Free The Hunt for Pierre Jnr by David M. Henley Page B

answer.’
     
    ‘It so often is though. Much as we like to deny it — with these clothes, and rights, and tech — we are only animals, and sometimes animals have to be put down.’
     
    ‘That’s a harsh way of looking at it.’
     
    ‘It’s a harsh world.’
     
    ‘We don’t even know what he is.’
     
    ‘True enough, but we know some of what he is capable of.’
     
    ‘Capability is not a crime.’
     
    ‘I think I see where you stand, Pete. Thank you, I needed to know.’
     
    ‘You did, or Services did?’
     
    ‘There is no difference.’
     
    ‘And now we find ourselves returned to where we started.’ Pete stared hard at the Colonel, who stared only into his glass, thinking about the past. ‘Anyway, I had presumed Tamsin will take over once we have found him.’
     
    ‘Yes. She will hide and then provoke him. Our first move against an unfamiliar opponent is always a push, to see how he responds.’
     
    ‘You see, we start in opposition.’
     
    ‘Peter, what are you hoping for?’ Pinter put down his glass. ‘You saw what he did at the school and the farm ... to his parents. Are you hoping to reason with him?’
     
    ‘No, I just — I don’t understand him.’
     
    The Colonel had no answer that would help, and Pete sat there limply. ‘I think it is time we called it a night,’ Pinter suggested.
     
    Pete could see the Colonel wasn’t as bothered by the discussion as he was, and this only angered him more. ‘Yes. Alright. Goodnight, Colonel.’
     
    ‘Goodnight, Pete.’  And think about what I said.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    When pollution and climate change deformed the planet to a state where humans could hardly breathe without apparatus and the weather turned vicious, giant arches and cupolas of translucent plastic were hastily erected over buildings, communities and cities, and eventually grew into the greater domes that covered a continuous portion of the Eurasia continent, extending as close as is feasible to the Siberian Terminus and south toward the equator, to where the elevator rose into the stratosphere, a taut cable taking the intrepid and the desperate to the first staging point of their journeys.
     
    Civilisation builds on the past, and this was especially true for the Dome. Now, as the world was becoming breathable again, the tops of the domes were becoming the new fashionable locales for people to experience a natural breeze, with fine-weather cafés and eateries appearing in the more sheltered crevices and nooks, following the pattern of the resilient and adventurous flora that had also begun to colonise this new level.
     
    Squib traffic was kept to a minimum under the Dome, to protect the preservation area; just Services vehicles and the odd exception. Most transport was conducted by train, sky-rail and ground vehicles. It was never entirely dark in the Dome. The light of the cities below was bent and reflected so there was always a dulling of complete dark.
     
    They’d left the west coast at dawn and been in the air for about an hour when, all of a sudden, the cabin bristled with alert silence. The armsmen in the rear paused their chatting and weapons checks and straightened their backs. The Colonel and Geof closed their eyes while Tamsin stared straight ahead at nothing.
     
    ‘Geof, what is happening?’ Pete whispered.
     
    ‘We’re getting orders, Pete. We have movement on a possible target.’
     
    ‘Pierre?’
     
    ‘It looks like it. We’re tracking a siphon slow-cruising through trad-Paris. We have surveillance gaps and people breaking off from the Weave.’
     
    ‘So soon.’ Pete breathed out. ‘What’s he doing here?’
     
    ‘We don’t know it’s him yet, Pete. It could be a hakka.’
     
    Maybe he’s just after information,  Tamsin thought.
     
    What sort?
     
    It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? Pierre has been travelling the world brain-tapping in a pattern we can’t identify. It could be he’s just scouting.
     
    Learning?  Pete