“Names,” he says.
The med tech looks at him for the first time.
Baby-Faced Nerd Boy follows suit.
“Tran,” the woman says without turning. “Shannon Tran.”
“Where are you from?”
“Stockton, California.”
Cole locks eyes with the baby-faced nerd, realizing that the guy’s actually pretty cute. If they ran into each other at a hotel bar and the guy did something outwardly gay—whatever that is these days—Cole just might buy him a drink. “Tim Zadan. I was born in Stockholm, but we moved to Boston when I was four.”
“Love Boston,” Cole says. “Don’t love the winters, but love the town.”
“Uh-huh,” Tim says, then turns his attention back to the camera feeds.
Cole finds the med tech staring at him.
“Why are we doing this?” the tech asks.
“Because pretty soon I was going to start calling you guys by nicknames, and I don’t want to sound . . . impolite.”
Smart as you guys are, you’re all about to freak and I can’t have that, so play along, nerd.
“But we’re not supposed to—”
“I know what Ed said, but he’s not here. What’s your name, friend?”
“Paul Hynman. South Carolina, mostly. Then San Diego. Then Virginia.”
“Military family?”
Paul nods.
“Great.”
“Not really,” Paul says. “I switched schools every five minutes.”
“Seems like you turned out OK.”
Paul Hynman just glares at Cole as if whatever set of circumstances landed him in this secret subterranean room taking orders from Cole doesn’t exactly qualify as OK.
Serves me right, Cole thinks, expecting to chitchat with some science geeks.
When all three of them return their attention to their computers, Cole’s quietly relieved.
He looks at the feed from the ground tail’s shoulder cam, and the relief leaves him instantly. The feed is shaky and occasionally blurry. Without the microdrones and their godlike view of everything that happens below, Cole now feels as if he’s sealed up in the back of Davies’s pickup right beside Charley.
11
Maybe she’ll try climbing a tree like the second one did, Richard thinks, or maybe she’ll start begging for her life like the fourth.
This is his favorite part—when he’s safely perched inside the deer blind, waiting for his prey to regain consciousness and find herself lost in a sea of shadows and thick forest. Even better, tonight he’s got snow and ice to play with. That’s why he took off her shoes before stringing her bound wrists to a tree branch about six and a half feet off the ground.
Once, only once, did one of his prey undergo a startling, admirable metamorphosis upon waking up and realizing how fucked she was. One minute she was shuffling and disoriented and confused. The next, she tore off a branch the size of her arm and used it to beat a path through the darkness as if she expected a bear to explode from underneath a nearby bush and was ready to fight it to the death. That was the same one who tried to keep climbing the fence even after she realized it was electrified at a strength that could stun a cow.
That wasn’t pretty.
But he doesn’t bring them here to make them pretty; he brings them here so they can have a chance to find some deep reservoir of inner strength before he removes their sickness from the world.
What will this one find within herself?
Will she cry out for the daddy she betrayed?
Richard watches her through night vision googles as she sways gently in the frigid winds. It’s another world at this altitude, which is how he’s always liked it. Any spot where the earth kisses the clouds is a special place, a place where primal truths reveal themselves to those who’ve acquired the wisdom of solitude.
The course he’s built is as big as he can make it, though it’s barely an acre. But when you’re having trouble seeing, it might as well be the Hundred Acre Wood. It’s full of holes and baited with bad hiding places. The deer blind’s not that well camouflaged, and most of them are able to make it out after a few minutes, which is how he likes it. And then there are the traps.
The first time he practically lined the fence with them. But upon reflection, it didn’t seem like the makings of a fair fight, so he’d knocked it down to three. One is close to the string-up spot, its placement a reward for the prey who doesn’t panic the minute she wakes and start running in mad circles. The ones who take their time to get a sense of their surroundings, to let their eyes adjust to the dark.
The other’s close to the farthest section of fence, designed to punish the bitch who foolishly assumes escape is an option and just starts running for her life. And the third’s right in front of the deer blind, should she be stupid enough to try to approach him directly.
His favorites are the ones who try to hide.
Because he likes finding them.
Which one will this one be?
Young and confident, skin firm like Stephanie’s.
She might be a fighter.
She might be . . .
She’s awake, he realizes.
He almost missed it. A few seconds before, she was swaying in full forty-five-degree rotations, her torso and face coming into view. Now her movement’s been reduced by half. Probably because she’s tensed her right forefoot so it creates a little drag on the snow. Awake, and trying to get her bearings, without letting him know it.