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Three
“Dodgson,” Alice said into the greenery. “How do I find a Jabberwock?”
Her cochlear implant chimed. “You don’t,” said the ship. “The Jabberwock finds you.”
“Perfect,” said Alice. “Thank you. You’ve been quite helpful.”
The artificial intelligence mumbled something unintelligible, but Alice ignored him and kept walking. It was a beautiful planet.
“Dodgson. Tell me why this world is called Crispin’s Menagerie again.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
“Oh, very well,” said the AI.
She had heard the story on route, but she needed her ship’s host intelligence to stop verbally fretting with worry over her safety, and telling a good story always helped calm its ersatz nerves. Dodgson made up for being a worry wort by also being an insufferable know-it-all, and Alice had learned long ago to use this to her advantage.
Crispin’s Menagerie had been one of the first worlds terraformed and colonized by the Multiplicity, before the Red Queen, before Looking Glass travel. Its planetary administrator had been a stern yet melancholy man named Acer Crispin, and he had managed to establish a near dictatorship on the small yet biologically rich moon. Refusing to grow new Earth animals from the genetic stock aboard their seedship, Crispin instead commissioned the best geneticists and DNArtists they had available to build unique animals. People would come from all over the Multiplicity to gawk and marvel at these creatures. Or so Crispin thought. His little empire fell to mismanagement and his own incompetence, and after several attempts on his life, Crispin supposedly left the planet forever. It was abandoned a few years later by everyone else, having been overrun by Crispin’s mad creations. They had been left here ever since to evolve on their own, leading to a series of mutations that eventually led to the arrival of the Jabberwock that Alice had been sent to kill.
Alice looked around, gripping her pulse rifle tightly. She took a deep, steadying breath. She had trained her whole life for this moment. She was expert in four martial arts styles and was armed to the teeth. If she wasn’t ready now, she never would be. “All right, Jabberwock. Come out, come out wherever you are.”
She moved through the dense jungle, alien scents coming through her osmosis mask. She realized suddenly that she didn’t even know what a Jabberwock looked like, though in the end she supposed it probably didn’t matter. She had heard enough stories to give her nightmares for the rest of her life. She didn’t need a concrete image to make things even worse.
Alice walked without making much noise. Her stealth suit masked her bio signature. With luck, she would see the Jabberwock, whatever it was, before it saw her. With luck. Miss Cheshire always said that a resourceful girl makes her own luck, without telling any of them how such a thing was done.
Alice heard voices coming from up ahead. Human voices, speaking Standard. Were they hunting for the Jabberwock too?
“Dodgson,” she subvocalized to her ship. “I”m not alone here.”
“Scanning,” said the ship’s AI. “Hold please.”
Alice crept forward through the feathery jungle to try and get a better visual. Ahead was a narrow clearing dominated by a few of the spindly tree-forms. Four men stood around, clad in heavy black armor bearing the sigils of one of the Reaver clans. Alice sneered. “Reavers,” she whispered.
“That’s not good,” said Dodgson. “I’m reading four bio signatures other than yours, and they have a hopper nearby and a larger ship in orbit. I don’t think they’ve detected me yet, and they certainly don’t have eyes on you.”
“I’d like to keep it that way,” said Alice. “What the hell are they doing here?”
“You want my hypothesis? This world is known for its genetic diversity, and is visited often by black market gene splicers and DNArtists. Perhaps one of them paid the Reavers to come and take some samples.”
“Which means they are hunting Jabberwock,” whispered Alice.
“Precisely.”
“Great. This is all I need. Well, everything’s a test, right?” Alice wondered if Miss Cheshire had hired the Reavers, just to mess with her. She watched them from the brush. They spoke in deep, gruff guttural tones. She couldn’t place their accents. They were heavily armored and well-armed. Better armed than her.
It’s like Miss Cheshire always said, nothing worth doing is ever easy.
Alice heard a rumbling coming from the other side of the clearing, and a pair of bright lights appeared. The Reavers noticed too and moved to either side of the clearing to get out of the way as a black-armored vehicle hove into view, its tank treads bringing it to a stop. Alice repositioned herself so she could hear what was going on.
“About fucking time,” said the dark-haired Reaver. Alice got the impression he was in charge.
A hatch slid open and a sweaty, annoyed looking man in a gray coverall, no armor, climbed halfway out to glare at the man. His bald head was covered in a swirl of tattoos and an implant glittered over his right ear, minute telltales winking in the night-time gloom. “It wasn’t my fault, Sarge. The damn interface again. Whoever stowed it for transport didn’t follow protocol.”
“Why don’t you just admit you can’t drive that thing worth shit, Razor,” said the blond.
The dark-haired man, the one baldy had just called Sarge, ran around the front of the vehicle. “Hey! Knock it off. You gits are scaring away the game. I don’t care who did what. We’ve got a job to do. Does that compile?”
The other three gave him half-hearted salutes.
“You got a heading on our prey?” Sarge asked Baldy, who nodded. “Got a blip just four clicks northeast.”
Sarge pounded the hood of the vehicle. “Then mount up.”
Everyone climbed inside, and the armored vehicle started up again. Alice darted from the cover of the brush and ran toward the retreating Reavers, mentally activating the van der Walls settings in her gloves and boots as she leapt onto the rear of the vehicle and held fast.
“Are you actually following the Reavers?” asked Dodgson in her ear.
“Yes,” Alice said, panting. “Might make it easier to find the Jabberwock.”
The Reaver’s armored transport came to a stop in a field full of low, feathery growths. Sarge climbed out, sitting on the door frame and scanning the area with thermal binoculars. Alice detached herself from the vehicle and ducked quietly into the nearest undergrowth. As she watched the Reavers work, she wondered what kind of equipment they had for detecting bio signatures. She had been given no such tools in her final quest for Wonderland, and she scowled angrily at them. To her it felt like they were cheating, and she resented her jealousy of them. She wondered who had sent them. Reavers were mercenaries, showing loyalty to no one but the highest bidder. Such information might prove valuable to her. Perhaps she could offer their employer her own services as an assassin.
Don’t be hasty, she remembered Miss Cheshire saying. She wasn’t a full-fledged assassin yet. First she had to survive this final test. If the Jabberwock or the Reavers didn’t kill or, then she could worry about it.
“I’m detecting movement five hundred yards ahead of your position,” said Dodgson.
Alice nodded. She moved as quickly and quietly as she could to a position just to the left of the Reaver transport, while still remaining under the cover of the tree analogues that ringed the field. The Reavers hadn’t yet noticed her, being too preoccupied with whatever their sensors told them was coming. They shouldered their weapons, peering through their scopes at the field ahead.
Alice crouched and watched. After several minutes, the thick fronds of vegetation that covered the field began to sway and rustle, like something was moving through it. Something large and invisible.
Baldy leaned out the transport’s window a little to far, losing his hold and falling to the ground with a thud. His weapon hissed, sending a tranq bolt into a nearby tree analogue. The thrashing from the invisible Jabberwock stopped.
“Razor, you fucking idiot!” said Sarge in a whisper. Alice barely stifled a giggle.
The Jabberwock shimmered into solidity, a huge thing that stood on two thick hind legs. A long, spike-tipped tale thrashed behind it. Its small forelimbs ended in two three-fingered hands armed with enormous claws, and a pair of useless, vestigial wings jutted from its spine-covered back. It looked at the Reavers with its huge yellow, bulbous eyes and gave a mighty bellowing roar before charging toward them, disappearing again after it had taken two steps.
“Go, go go!” Sarge yelled as Razor climbed back into the transport and turned the vehicle to the left. Before it could get very far, the transport suddenly flipped over sideways, rolling three times before coming to a stop. One of the Reavers popped out from a hatch in the transport’s roof and started firing, filling the air with a small cloud of tranq darts. It reminded Alice of the razorflies on Wonderland.
None of them appeared to hit their mark, a fact which was confirmed when a large dent appeared in the front of the transport and it was flung sideways as if from a giant invisible hand. The Reavers jumped out then, wearing thermal goggles and taking careful aim at several spots high above them. The Jabberwock shimmered into existence for a moment, long enough to have a volley of tranqs fired its way, then was gone once more.
“It’s playing with them,” Alice whispered. “Like a child plays with its dinner.”
Sarge scowled as he reloaded. A branch wiggled, and he put a tranq into it.
“Bitch is faster than it looks,” said Razor.
“You’re slower than you look,” quipped the big blond.
“Fuck you, Plex.”
“Shut up, both of you,” said Sarge. “Before I put in a live round and end you both. Look out!”
All four Reavers were swept off their feet, scattered like leaves on the wind. A wheezing guffaw filled the air. Laughter?
“The Jabberwock isn’t playing with its food,” said Alice. “It’s just playing.”
“Get that sonofabitch!” Sarge shouted, regaining his feet as soon as he fell.
“Where the hell is it?” said Razor. “I’m not even getting it on the thermals.”
Sarge pulled off his thermal goggles and tossed them to the ground. “Check your scopes. Full EM band.”
“There it is!” said Plex. “Holy shit! He’s coming right at us.”
The Reavers took aim and fired, their tranqs clearly hitting something. The Jabberwock shimmered into visibility as it charged them. It slowed to a drunken stagger as the tranqs struck home, but it still had enough momentum to do plenty of damage when it slammed into the transport.
Razor got the lumbering vehicle out of the way just in time to avoid being squashed as the creature charged the spot the vehicle had been before falling face first into the ground with a bone-shaking thud.
The Reaver transport moved alongside the beast and stopped, everyone climbing out cautiously, their weapons trained on the beast. It flickered in and out of the existence before becoming fully visible.
“That wasn’t so hard,” said Razor.
The others scowled at him as they hopped from the transport to inspect their prize. “How long will he be out?” asked Sarge.
“I have no fucking idea,” said Razor. “I’ve never had to sedate a Jabberwock before.”
Sarge heaved a heavy sigh. “We’d best get him loaded get the hell out of here then, before any of his friends show up.”
“There are more of these things?” said Plex, eying the tree line warily.
“Sarge shrugged. “Who knows? But I don’t want to stick around long enough to find out. Do you? Let’s get moving.”
The Reavers moved around toward the rear of the vehicle as the back of it yawned open like the mouth of some prehistoric apex predator. Alice couldn’t tell what they were doing, so she moved to get a better view.
Her foot stepped on a branch, snapping it loud enough to get the Reavers’ attention.
Shit.
Alice crouched lower in the brush. But it was too late. The Reavers scanned the area with their EM goggles.
“Got it,” said Plex, opening up with his rail rifle. It wasn’t tranq projectiles that zipped through the brush around Alice, shredding the feathery growths she used as a hiding place.
Alice rolled from her cover, leaping into a run. Pneumatics in her suit accelerated her forward at tremendous speed. The Reavers would see nothing but a black blur. Alice unloaded her pulse pistol at the Reavers as she went past, sending them scattering.
“Dodgson, prep the ship,” she whispered, panting. This was one final exam she had failed. Nothing to do now but bug out and hope Miss Cheshire would bestow a rare dose of mercy.
The Reavers returned fire. Alice felt clouds of tiny, hot needles slice right by her. Then something stung the back of her neck. She was still alive, but her legs turned to jelly. A tranq.
The sky went syrupy. She lost contact with her legs. Then her arms. Her armor felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. The green-hewed ground flew up to swat her. Then everything faded to black.
popped out of various hatches in their transport, large guns trained on the area in front of them. They were also wearing thermal goggles.
Alice switched her sight over to infrared and saw it, a huge, lumbering creature. Even as a false color smear it was repulsive. It reached the height of the nearest treetops, and had two long, slender arms ending in lethal-looking talons. A pair of vestigial wings adorned its narrow back, and a spade-like tail swept from side to side behind him, thrashing at the undergrowth.
“Remember,” Alice heard the Sarge say. “We need that thing alive. A dead Jabberwock means we don’t get paid.”
“Copy that,” said Baldy.
Alice realized their weapons were loaded with tranqs. While she was there to kill the Jabberwock, the Reavers only wanted to capture it alive. If even half of what she’d been told about the Jabberwock was true, they were going to have their hands full in the attempt. Alice grinned, crouching lower in the dense brush. She’d watch them try. And when the Jabberwock had killed and devoured them, she’d get her chance. Maybe this was another test, a test of her patience. Maybe Miss Cheshire had hired the Reavers to screw with her after all.
The air around the Jabberwock shimmered like heat haze, and the ugly behemoth became partially visible for a moment as it roared at the Reavers before vanishing and crashing through the tree analogues at the far end of the clearing. The Reavers disappeared back into their vehicle and gave chase, the heavily armored thing bouncing through the tangled growth toward it. Alice grimaced and ran after them, pistons in her suit accelerating her toward them. She mirrored her suit, reflecting the surrounding jungle off her lithe frame. The Reavers might see her, but she would make sure they wouldn’t see her twice.
“I do wish you’d be more sensible,” said Dodgson in her ear.
“There is nothing about this entire outing that has been sensible,” Alice replied. “ and the Reavers to capture.
“Thanks for the history lesson,” Alice said, panting as she crested a hill. Less than a hundred yards ahead was the Reaver transport, now sitting idle as its occupants had exited and fanned out in search of their invisible prize. Alice shifted her vision over to the infrared part of the spectrum and followed.
She had no idea what she was going to do next. They outnumbered her, and even though they were shooting tranqs they were more heavily armed. But they had led her to the Jabberwock, and that was her mission, her final test. Miss Cheshire never promised Alice it would be an easy kill, though she never expected this. It was still her hope that the lumbering beast would slaughter them, maybe get dosed just enough to be groggy enough so she could kill it and get out of here. She only needed one of its talons as proof she’d bagged it. A DNA analysis would prove it came from the Jabberwock.
