Hunted

By Terry Agold

D’Alene slipped into the still, dark water, quivering. She hoped her trembling wouldn’t betray her hiding place as she sent ripples out like a beacon. Her eyes darted toward every sound as she fought to keep her breathing under control.

In the distance, her pursuer swept his pulse gun everywhere his gaze landed. Tiny sensors on the weapon scanned for bio-signs. She watched as Kreet inched his way down the docks with sickening thoroughness.

D’Alene blinked in the dim starlight, wishing the soft glow of her eyes would cease just this once, but that would only happen if she were dead. She cursed the experiments that had changed her pupils to catlike slits, and her once-white sclera to freakish, luminescent green. The glow was a side effect, they told her. It would subside in a few days. That had been two years ago.

Volunteering for medical studies seemed great at first. Vols got better food, more time outside their cells, and less punishing work assignments than the others. But all the perks came with a price.

She could see the infrared beams of Kreet’s pulse gun sensors, invisible to the rest of humanity, swinging in perfect time like a deadly metronome as he carefully approached her hiding place. She squinted to mask her eyes’ telltale green glow, fully aware that the tracker’s weapon could detect the slightest glint from the bioluminescent marker tissue embedded in them.

She waited. The timing would be close. She could hear his methodical footsteps echoing off the dockside warehouses. His body heat stood out in stark contrast to the cool, night air. She drew a long, slow breath.

Now!

D’Alene closed her eyes and eased completely beneath the surface. She could still taste the foul harbor air in that last breath as she swam blindly toward a nearby pier. She would have to hold onto something to stay submerged long enough for Kreet to pass without spotting her.

Her fingers finally brushed a barnacle-encrusted piling, and with one last kick she was safe. For the moment.

A minute crawled by, interminable. Her heartbeat pounded faster and harder in her ears, using up more precious oxygen with each moment.

Two minutes. She hugged the piling tightly. Razor-sharp barnacles dug into her skin as her oxygen-starved muscles began to spasm. Images of circling sharks flooded her mind. She couldn’t risk opening her eyes to see if Kreet was gone.

Bubbles escaped her mouth as she fought an involuntary cough. She squeezed the piling even tighter, driving the barnacles deeper into her flesh.

I’d rather drown than go back there.

Another cough, and a reflexive gasp sent a slug of cold seawater down her windpipe. Spasms racked her entire body. Something bumped her leg and she expelled her remaining air. She struggled against inhaling until her body could take no more, and black water filled her lungs.

So this is what it’s like to die.

Her eyes opened as she surrendered to the inevitable, but the burning pain she expected didn’t come. Instead, she felt relief. She exhaled, pushing the seawater out of her lungs. She looked around, experimentally taking another breath. Her heart slowed, and the pounding in her head began to subside.

What did they do to me?

D’Alene relaxed her death grip on the piling, but she had shoved hundreds of barnacles so deep into her arms and legs that they wouldn’t move. She winced as she yanked herself away from the piling, leaving a growing trail of blood for fearsome creatures to follow.

Just worry about one predator at a time.

She looked up toward the surface and spotted the silhouette of her warm-blooded pursuer against the cold night sky. He was well past her, and the seed of a plan reached her mind.

D’Alene ascended with tentative breaths, still unsure of her newfound ability. Before surfacing she exhaled completely, not wanting to betray herself with a cough. As her head broke the surface, she automatically narrowed her eyes to minimize the risk of detection.

She took a cautious lungful of air—no urge to cough. Easing out of the water, D’Alene hardly made a sound. Her barnacle wounds stung in the night air. Saltwater and blood trickled into pools at her feet.

She padded down the dock toward Kreet, still sweeping the area looking for her. She crept closer to him, now within a few paces.

Kreet stopped, still facing away from her. He raised his head, as if sniffing the air, then lowered his weapon. “Hello, D’Alene. How was your swim?” He sniffed again. “You’re injured.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How did you…” Then it clicked. Kreet had also been altered. And what better way to enhance a tracker than to give him a bloodhound’s sense of smell? He could identify her by her own unique scent, mingling with the seawater that still dripped from her clothes.

He turned around and raised his pulse weapon. “I have to take you back now.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

Kreet smirked. “You’re not really in a position to stop me.”

Her mind raced. Why hadn’t she gone for a weapon or simply run the other way? How much did he know about her enhancements? She peered at the pulse gun. It had to discharge its energy completely into a human body, which meant that energy should scatter quickly in objects of similar density.

D’Alene smiled. “Actually, I am.”

She lunged across the dock and dove into the dark water.

Kreet fired, but the energy dispersed harmlessly over the surface.

D’Alene sped to the bottom. She jinked sideways in case the pulse weapon was more effective through the water than she had suspected.

Behind her, Kreet continued to fire without effect. She heard his frustrated roar as she kicked out into deeper water.

Don’t worry. You’ll see me again soon enough, when I come back for the others. I promise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry Agold is a Christian, husband, father, son, pilot, motorcyclist, and consumer of strong coffee. By day he works as an engineer building weird airplanes in the desert. By night he writes words and music, usually not at the same time.

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