I woke up in a luxurious office, lying on a sofa covered with real leather set against a wall full of real books. The ceiling was covered with wood tiles that gave the whole room an air of extravagance and wealth. Turning my head to the side I made out two thick, plush chairs facing a huge mahogany desk.
“Welcome, Miss Duval. I’m so sorry we had to meet this way, but I really didn’t have time to travel to Chattanooga to speak with you. I fear my associates were a little–over zealous in inviting you to visit.”
I sat up and swung my feet down to the floor, discovering my shoes had been placed neatly to the side so they wouldn’t harm the soft leather of the sofa. I looked at the man behind the desk. A man of power, he was. Used to having his way and not willing to accept excuses. I’d seen men like him before. Immediately, I didn’t like him.
“You could have just asked, you know,” I responded. “You didn’t have to kidnap me.”
“Of course,” he replied. “But then you might have refused, might you not?”
“That depends on how the invitation is delivered. Right now I think I want to go back home without hearing whatever offer you have to make. I also expect your answer to be ‘no.’”
“Very astute, Miss Duval. Again, please forgive the manner of your arrival. I truly hope you will understand once we’ve become acquainted.”
“Since I’m already here and not all that likely to leave of my own accord, do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do. You will have a choice as long as you choose to remain here.” He rose from the overstuffed executive chair and glided over to a credenza topped with a selection of cut glass decanters. Taking a glass in hand, he poured a small amount of darkly-amber liquid into it and carried it over to me. “Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you, Monsieur. I prefer to know with whom I am drinking.”
“As you wish.” He took a sip from the glass.
“My name is Edward Coluber. As you can see, I am both a businessman and a scientist. All these books pertain to my studies in alien power sources–specifically the ones that powered the spacecraft that heralded the Bloody Years. I have been researching the means to acquire and use this power for the betterment of mankind. I was fortunate, last year, in obtaining a functioning model of one of these drives. Regretfully, the rightful owner of the drive disputed my claim to salvage and has engendered some support in his efforts to reclaim the unit; something I cannot and will not permit.”
“And how does this pertain moi?”
“Don’t be simple, Miss Duval, I know who and what you are. It wasn’t easy to trace you back to Provence, but enough people have seen you and enough has happened in your wake that you are obvious to anyone who bothers to look.”
“What mean you?”
“Do I have to piece it together for you? Very well.
“One: A group of mutant-haters are reportedly killed by a big cat in a mountain villa just north of the Côte d’Azur.
“Two: A single survivor, a sixteen-year-old girl is found by her step-brother in their home the next morning, despite her step-father’s car still parked at the cabin.
“Three: This same girl almost immediately disappears.
“Four: Strange sightings of a big cat, possibly a tiger, are reported around Paris.
“Five: These sightings end at about the time one Antoinette Duval convinces an American businessman to pay for her flight to the United States as his companion. Shall I go further?”
“You’re telling me that I am the Beast?”
“Don’t you think it’s obvious, Miss Duval? Oh, there are some gaps, but always I was able to recover your trail by just watching for strange sightings and unexplained livestock kills. I almost lost you when you hooked up with Roger Drake–for almost three months there were no sightings of the cat and you managed to remain relatively unnoticed yourself until he killed himself in that crash. I might have lost you completely if he hadn’t left you alone to foster the kids. Still, you moved on quickly enough and I was able to trace you again.”
“If you know so much about me, why did you wait so long to kidnap me?”
“I had to be sure, Miss Duval. You see, my closest associates are EPs, just like yourself. Each of them has a different ability, and each is wanted by FORCE. When you settled in Chattanooga, I had to contact some friends in Cartel and have you watched. While I waited, I followed your back trail to see if you’d ever had any contact with FORCE. Your tryst with that FORCE deputy in Haslet, Texas, almost convinced me to ignore you. Settling down in Chattanooga, with that FORCE base just outside of the city didn’t help either.”
“There’s a FORCE base there?”
“Hrrumph! They try to keep it secret, but even a little observation can tell you they have one there. There’s too much anti-mutant activity in the region for them to ignore and there’s just too much FORCE air traffic around the city. The only thing I haven’t discovered yet is exactly where they’ve hidden the base. At one point I thought they’d hidden it in the industrial park that was once an ammunition plant, but all I’ve been able to discover is that Todd Dumarest has one of his electronics plants there and that at least some of the FORCE activity is due to the systems he designs for them. Security is so tight there that I haven’t been able to get anyone to infiltrate into the place. Everyone that’s tried has simply–disappeared.”
“But that means it could still be their base, no?”
“No. The only vehicles I ever see going into or out of that place are either light aircars or heavy transports; I never see any combat craft of the sort found at all their other bases. Not only that, but I never see any EPs traveling in or out of the plant. I have to assume he has at least one on staff–probably a telepath of some sort–but again, never a combat-capable EP.”
“So you want to hire me to… infiltrate that place.”
“No, Miss Duval. I have a much more important job for you, if you’ll join me.”
“What is that?”
“Allow me to show you.”
He rose from where he sat on the corner of his desk and offered his hand to me. Laying my own on his forearm, I stood and slipped my feet into my shoes. Opening the door, he led me into a corridor carved from raw stone, smooth but not polished, almost as though burned through the bedrock and finished with a millstone. Turning to his right, he led me towards a large double door pierced by small, wire-reinforced windows a little above my head. I couldn’t see much, but the area beyond looked high-ceilinged and large. Pushing the doors open, we stepped out onto a walkway about three meters above a finished concrete floor in a circular chamber about 50 meters across. The roughly-polished granite walls rose about another three meters above the walkway, giving way to rough, dark stone maybe another twenty meters to the ceiling.
Raising a comm unit to his lips, he spoke. “Vengeance, grab a few of the crew and bring them into the atrium. I want you to meet our guest.”
“Right away, boss. You know some of the guys are out, don’t you?” The voice from the tiny speaker sounded almost like a rock grinder in its depth.
“I know. She’ll meet them after they return.”
“Right.”
A moment later, a big man walked into the circular chamber from behind a wall of rock. I’d never seen anyone so large. In one hand he carried a barbell with at least three heavy plates on each end. His other hand gestured as he spoke to two women and a second man, all wearing garish costumes as they approached. The big man quickly revealed himself as the one called Vengeance as he reported to his boss.
“I brought Lumen and Pnumata along, boss. The little guy decided to follow on his own.”
“She doesn’t like you, Blacksnake,” the other male added. “She doesn’t like me, either. She thinks my costume is ugly.”
“I don’t like your costume either, Spectre, but that doesn’t keep me from paying you, does it?”
“No, sir. But I think you’re making a mistake if you hire her. She doesn’t know how to control her ‘Beast.’”
“Hmmm… that could be a problem at that.” He turned to me. “Given your history since you left France, I thought you had some control of the cat. If you can’t control it, I’m not sure we could use you. I really don’t have time to train a mutant in how to use their powers and I certainly don’t need a loose cannon pointing a finger at my hideout.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Duval. It seems I made an error in judgement. Vengeance? Spectre? You know what to do. Let Death Touch know he has another plaything waiting for him.” With that, he turned and walked back through the steel doors, latching them securely behind him.
