Alan Foster: Cyber Way

That was when the graduate student came running in. She rested one palm on her sternum as though it could somehow pump extra air to her lungs. Her expression was wild.

“I think—I think somebody better come with me.”

The corporal tried to calm her. “What’s the matter, miss?”

She was trying to speak and swallow at the same time.

“I—found a man near where I was working. I think he’s dead.”

The corporal glanced at Moody. “Want to check this out?”

Moody ignored the sarcasm. “Be right behind you. Oh, and can my friend and I get a couple of those tasers?”

The tiny armory was opened and weapons removed from their chargers. Thus additionally armed, the three officers followed the student to an elevator.

“You sure he’s dead?” the NDPS man asked the girl as they descended.

“I think so. I’m pretty sure.”

Moody thought she was handling herself well. Where the devil was Grayhills?

They found the corpse of the security guard outside a maintenance alcove on the lowest level of the complex. As the graduate student simultaneously hung back and tried to see, the three officers clustered around the body. Moody was “pretty sure” he was dead, too. His head lay bent at an unnatural angle and his throat had been tom out. Ooljee bent to examine the wound, cursing softly in Navaho, while Moody held tight to the taser. He didn’t like tight places and he didn’t like being below ground.

Ooljee carefully pried the gun from the dead man’s fingers and removed the clip. He held it up so everyone could see. “Empty. Barrel’s still hot.” He eyed the shadows and the dark places between pipes and tubes uneasily. “This didn’t do him any good.”

“Any ideas?” Moody asked the corporal.

“The guard said he was attacked by a coyote. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.” The detective looked over at his partner. “How in hades do coyotes fit into this?”

“Who can say?” Ooljee straightened. “According to legend, all things, all creatures, have some power and can be controlled with the right chant. If this was done by a coyote, then something new has been added to the equation.”

“Are you trying to tell me,” Moody sputtered, “that our buddy Gaggii has learned how to hypnotize a bunch of coyotes into doing his dirty work for him?”

“We do not yet know for certain that Gaggii is involved in this.” Ooljee gestured at the body. “But I believe I can be excused for thinking of him whenever anything unnatural happens, and this is certainly unnatural. Draw your own suppositions from what you see, my friend. All I am saying is that someone who can produce a manifestation of Endless

Snake”—the corporal looked at him sharply— “might not find it impossible to manipulate a few animals.”

“Yeah. But that snake-thing wasn’t a real animal. It was a manifestation, like you said. Something from out of the web. Maybe our ‘coyotes’ are more closely related to it than to Lassie. And if that’s the case, maybe it’s why this works on them”—he held up the taser—“and bullets don’t.”

Ooljee considered. “Our guns were useless against the snake-thing. Shells passed right through it.” He drew his own taser, eyed it thoughtfully.

“This delivers a violent electric charge. Enough to kill a real coyote—or disrupt a circumscribed electromagnetic field?” He looked at the corporal. “I think it would be a good idea to issue tasers to all your people.”

At that moment the howling began, a single high-pitched, mournful wail ending in laughter. It sounded like a human trying to imitate a coyote, which is just what a coyote sounds like.

The song was picked up by another throat, then another, and another, until the depths of the complex resounded with the diabolic chorus. The four humans drew together for protection, the terrified graduate student huddling close to Moody’s protective bulk.

“He’s inside the building,” Moody insisted, trying to see everywhere at once. “I don’t give a hound’s dump what anybody says about monitors and alarms, he’s in here somewhere.”

“Who is?” The corporal studiously avoided looking at the body at their feet.

“The guy we’re after. Gaggii.” He glanced at his partner. “The web was right. This was where he was headed all along. He just took his time getting here.” The awful howling echoed around them. “That’s a helluva noise for a ‘circumscribed electrical field’ to make.”

“Maybe it is not him.” The corporal sounded more hopeful than convinced.

“Sure,” said Moody tersely as they moved in a body toward the elevator. “A pack of rabid coyotes having nothing better to do just decided to invade the only particle accelerator in Northern Arizona and rip out the throats of the people working there. Or maybe they want to enroll.”

“Coyotes,” Ooljee pointed out, “are very unpredictable.”

Moody shot him a look. “So is Navaho humor.” He was greatly relieved when they finally reached the elevator.

The door slid aside. The girl moved to enter, stopped and screamed. There followed a mad moment of intense confusion, panic, and firing. But the guard had told the truth. The tasers worked. When hit with them, the canine shapes vanished in showers of coruscating sparks.

The howling reverberated throughout the complex, wild and unabated.

Ooljee looked at his partner as the four humans crowded into the elevator. “Did you see their eyes?”

Moody studied the ceiling. He was breathing hard. “Man, all I saw were their teeth.”

“They were not natural. They glowed. There was something there besides coyote life.”

“What is it?” The poor graduate student held her fingers steepled below her lips. “What’s going on?”

“A bad dream,” Moody told her.

The howling was as loud at ground level as it had been below. Security was beset by confusion if not outright panic as techies and officers bustled about, wondering what to do.

The arrivals from the basement tried to fill them in. Tasers were issued to as many people as possible, with explanations being put off for another time. Nonessential personnel were evacuated from the building.

Samantha Grayhills was there to greet them. While Ooljee tried to explain what was happening, Moody stalked over

to the monitor wall and addressed the operator in charge.

“Anybody sees our man, they shoot him on sight, understand? That’s the order. We’ve got another murder victim downstairs and we can’t play games, no matter how much I’d like to question him.”

The operator was a solid, prosaic woman in her forties, but she looked shaken. “Can you tell us what is going on? Has every coyote on the plateau gone crazy?”

“I don’t think these coyotes are from around here.” Moody left her more confused than ever.

Ooljee had overheard. As Moody rejoined him he said, “You may be more right than you realize. They are yei-tsos. Evil beings. They do not even die like coyotes.” Moody gazed at the corridor. People were rushing to and fro, some of them to take up assigned positions, others hurrying to get out of the building.

“Whatever they are, he’s controlling them somehow. We’re not gonna find out how until we find him.”

“Yei-tsos.” Samantha Grayhills said the word several times, as if repetition might add reality, might make it a part of the real world.

Behind them the monitor operations supervisor uttered an exclamation of disbelief. Moody rushed to lean over her shoulder.

“What now?”

“Look at this! This is crazy.” Techies and security personnel crowded around.

The accelerator was coming on line.

One of the techs mirrored her astonishment. “There aren’t any experiments scheduled until next week.”