James Smith - The Flock

Still, even if that unthinkable occurred, Walks Backward was prepared. He would leap in even as the Scarlet sang his victory trill, and he would kill him. He could do it. He would do it. If the battle happened.

But there was a better plan, if only the Mother and Father would do it. The Flock could kill the rogue and be done with it. It was only that the problem member had come from one of their own clutches that prevented them from doing it. They could not quite bring themselves to destroy one of their own young, hideous and twisted though he was. It was a flaw in their emotions that could spell destruction for the entire Flock.

Walks Backward had decided. He would wait for the Sun to come up from the Earth one more time. If, after that, nothing were done, he would insist that a new tune be sung. And if, after he had given sound to his thoughts, nothing were done, he would sing a different song. He would sing a song of death. And if Death would not stalk the Scarlet…well, then it would come for Egg Father, or Walks Backward, whomever of them would prove to be weakest.

For now, though, the call to hunt had come. There was no rogue this night running at the edges of their formation, confusing the youngsters and distracting the adults. Tonight, there would be prey and there would be meat. The Flock flowed out of the palmettos and out of the piney woods. And they gave chase.

Life, for now, was still good.

They had come into his room!

Tim Dodd could, technically speaking, say that they had broken in. If it was Berg Brothers employees, as it must certainly have been, then they owned the property. But it was still an invasion. The fact that they were so suspicious that the studio would break and enter was amazing. That they were so desperate had frightened him.

The thing that had really gotten to him was the laptop. Tim had installed a wonderful security system on his hard drive. An associate at the Inquirer had been one of the top hacks in the underground before he'd grown weary of being chased and had, so to speak, come in out of the cold to a legitimate job with the paper. So Tim had asked him to theft-proof his laptop's hard drive. While the programs his acquaintance had provided could not prevent a truly gifted individual from hacking into it, the attempt would leave a telltale sign behind. The hacker at the office had laid in a set of commands that would bring up an icon on the Windows program-a little screwdriver-if any of the security systems had been breached. At that, all Tim had to do was click on the screwdriver and the system would boot to DOS text and the files that had been tampered with would appear on the screen.

Dodd had hidden the laptop as well as he'd been able when he'd left the room. Of course, before that, he had put the photo files he'd made on disk and had erased them from the hard drive. While a good troubleshooter could unwipe them, he'd first have to crack the security barriers Tim had installed. And that would take time. And, if they ran out of time and had to leave the laptop, Tim would see what had happened as soon as he switched the computer on.

And that was precisely what had occurred.

He had stashed the laptop in the briefcase-sized safety box in the suite. Again, any expert could pick the lock, and someone obviously had. Only this expert had probably had a key and had also been a computer whiz who had worked his way through about half the safeguards the Inquirer's resident hack had put in place. The screwdriver icon had told all. And the experience had frightened Dodd. When he'd unlocked the box to work on the cover letter he was going to be sending out to bidders, his heart had frozen in his chest. Who's been sitting in my chair? Who, indeed.

And that was when he had known that he might be into some trouble. Anyone desperate enough to break and enter might also be desperate enough to go another step further. When you were dealing with a mega-billion dollar corporation, the step was most likely going to be a giant one rather than a baby step. Either way, he didn't relish the idea of being stepped on.

So he had decided that he had to get some corroboration. Who else was likely to know of the existence of something that looked like a dinosaur in the forests around Salutations? Who else had suddenly reappeared at the company's ideal town shortly before Tim had made his discovery? Who had Dodd been following when he'd stumbled upon the creature? The answer, of course, was Ron Riggs. All Dodd had to do was find the man; that had been painlessly simple. The first pass he'd made in revisiting where he'd parked his car at the substation had revealed the Fish amp; Wildlife truck with the government naturalist inside. The rest was simple, with only the added problem of an unknown companion becoming a slight difficulty. But he'd sidestepped that one, too.

Immediately after his talk with Riggs, Dodd had returned to the suite. All along the drive back, through the postcard perfect streets with their manicured lawns and past the rows of flawless homes, he had watched suspiciously for anyone tailing him. Cars with gray-haired wives had turned off going to bridge games. Sedans with young professionals on their way to jobs or meetings in town had dogged his bumper so obviously that he had known he'd had nothing to fear from them. All of them, though, had been targets for his rising paranoia.

He'd pulled into the parking lot of the hotel complex alone. There wasn't even a random auto tailing him, and that had made him feel good. As he'd gone into the lobby, though, he had looked up, and for the first time had seen-really seen-the video cameras tastefully, but conspicuously placed all around the big, central gathering area. It was to make the tourists feel secure. A chill had gripped him, then. These cameras, he had seen. How many were hidden around the lobby? How many were hidden in the halls? How many were concealed in the rooms? His rooms?

As quickly as he could, he had gone back to his suite. But not alone. He'd actually accosted one of the bellboys-a college age youth with short red hair-in the lobby, the only one he'd seen there.

"Excuse me…son?"

The boy had looked up at him, gesturing to his own chest with a white-gloved hand. The hotel had the menial laborers decked out in old-fashioned bellboy uniforms, and the doormen looked like decorated soldiers.

"Yes. You," Dodd had told him, waving a twenty he'd drawn out of his wallet. "I need some help getting my luggage."

"Checking out, sir?"

Dodd knew that the boy must certainly be aware that he was checking out, for everyone had buzzed about his mad appearance all scratched and bloodied from two nights before. Still, Dodd supposed, he had his own games to play for a decent tip.

"Yes. Checking out. And I need some help with the bags." In fact, Dodd had only a single suitcase, a clothing bag for his one suit, and the laptop that he was lugging with him even then. He had decided not to let the computer out of his sight again. Not after what had happened. But he did not want to go back to that room without another person with him, even if that person were just a bellboy. There was safety in having a companion. One was less likely to be ambushed with another pair of eyes watching out.

He'd felt much better-safer-with the bellboy dogging his heels. Together, in silence, they had taken the elevator up to the fourth. In silence, they had walked the hallway down to his room, only the slight scuff of their shoes to mark the way. All down the hallway, Dodd had looked up at the ceiling, in the corners, at potted plants on pedestals, looking for flaws where a tiny camera might be hidden. He'd seen nothing, though, merely the perfection of the new hotel, solidly built. It did not reassure him.

Finally, as they'd entered the room, the boy had spoken.