell him things. They make him run, and kill, and work with their
fire-sticks. Geegas are alpha and Pan knows he has to obey them. Sometimes he
presents himself to the main Geega, turning around, raising his privates,
offering himself to be fucked. But the alpha Geega never accepts Pan's
presentation. Pan then lowers his head to the alpha Geega's feet, placing his
soft pink lips in the sand, humbling himself. But the alpha Geega just says his
strange speaking words that Pan has to struggle to understand. Then Pan turns
back and sits, waiting to be told what he must do. They are the leaders. He is
nothing. He is alive only at their pleasure. On his arm is the machine to make
the Geega talk. He looks down at it and finds the symbols on the keyboard. He
punches in two syllables and waits. An electronic voice emits from his vest:
"Pan go?" It says with metallic Geega precision.
"Thirty stories up," the alpha Geega answers.
Pan cocks his head and tries to listen, tries to do the Geega
talk. . . so hard for him, but he can do it. Pan looks down at the thing on his
arm with all the buttons and little symbols that he has practiced on for hours.
It does the Geega talk for him, but he has to concentrate for a minute to
decide how to make the right talk. Pan pushes several buttons and waits while
the strange Geega voice comes out of the heavy vest that he wears, with its
lightbox screen and cold metal straps.
"Thirty what?" the mechanical voice on his vest asks,
while Pan jumps up and down in pleasure. This is good talk. This is the right
Geega talk.
The alpha Geega, Dave, looks into the cage, opens the door and
lets Pan out. He leads Pan to the front seat of the van. It is dark outside.
Night. . . the word coming to Pan in Geega talk, which sometimes
happens now.
"Up there, Pan," Dave points. "Thirty floors
up," he says, pointing at a high place on the huge building across the street.
Then Dave takes out a picture of a strange-looking Geega and shows it to Pan.
"This is our enemy," Dave says.
Pan takes the picture in his gray-white fingers. The Geega enemy
looks skinny and small. "I'll direct you from here," Dave says.
"Pan, you must fetch the lightbox! You must kill this Geega!" Dave
points to the headset around Pan's neck: "Dave will talk over the radio
and get Pan to the right spot," he says. "It's on this corner."
The alpha Geega points at a spot on the side of the building. Dave looks right
at Pan. Pan immediately drops his head, turns around, and presents. It is
forbidden to look into the alpha's eyes, so Pan offers his privates in a show
of respect.
"Not now, Pan. Do you understand where to go?" Dave says
as he opens the door of the van.
Pan pushes a button on his talk machine. The mechanical voice
responds. "Yes."
Dave puts the leather gloves with the suction pads on
Pan's four hands
and buckles them on tight.
"I'll be watching from here, so keep the camera on," the
alpha Geega instructs as he taps the little glass eye on the front of Pan's
metal vest. "Now go. Fetch. Kill."
Pan is out of the vehicle, moving fast, his speed and strength on
full display now. He reaches the glass building then starts up the side, going
faster and faster. He climbs up the rounded glass, all four hands gripping the
walls with the suction pads the Geegas designed for wall walking. Pan glimpses
the inside of rooms as he scales the glass tower.
"Further right," Dave's voice is loud in Pan's ear. Pan
has to stop to remember. . . right. . . right is the machine side, so he
reaches over, secures his suctioned tentacle on the window, then walks sideways
across the glass to the next set of windows on the tower. Again he hears the
alpha Geega speaking through the earpiece:
"Okay, stop. That's far enough. Now, up, Pan, up." So
Pan climbs higher, walking right up the side of the glass structure, pausing
once to look down, hanging in that moment by only one extender. . . dangerous
but secure. He looks down and sees the lights of the city. Again he has a
shadow memory. He is somewhere else for that instant, lost in darkness, a
lifetime away, his primal thoughts suddenly of warmth and sharing
—
shadows that
sometimes hit him at moments like this. Suddenly, he wants to ride through
space and time on the long, green, fertile arcs against dark shadows. He
doesn't really know what any of this is, or why he cares, or where he came
from; he just knows these are shadow feelings from some other lifetime, and
they haunt him.
"Up, Pan, up." Dave, the alpha Geega commands, so Pan
keeps climbing until, finally, Dave says, "Stop!"
Pan obeys. He looks in at the room where he is hanging. He sees
nothing but Geega things and a light coming from a second room.
"Go, Pan. Fetch the lightbox. Kill!" And now Pan finds
the edge of the window. With his strong, bony, gloved fingers, he hooks his
hands under the
frame and pulls. Pan is powerful, with more strength than ten
Geegas. He once pulled many Geegas across a field. Although he is smaller than
a Geega, he has very special muscles.
He hears the metal window frame pop as he bends it open. Finally,
using all his strength, the opening is wide enough for him to crawl through.
Pan slips his hairy body and its bulky vest of metal lights
through the window and lands on his front extenders, walking that way for a
moment before slowly bringing his other extenders down until he is on all
fours. His pink nose sniffs for danger. His Geega-like ears listen for sound.
He hears a clicking noise in the next room. . . someone working on a lightbox?
Pan moves softly across the floor, no longer worried about understanding the
Geega talk. Now he can just be Pan. He is born to be a warrior, a soldier, and
a relentless predator. He is from far, far away, but the vicious urges are
still in him, programmed there by millions of years of combat. He knows he is
expendable, existing only to protect the group. A distant shadow of that instinct
now controls his thoughts. Pan hurries to the second door and looks in. Sitting
on a Geega sleeping mat, working at a lightbox, is the one in the picture. He
is a very small, skinny Geega, with funny colored hair. Pan thinks he will be
easy to destroy. Just then, the little Geega finishes working, picks the paper
up and studies it. He glances over, and sees Pan standing in the doorway.
"Holy shit," the Geega says. Fear is in his eyes. Pan
attacks! As he charges, the Geega does a stupid thing: Instead of running or
trying to fight, he jams the paper into his mouth and swallows it.
Pan grabs the long strands of the Geega's colored hair. He yanks
the Geega to him, holds him, then using all of his extenders, he pulls and
rips.
The Geega screams in pain, but that only makes Pan stronger. He
rips one Geega arm loose and waves it over his head triumphantly before he
throws it across the room. He grabs the Geega's head and, using all four
extenders,
twists and pulls
until it comes off with a horrible snap. He throws it hard against the wall. It
bounces loudly and lands on the bed. Pan shreds the Geega's other arm and both
legs, throwing oozing Geega parts everywhere. The gushing blood excites Pan.
He was taught by the Geegas to be silent, but he is so happy he
cannot stop himself. He makes the victory yell. He jumps up and down on the
shredded parts. He runs from one piece of Geega to another, licking up blood,
tasting it, chewing Geega meat. Then he lifts up his privates and urinates on the
dead Geega
—
a message to others that this is Pan's kill.
He hears a noise outside
—
a knocking on the door. Pan is
frightened. He doesn't know what he is supposed to do.
"Get the lightbox," the alpha Geega commands in his
earpiece. Dave can see what Pan is doing through the glass eye in his vest.
"It's next to the bed. Go!"
Pan runs to the lightbox on the table, grabs it, runs to the other
room, then leaps out the mangled open window. Catching the ledge with one hand,
he swings effortlessly. The street looms thirty floors below, but Pan is not
afraid. He loves height, loves danger. He slowly lowers himself down the side
of the building. Pan can see the sun coming up on the horizon and reflecting in
his eyes from the mirrored glass.
Moments later he is back in the van handing the lightbox to Dave.
"Good, Pan. I saw it all. We'll watch it on the tape
later," Dave says as he points to the picture boxes that are set up in the
van to tape what Pan is doing.
Pan tries to figure his answer. He wants to please alpha Dave. He
looks down at his keyboard, then pushes two symbols and waits.