Animalis (25 page)

“Aw, got it. Sorry. Ah, what’s wrong with this thing?” Hank held the wheel in front of him with his left hand, and with his right hand, he was trying to shove a stick with a black ball on it, which extended out of the floor of the truck. There was another grinding noise, but at least they were moving.

“Hey, wall!” Jax wanted to reach for the wheel. Hank looked up and saw the wall of the next building coming toward them.

“I’ve got it. Is there anyone following us?” Hank spun the wheel and the truck started to turn.

Jax looked in the little mirror that hung on the side of his door. He had to move forward to get the reflection of what was behind them.

“I can’t see anyone.”

Now they were in the alley. A few dozen yards and they’d be out on the street.

“Lion!” Hank shouted.

The lioness stepped in front of the opening to the alley. The fur on her head, shaking in the breeze, had turned golden-red from the light of the setting sun. Her arms were relaxed, hanging by her sides.

“Can we go faster?” Jax said. “Or if she doesn’t get out of the way, run her over!”

It was definitely Narasimha; Jax could see the short tail. She seemed so calm, watching them come at her. Then he noticed that she held something in her hand. She lifted it up and started to squeeze her finger on the trigger—but it wasn’t a gun.

Jax’s unconscious mind had put it together before the trigger was fully compressed. He arched his back, thrusting his hips up and away from the seat.

Hank, though, convulsed in muscular spasms, as electricity shot up through the seat. The wheel spun as Hank threw his arms wildly, out of control. The low wall of the demolished building was in front of them.

Holding his body away from the seat, Jax kicked Hank’s door open and pushed the two of them out into the alleyway. The truck smashed into the bricks, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

The pain of the impact was hidden beneath the adrenaline shooting through Jax’s veins. The truck engine ground to a stop. Through the confusion and pain, Jax managed to put together a coherent thought:
How could we be so stupid again?
She had been waiting for them to come. The truck must have been rigged with shock wires that held the same incapacitating force as shock sticks.

Jax pushed himself to his feet. Narasimha was coming, but she was still a dozen yards away. More Animalis were joining her, coming from around the front of the warehouse.

They had to get away. Jax had to get them away. He couldn’t go back to the arena, and couldn’t let Hank be taken to that evil place.

Jax lifted Hank’s torso up off the ground, and pulled him onto his back. He turned around, but more Animalis were coming out of the shipping bay. He looked back at the truck. Where it had hit the wall, the bricks had collapsed down onto the front of the truck, opening up into the jungle of metal and plastic of the demolished building.

Jax held onto Hank tightly and ran at the truck, leaping off the tire and launching up onto the loose bricks. His foot skidded, and he lost his balance. The two of them landed hard on the bricks.

He rolled over and stood up again. The Animalis were running at them now, holding out long shock sticks. Hank let out a light moan as Jax pulled him back up.

The buzz of a shock stick was close, coming from right behind Jax. He held onto Hank and dodged to the right. The stick let out a
crack
as it struck the bricks. Jax scooped a brick up with his foot and kicked it down at the Animalis dog.

Hank started to pull away from Jax’s grip, and then Jax saw what was happening: another Animalis—a leopard—on the other side of the truck was pulling at Hank’s leg.

“No!” Jax yelled. He hefted another brick up and threw it down at the leopard. Hank slipped out of Jax’s grasp and fell off the truck.

Jax couldn’t leave him. The dog was reaching with the shock stick again from the other side, and the leopard was standing over Hank. Jax dove off the truck at the leopard. The shock stick was ready, and it caught Jax in the side.

His eyes were still open; he could see Hank lying in the rubble next to him. His ears were ringing, and the rest of his body was frozen in electric spasms. Below him, the leopard struggled out from under him.

“I hoped you’d come,” someone said.

Jax couldn’t move his head to see who it was, but he recognized the growl of Narasimha’s voice. He knew he had muscles in his jaw and in his tongue and lips. But they were lost from his mind, consumed in the electric flames that gripped his body.
Move,
he commanded himself,
get up.

“Was it you in the pyramid? I saw how you jumped from the arena. And I thought, humans have never jumped like that. Even the Animalis don’t jump like that. It isn’t part of us—not in the … DNA.”

More Animalis had come to the cargo truck, pulling Hank away from Jax’s view. The world started to shift as Jax was lifted away from the ground as well. He tried to move his jaw again, and felt an icy tingle somewhere on his face. Lips. He could feel his lips.

Narasimha’s voice followed him as he was carried. “Do I need to keep both of you alive? Or do each of you know how to use the pyramid?” Her voice caught. “What are you—Your lip, human. You must have been changed. I’ve never seen someone move so soon after the shock.”

The rough pad of a finger rubbed over Jax’s lips. He wouldn’t have felt it, but the icy tingles multiplied with the pressure. Did the lioness know what the pyramid was, then? What was she saying about being changed by it? Hank had said you would die if someone tried to change your DNA, and neither of them had used the pyramid.

“Take them to the plane with me. Make sure they’re secure,” she said to one of the other Animalis surrounding them.

A blindfold slid over Jax’s head and the world went black. Narasimha stopped talking. The sounds of the Animalis carrying him, grunts, mumbled Russian … It was all that was left to him. And a chittering. Moxie? He tried to listen for it again. Grunts, mumbles, the slide of fabric. If Moxie was here, could Grimshaw and Hodge be as well?

The sounds around him stopped. He was closed up inside something. Was Hank still with him? It was impossible to tell.

Minutes later, he regained feeling and muscle control. He was being moved and bounced around in something. He tried calling out, but Hank wasn’t with him, or was unable to speak.

Movement, shaking. Someone unstrapped the harnesses that were holding him against the floor.

“Don’t struggle, and I won’t shock you,” said a snorting voice.

He struggled, and was shocked again.

When he found his senses, he was in a standing position, held against a wall by tight straps. He could hear movement nearby, but couldn’t see anything. Everything was a perfect black, which meant he had a blindfold on.

“What is your name?” asked the deep, penetrating voice that he had come to know well now: Narasimha.

“Mnnnaaah,” Jax said, letting out more of a moan than a word, along with a dribble of saliva. The rest of his body was tingling and starting to tremble with fiery tremors from the shock.

In a flash, the blindfold was pulled from his head. His eyes stung in the light. Narasimha stood in front of him. He saw nets, boxes, and maybe a cargo hold behind her. It looked like the inside of a plane. Jax tried to turn his head, but it was strapped tightly to the wall.

“Jakth?” said a higher-pitched voice to Jax’s right.

Jax pushed his eyes as far as they would go in that direction and saw the outline of someone strapped to the wall beside him. The figure had a sharp nose and chin, and was wearing an outdated coat. It had to be Hank.

“Yes. The two of you together,” Narasimha said.

“We have permission to jump from the tower.”

Jax strained his eyes to see who was talking, it sounded like the warthog.

Narasimha turned and bowed her head. “I’m ready,” she said. She seemed patient and controlled through the interruption. After a moment, she turned back to Jax and Hank. “Humans used to think they were the only creatures that could demonstrate self-control. Did you know that? It was what they glorified themselves with. And if a man couldn’t control his behavior, he was a
beast
, a mongrel, giving into his animal nature.” She started to strap herself into a harness for the takeoff.

Jax tried to test the restraints. His fingers could wiggle, but his hands were held together tightly behind his back with a strap that also held his wrists together.

“Animals. Mindless,” she continued. “Only kept alive for as long as they were useful to a human. Are you my animals, human? Do I have the self-restraint to keep you alive only for as long as I can use you? And then what? Eat you?”

“Don’t,” Hank said with a lisp.

“What would be so terrible about having a meal? We all have to eat. Some species are meant to be hunted. Humans are my prey.” Her voice broke into a self-amused laugh.

“Please,” Hank whispered. “Please don’t eat us.”

Narasimha took in a deep breath, listening to Hank plead. The corners of her mouth pulled up into a smile.

She had left their mouths free to talk, so … it was part of her plan to have them talking? If so, what was she trying to do? They weren’t being taken back to the arena or else they wouldn’t be preparing for takeoff. She wanted them to help her use the pyramid. What was Hank doing? Was he honestly so scared that he was losing his wits? Or was he trying to manipulate her by bringing out her arrogance?

“I terrify you, don’t I?” she said. “Why? Is it my eyes? Or my fingernails? That I’m stronger, faster, and more deadly than you could ever hope to be?” She closed her eyes, “Or is it that you cannot see my thoughts.” Her breath held the vibration of a deep purr. “I don’t know that you have thoughts, human. Should that terrify me?”

“I have thoughts!” Hank said.

“What do you need from us?” Jax whined. “Why did you keep us alive?” He tried to match Hank’s desperation, but he didn’t believe his own lie.

“Do you have thoughts?” She looked at Jax when he had spoken, but ignored him to answer Hank. “Even when the Animalis were revealed to the world—walking, talking, thinking animals—humans continued like they always have, like mindless robots, enslaving and controlling.”

“Australia didn’t control the Animalis—” Jax shouted to get her attention again, but he was cut off.

“Australia wanted to increase tourism!” she hissed. “They didn’t say anything about the slaughter of tens of thousands of what they considered to be ‘unpredictable’ Animalis that flocked there for safety.” Her voice was like thunder. “In India, they welcomed the blessed cow Animalis. But in America … they were enslaved.”

“There aren’t any—” Jax started to say, but he was cut off again. She was becoming more impassioned, but was that what Hank had wanted?

“There are no cow Animalis in America?” she scoffed. The plane started to move, getting in line for the launch shaft. “There is no legal difference between a common heifer, and a mother cow Animalis. They perform all of the same functions that the humans want from them: birthing, milking, fattening. The farmers only look at the price tag. They’ll take the heifer if the price is lower.”

Jax tried again, straining to catch another glimpse of Hank. As he struggled, the words sank in. Why was she talking about this? It churned Jax’s stomach. Was it true? After living only a short time with the Animalis, his understanding had shifted. The Animalis weren’t human, but … they weren’t animals, either.

“What are you thinking now, human? That they are right to? That we should continue to be subject to the humans? That our tongues should be cut out, so you can no longer hear our protestations in your own language?” Her growl layered into her voice: “I am
Narasimha.
The man-lion. I defend those that cannot defend themselves.”

The bones in Jax’s chest trembled from the deep vibration in her voice. So she thought of herself as defending the Animalis. Then maybe Jax could aggravate her more using that.

“It’s your attacks that put the Animalis in danger!” he said. “You want to be seen as an equal with humanity? Then stop killing us!”

Hank joined in: “Don’t kill us. Let us go.”

Narasimha barked out a loud laugh. “I have the pyramid. And one of you knows how to use it.”

“You keep talking about some stupid pyramid,” Jax tried to bluff, “but we don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Approaching the launch shaft,” the warthog’s voice said over a speaker.

“I didn’t know what it was, when you came for it the first two times in Australia,” she went on. She wasn’t aggravated, just calm and unemotional. “But you made me think, maybe it was the pyramid you were after. That’s when I learned about the possibilities, that it could be the ultimate conduit of revenge. And when I saw you jump from the arena, I finally knew what it was.” She rested her head back. “Our key to survival, to genetic superiority, some say—the Ivanovich Machine.”

The buzz of the electromagnetic shaft let them know they were about to launch. Jax felt his body squeezed in the wall harnesses.

Once the acceleration had evened out, Narasimha unbuckled and walked out of view.