Habitats Read online

  The line of cars started to move as the police began waving them through. As Randy drove past, Ell saw the limo off to the side with several police officers around it, guns drawn. “Steve?” she said, “I’m not sure I want these police knowing exactly where Vivian is. They’re a little too excitable for my taste.”

  “I don’t think we should start lying to the police. I’ll tell my liaison about the shooting and ask him to get them to be more careful.”

  “OK,” Ell said musingly as she watched the progress of Vivian’s GPS location on her HUD. It was following one of the smaller country roads, still heading mostly east. Ell scanned ahead trying to figure out how she and Randy could get there from one of the closer freeway exits. Of course, it would be just her luck that the kidnappers would turn back onto the freeway about the time Ell left it. “Randy, let’s take the next exit. I can see a connector to the road they’re on with Vivian.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Randy, don’t you ‘Ma’am’ me!”

  “Yes Ell,” he said patiently, rolling his eyes.

  Ell didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried when she saw that Vivian’s location had pulled off the road and stopped. Could they have reached their destination? Were they changing their plan—which Ell had assumed was to get to the beach and meet a boat? Was this an American group rather than a foreign one like she had assumed? Did they have a helicopter or airplane? With some distress Ell realized that Keals thithe road there looked straight enough for a plane to land and take off.

  ***

  Vivian had been shaken at every turn. First to be abducted, then to be dragged out of the limo into the truck. Again when the truck bounced off the freeway, over a fence and through the field. Now the tremendous road noise the huge tires on the truck made at speed bored into her. Now, without warning, they’d turned into the yard of one of the houses along the road. All but the driver got out at the front of the house and the truck pulled off around back. The men dragged Vivian up on the porch and, without knocking, kicked the door in.

  “Abe” dragged Vivian in the door a few minutes later and she found the little family that lived in the house assembled in the kitchen.

  Abe addressed the wife, a somewhat matronly woman. Pointing to Vivian, he said, “Find some clothes that will fit her.”

  The woman said, “I ain’t helping you!”

  Dispassionately Abe turned and backhanded her husband with his pistol. The man fell to the floor, looking dazed. Blood welled from his nose and a large cut on his cheek.

  Abe pointed his gun at the woman. “Find some clothes that will fit her.”

  The woman covered her mouth and shrieked but didn’t move from where she stood, her wide eyes focused on her man. In a loud, though dispassionate voice, Abe said, “Do I have to hit one of your kids too?”

  The woman’s eyes flashed to her son and daughter who looked to be between the ages of five and ten. The children looked terrified. Nonetheless the daughter dropped to her knees and bravely crawled toward her father. The mother reached out toward the daughter but Abe stepped between her and the child. She stared at Abe a moment, then she whimpered and started toward the back of the house. One of Abe’s men followed her. Another knelt and started putting plasticuffs on the kids.

  Abe knelt by the man who lay moaning on the floor. “I need an authorization code for your car.” The man only moaned incoherently. Abe sucked his lower lip pensively. His wife returned with some clothes. Abe said, “Give them to her,” indicating Vivian. To Vivian he said, “Change.”

  Vivian turned to go around the corner into the living room and Abe said, “Joe, go with her.”

  Vivian said, “I can’t have any privacy?”

  Abe simply shook his head. He turned to the wife, “I need the authorization code for your car.”

  The wife moaned, but Vivian heard her give it to him.

  Avral/Abe turned to the driver of the truck who’d just come into the kitchen. He said, “Go. Make sure the code works and then change the code so they can’t remote it after we leave. Change the license plates and see if they have any spray paint you can use to Kou nd t change the car’s appearance.” He knelt and looked at the husband’s eyes, “Pupils are unchanged, just a concussion.”

  For a moment Abe just stayed there wondering. Was that roadblock really for them? Or just a coincidence? If it was for them, how had they been tracked? He got up and stepped out of the kitchen. Quietly he spoke the name of the driver of the limo so his AI would connect him, “Did you get through the road block?”

  There was no answer.

  Next he said, “Eliom,” the name of the man from the lead car. “What happened at the road block?”

  “I left my Glock lying out on the front seat like you asked. They didn’t even notice it. Just glanced in the window and waved me through. Did you guys get through OK?”

  “Damn! No. We turned off the road in the truck. I can’t reach the guys in the limo so I think they got picked up by the police. I don’t know how they found us, any ideas?”

  “You took the woman’s AI and shut it down?”

  “Yes. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Obviously, we’ve missed something,” Eliom said patiently. “I’m just making sure it isn’t something obvious. Have you discarded the AI in case it has a tracker in it? Have you gone over the woman to make sure she doesn’t have one on her?”

  “The headband was in the limo so if that’s what they tracked, it’s gone now. I made her change her clothes, but I’d better search her. Shit!”

  Vivian had put on a large t-shirt and some baggy sweatpants. They were a little bit big, but better too big than too small. Abe came into the room and said, “Hold still.” He stepped close and ran his hands over her scalp through her hair. He unhooked her earrings and handed them to Joe, “Smash these.”

  Joe put them on the table, pulled out a pistol and smashed them with its butt.

  Abe had turned back to Vivian. “Take off the shirt.”

  Vivian felt her face getting warm but slowly took it off. She’d had her clothes off in front of these men twice already. However, dragging it out by doing things slowly gave the D5R security team more time to catch up. And, being naked remained embarrassing no matter how many times she did it.

  She hoped the fact they were searching her meant that the D5R team was causing them some problems.

  Abe walked around her, “Lift your arms.” He made another circuit, “Lift your breasts.”

  Humiliated, Vivian did as she was told. He let her put on her shirt, then had her take off the pants for an inspection of her lower regions. By the time he was done she was completely mortified, but at least he hadn’t felt the skin beneath her ear where she had her implant nor looked at the back side of her front teeth where the port to the microphone had been glued. He had peered into h Kpeemorer ear, but apparently it was too dark in her ear canal for him to see the little disk of the port next to her eardrum.

  Suddenly, in her ear she heard Ell’s voice. “Vivian, cough once if you can hear me.”

  Vivian coughed.

  Ell said, “We’re almost to your location which looks to be someone’s rural home. Cough once if you think they’re staying there for the night, twice if they’re moving on. Sniff if you don’t know.”

  Vivian sniffed.

  Abe said, “OK, tie the family up in here, we’re headin’ out.”

  Vivian coughed twice.

  The men dragged the husband into the living room and attached his ankle to a post for the stair railing with plasticuffs. Then they attached the rest of the family to him with more plasticuffs. Abe walked around the periphery studying what they might be able to reach if they all stretched out. He decided they couldn’t reach anything to free themselves or contact the authorities.

  As Abe’s group guided Vivian out the door to the car, Abe turned to Vivian and said, “I’m not a monster you know. It would be safer for us to kill those people. But I have nothing against them. I�
��ll even call in a day or so to make sure someone rescues them. It’s just that… this technology of Donsaii’s that your company is making… it’s too dangerous. It should never have been released. Your government should never have permitted it.” This last he said quietly but vehemently. He held the car door open for her, then got in beside her. To the driver he said, “Continue toward site QR, stay on back roads.” He turned back to Vivian, “However, now that you have loosed this monstrous technology on the world, I must make sure that my people have access to the most advanced portals and the weaponry that can be created with them.”

  “Who are your ‘people’?”

  “Ah, that I will not tell you. And, if we are captured, they will deny knowing we even exist. My people cannot afford to wake the slumbering giant.”

  “Slumbering giant?”

  “America,” he said darkly.

  In her ear Vivian heard Ell say, “Viv, keep your mouth open so we can hear what’s going on better.”

  Vivian parted her lips. The car pulled out onto the road and accelerated rapidly.

  ***

  Ell ground her teeth in frustration. Randy had just pulled over to the side of the road, barely in view of the house that Vivian had been in. But then Vivian had coughed twice and Ell’s plan to approach the house had been aborted. Minutes later the abductors had left the house and gotten in a sedan out front. Ell wondered where the truck was but then thought she saw a fender behind the back corner of the house. It was hard to tell in the moonlight.

  As the car pulled out on the road Ell said, “Follow th K >

  A moment passed in which Randy did nothing. “Randy?”

  He turned to her. “We want to follow them from out of sight; we’ve got them on GPS after all.”

  Ell narrowed her eyes, considering. “Don’t we want them running? Maybe they’d make a mistake.”

  Randy shrugged, “Running in a car, the mistake they’d be likely to make would be to get in a wreck. We are trying to keep Ms. Varka alive, right?”

  “Yeah,” Ell sighed, “but it really grates on me to sit here doing nothing.”

  Randy grinned, “Welcome to my world.”

  Ell grunted, “You mean that sitting around waiting for me to step in some pooh isn’t exciting enough for you?”

  “My job is 99.99% utter boredom and a tenth of a percent sheer terror.” He pulled the car onto the road and brought it up to speed. Behind them they saw flashing red and blue lights. Ell turned and watched out the back as four police cars pulled up in front of the house they’d just left.

  Ell said, “Steve, the cops are arriving at the house Vivian was held at, but she’s gone now. Did you tell them that she’s been taken away from there?”

  “I thought you wanted the cops a little bit out of the loop since they fired at the truck? Besides, from listening to Vivian’s audio track I had the impression that they left the family from the house tied up in there and one of them had been injured. I thought it would be good for the police to find them and send for help.”

  “Um, yeah, good thinking.”

  “We’re about a half mile behind you, planning to stay spaced out so we don’t all come up on the kidnappers in a big group and make them nervous.”

  ***

  The car rolled through the night, occasionally encountering other vehicles. At first Vivian hoped for rescue with every set of headlights. The entire car got tense when a set of headlights overtook them from the rear but when it passed it looked to have been a couple of teenagers in a pickup truck. It careened by; completely unaware of the unholstered guns in the car beside it.

  Eventually ennui and tiredness set in and Vivian considered letting herself fall asleep. Instead, she turned to Abe. “Where are we going?”

  He examined her amusedly out of the corner of his eye.

  After a bit she said, “You know, if you just left us alone, we’re already doing most of what you’re hoping we’ll do.”

  Abe raised an eyebrow.

  “You know… to keep the ports from being used as weapons.”

  He eyed her dubiously.

  “No, really. On the one hand you complain that they’re dangerous. On the other you’re concerned because you can’t get them to do some Km tng other lethal things that you want them to do. That’s because we’re worried about the same things you are.”

  Abe grunted, “Go on.”

  “So we don’t sell ports that will travel fast enough for military rockets, except to those who are building space vehicles. We’re phasing out the sale of moving ports that will transport flammables. They’re monitored for transport of toxins.”

  His eyebrows rose, “You mean all that’s on purpose?”

  She nodded.

  He said, “Well, good for you. But you can understand of course, that we can’t let your military have this kind of tech when ours does not.”

  Vivian narrowed her eyes, “We don’t sell this stuff to our own military either, and I’m not going to help you figure out how to do it for yours.”

  He gave her a sad look. “You have no idea just how persuasive we can be.”

  She narrowed her eyes, “I’ll kill myself.”

  He put a hand on her arm and as if sympathetic, said, “Then we would kill every member of your family that we can find. Until then, we’ll just kill them one at a time if we think you aren’t helping us like you should.”

  Vivian jerked her hand back and stared at him in horror, “You… are a monster.”

  Grimly, “I do what I must for my people. A few deaths in your family can hardly compare to millions of my peoples dying for the lack of your technology.” As unaffected as if they’d been discussing the weather, he leaned forward and addressed the driver. “We’re close enough. Let’s find a house where we can get some rest and get another car. Then in the morning you can take this car on down to check site QR and be sure it’s clear before the rest of us approach it.”

  About ten minutes later they bumped off the road to a double wide “manufactured” house with a quad cab pickup truck out front. Once again everyone got out but the driver. He pulled the sedan around behind the house. They peremptorily kicked the door of the home in. Vivian waited on the porch with Abe until one of the other men returned and said, “Clear.”

  As they escorted Vivian inside she saw another wide eyed family of four, this time with two teenage sons. They were all plasticuffed to one another in the living room. Vivian, a neat freak, was appalled at the disorder in the house. Not that the men had torn it up, just that the people living here appeared to be very messy.

  The men took her to the back bedroom which had a large bed. They told her to get in. Vivian looked askance at the sheets which looked none too clean. Instead of getting in, she pulled the covers up over the sheets and sat down on them. “I’m not sleeping in those sheets.”

  One of them rolled his eyes. “OK, lie down in the middle. We’ll be on both sides of you so you won’t be able to leave without waking us up.”

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom before I can sleep.”

  He got up and looked in the bathroom. “Come ahead.”

  Vivian stepped into the bathroom and started to close the door. He held it open.

  “Come on! There aren’t any windows in here. Are you thinking that I’m going to go through the wall?”

  He shrugged and said, “The door stays open.”

  She pulled her pants down and quickly sat on the toilet, then, despite the tremendous urgency she felt, she held back from actually going. The minutes passed.

  Eventually he turned to look at her and said, “Well?”

  She shrugged and tried to look chagrined, “Shy bladder. I’ve never been able to go with someone else in the room.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes but closed the door.

  Vivian whispered, “Ell?”

  To her great relief she immediately heard Ell’s voice, “Yes?”

  “I’m in the bathroom; I’ve only got a minute to talk.”
>
  “OK, where are you in the house? Relative to the front door, we know where that is.”

  “Uh, we came in and turned left down a hallway. I’m in the last room on the hall, I guess the master bedroom. We’re supposed to be sleeping until morning. I’m going to be on a bed near the back right corner of that end of the house and there’s supposed to be a guard sleeping on each side of me.”

  “OK, we’re going to wait about an hour for folks to fall asleep. Then you’ll hear a helicopter go by. That’s just to provide distracting noise. When you hear it, start breathing through the port on your tooth.”

  “Breathing…?”

  “Yeah, we’ll have opened it to the air back at D5R. It’s small so it’ll be hard to breathe enough through it, but it can be done, I’ve done it with mine. Try it now, close your mouth and try breathing through your mouth, not your nose, the air will go through the port behind your tooth.”

  Wonderingly, Vivian did so and found that she could push and pull air through her tooth. It felt kind of like breathing through a small straw.

  Ell said, “We’re going to gas the folks in the place and they’ll fall asleep, then we’ll come in and get you.”

  Vivian frowned in concentration, “How are you going to gas them?”

  “Worry about that later, first I’m going to…”

  Joe yelled through the bathroom door, “Are you done?!”

  “Just about.” Vivian flushed the toilet and turned on the water in the sink.

  <3emem">The door opened behind her and Joe looked in. “Jeez, come on!”

  Vivian slowly walked to the bed and lay down stiffly on her back next to the kidnapper whose name she hadn’t learned. She wondered what else Ell had been about to tell her? She’d been lying there about two minutes, wondering at how tired she felt, yet thinking she couldn’t possibly fall asleep. Then she heard Ell’s voice again. “Viv, cough if you think it’s OK for me to talk to you now.”