Chapter 11: Enemy Identified

Hank had just closed communications with the Florida girls when his Palm Slave beeped again.

"There goes the lakeside picnic," a horse named Tornado groaned.

"Go, Monty." Hank said into the mike.

"Two unidentified humans are walking down our road." The speaker had a distinct upper class British accent. "Descriptions: one point three meters tall, estimated 25 kilograms, female, wearing shorts, tee-shirts and tennis shoes and carrying a shoulder bag and a canvas shopping bag. They are approximately four kilometers from Silver Orb. No weaponry or electronics detected."

As Monty spoke the image of two children appeared on the Palm Slave. They stopped and took turns drinking from a bottle.

"Red Baron, fly along grid azimuth zero-six-five and conduct scan."

"Wilco. Ground vehicle heading grid azimuth one-niner-five to Silver Springs and three zero kilometers south of Silver Orb Road intersection. See one occupant." A typical small sedan appeared on the Palm Slave as the German-accented voice spoke. "Estimated speed one-two-zero kilometers. No other traffic in sight."

"Increase altitude to three-five-zero meters."

"Climbing."

A large black horse nudged Hank's shoulder and its muzzle pointed at a cloud on the horizon.

"I see Monty, Tornado. Thanks," Hank turned to Beverly. "Don't let Amanda out of your sight until I collect her. Your mounts will return you back to the Silver Orb compound. Monty is your escort."

"Escort?" Beverly exclaimed.

"Yes, Beverly. Monty will protect the six of you—you three humans and you three horses."

"Protect us?" Emmet asked.

"There are two little girls on the road to Silver Orb. We are out in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is almost 50 kilometers away, hardly a short stroll. I don't know if the two little girls are there as a distraction. A typical commando trick is to get the security force's attention with something harmless—such as a naked beauty like Amanda here—and sneak in the back way while everyone is looking at Amanda's tasty tits and pretty puss. If there is trouble, then I need the cheetah to protect you. You are helpless, Emmet. You cannot resist because of your slave programming. Beverly is non-violent. Amanda is a new slave and not fully trained yet. None of you have weapons. Your horses will outrun everything but aircraft and motor vehicles—and Monty the cheetah."

Tornado blew a raspberry. "I can outrun that fleabag any day of the week if you give me a one kilometer head start."

Amanda wasn't used to hearing animals talk. She had to be reminded by Emmet that they had to pack up.

"Leave it," Hank ordered. "Go home where you are safe. Someone will pick up the picnic stuff later. I can replace it. You can't be replaced, nor can Dixie or Morgana or Buster. Monty can't be replaced either, but he is fast enough to dodge most trouble. Monty is the hero who saved all those girls at the A. Z. Rosenbaum Academy for Girls. Okay, Monty is close enough."

"Hank," Beverly suggested, "put on something. They're little girls."

Hank had pulled out a fat-barreled handgun with an ergonomic grip and a cube at the rear. He looked up from his weapon at Beverly, a puzzled expression on his face. Tornado nipped Hank on the butt. Hank jumped.

"Put something on!" Tornado snickered.

"Oh," Hank rubbed his sore butt. "I forgot. Just a moment."

Hank pulled a pair of shorts from the bottom of the same bag his weapon came from. He stepped in one leg at a time as a cheetah trotted up.

"I have them, Hank," the cheetah was panting—but voders are not powered by lungs nor the words shaped by mouths and tongues. "They're scared but determined. They're not the enemy."

"Thank you, friend."

"Hank, there's nobody else around." Cheetah Monty reported.

"Confirmed," Red Baron said through the Palm Slave. "Only two girls got out. We didn't alert you until they hit the property line per standard operations procedures. There is nothing else around and no humans for 40 kilometers."

"I trust you. I'm on my way." Hank leaped aboard Tornado and the large black stallion reared up, nearly spilling Hank on the dry lakebed. "Show off."

Tornado's response was to gallop at his maximum speed.

Amanda watched horse and man recede across the lakebed.

"They do that often," Beverly explained. "Tornado is really a gentle stallion, but he likes to play his little horse tricks on Hank. Stallions are very competitive, very dominant. Did you know that your slave control implants were developed from those used for military dogs and police horses? Come on, Amanda, let's get you up on Dixie."

"I'm going to smell like horse again," Amanda grumbled as Emmet boosted her up on the pinto mare.

"Tornado likes it when I smell of horny human women," Dixie the pinto had a Georgia drawl. "Morgana and I are going to have so much fun when we get back to the corral."

Emmet yelped when he got astride Buster.

"Are you okay?" Buster was a large brown gelding.

"Just squashed myself." Emmet replied. "I'm going to be tender for a while."

"Just get them removed like me," Buster offered.

"I wouldn't like that," Beverly commented. "I want Emmet's balls to stay where they are. At least for now I do."

"Monty," Emmet changed the subject, "I'd like to hear how you saved those girls at the Rosenbaum Academy."

"You've heard it before," the cheetah said.

"Amanda hasn't," Beverly said.

"I want to hear it, too," Morgana, Beverly's horse, said. "We animals don't always get decorated for being heroes. Most of the time we get nothing."

It had been a warm September day in Reno and Hank was using Monty to demonstrate the cheetah scout. The demonstration in the Reno Exhibition hall began with a short video clip on the history of working animals. The human slave control bio digital implants had been derived from the units used to control working animals, especially dogs and horses. Humans had an organic ability to communicate with other humans. Dogs were unable to speak directly with their handlers. This was corrected with the Animal/Human Communication Interface Device (CID), a small module that included an artificial voice box (or voder), permitting the animal to talk directly to untrained humans. Animals often could understand human speech because the animals grew up around humans, heard humans talk and learned to associate sounds with meanings, but were unable to respond in ways that would let untrained humans comprehend the message that the animal was sending. In many cases, individual humans were unable to believe that a "stupid animal" was trying to talk to them at all. The CID implants included additional memory space that mimicked the human language centers of the brain, permitting the modified animal to think in human languages. Extensive training and living in close contact with humans did the rest. The "sids" (spoken form of the acronym CID) had the GPS location chips like human slave implants, and devices that would inflict pain or give pleasure just as their slave human counterparts, even what amounted to a permanently-mounted stun gun next to their motor cortex, able to freeze the animal in place, cause the animal to lie down, render the animal instantly unconscious. Additional equipment included a low-powered two-way radio that could interface with a longer-range system. The implants permitted the handler to see through the animal's eyes and hear through the animal's ears. A built-in rangefinder coupled with the animal's GPS navigation system permitted precise location of things the animal saw. Monty was enhanced in other ways, too. A normal cheetah could achieve up to 120 kilometers per hour, but only for about 500 meters. Monty could run flat out in excess of 150 kilometers per hour for a distance of 3 kilometers.

"The Washoe County Sheriff's Department received the ransom note while the Sheriff was watching me go through my paces. I'm primarily a scout. I'm information, not action." As the cheetah described the events of two years ago, Monty zigzagged around the horses as if he had difficulty staying with the slowpokes. "My body was modified so much that I cannot live in the wild, as can the coyote scouts or our sid hawk. I eat pellets instead of meat. I can't stand the taste of blood—at least part of that was intended as a safety precaution. They even removed all of my sex drive so that wouldn't bother me. It is a fair trade for what I got in return. I am over 25 years old. Cheetahs don't live as long as I do. I can read. I can use a computer as long as it has a voice pick-up. I really love Hank as if he were my own mother."

Monty described how the sheriff deployed his SWAT team around the A. Z. Rosenbaum Academy for Girls but couldn't get in. Modern buildings in earthquake-prone areas such as Reno, Nevada not only are earthquake-resistant reinforced ferroconcrete but feature a self-diagnostic system that detects damage inflicted by an earthquake. A signal is sent along the network of reinforcement fibers and this signal detects structural damage. This signal through a metallic web also acts like a Faraday Screen and makes police surveillance systems ineffective. This was an accident of construction, not a deliberate plot to fool police sensors from peering through walls and seeing what was inside. The police usually didn't officially care because of Capitallia's strong privacy laws. This time, though, police equipment wasn't able to image body heat through the thick reinforced ferroconcrete walls. The police didn't know how many people were holding the school for ransom and one police officer had already been shot—fortunately the cop's armor prevented serious injury.

"But I am built low to the ground," Monty said, "and I am very fast. I could get in close and peer in through the windows. I can also tell Hank what I could smell. You humans don't listen to your own noses any more. We animals do. I was able to determine that there was just one man inside but he had commercial dynamite and a firearm. I can smell those things. Rosenbaum had an all-female staff and all of the students were girls."

Cheetahs normally hunt by sight but possess keen hearing and sense of smell. Monty used all of his senses. Monty even located a ground-level opening that he could squeeze his slender body through. In a moment Monty was transmitting video images to Hank of the kidnapper. The man was shouting into his cell phone held in one hand—the man's right hand was holding a pistol. When the man put his cell phone down and picked up a second phone, Hank commanded Monty to attack.

"I took the man's hand off at the wrist and was ill for a week. I slapped his gun away and knocked him out. I'm quick. I'm a cat." Monty glanced up at Amanda astride Dixie. "I didn't intend to bite his hand off. I just wanted to make him let go. The girls were screaming in terror. I talked to them and they screamed more."

"They didn't expect a talking cheetah." Amanda said.

"They were just little girls," Beverly explained. "Blood and violence would scare even big girls."

"There were two girls, twin sisters," Monty said. "Serena and Sarah got the other kids to stop crying and got them out of the building. They were only seven years old but they acted more mature than the teachers. Serena and Sarah are the two girls walking up the road to Silver Orb."

Hank was scanning the horizon for threats as he rode Tornado.

"There's no threats here, Hank," Tornado told his rider.

"I believe that," Hank told the horse. "What you smell is my nervousness about the girls. They could mean trouble. They are minors. Right now I don't know why they are here. First on the agenda is running them through a medical exam to see if they're wired for sound, to see if they are like my sid scouts. I overheard Monty call those two Serena and Sarah. I still don't know what is going on."

"So have Blitzen talk to them. Comet can still screen them from the road. Or is it the other way around?"

"You give good advice when you aren't trying to dominate me, Tornado."

"It's called 'horse sense' for a reason, Hank," Tornado snickered. "As for my challenging you, that's what stallions do. It's all in fun. I know that I can't take over your herd. It isn't that you'd hurt me. I don't think you'd get a chance because your mares would kill me if they thought I endangered you. No, I couldn't handle your herd. You mutant monkeys are fiendishly clever."

At that moment the sound of a sky car leaving Silver Orb and flying to the lake could be heard all through the valley.

"I wish those were quieter," Hank muttered.

"Me, too," the horse commented.

Nearly three kilometers head of Hank and Tornado the two girls trudged toward Silver Orb with their heads down. Comet emerged from the brush and trotted to the middle of the road, where she sat.

"Monty?" Serena was the older, bolder twin.

"My name is Comet," the cheetah scout's voice had an Irish lilt to it. "I'm Monty's sister. Monty says that he remembers you. We're in contact with each other by radio."

"Who is that?" Sarah pointed at the horse and rider in the distance.

"That's Tornado and Hank," Comet said. "Tornado took the name of Zorro's horse. You met Hank."

"That big man who owns Monty?" Sarah asked. "He was nice. Monty was crying and that man wiped Monty's face. I could tell that both loved each other."

"What happened?" Comet asked. " Why are you here and not at home?"

"Mommy didn't come home," Serena said. "Dad died three months ago. There were some police at our apartment. Sarah and I decided to come here. We did a report on Monty. No reference sources said anything about you talking, but we found out that cheetahs were used in two places as guards. They are used at Fallon Air Base and at the Hawthorne Ammo Depot. I found out that the cheetah scouts were trained here at Silver Orb. We thought we'd find Monty here."

"Mommy is in trouble," Sarah said. "We will do anything if you can help her."

"We just want to stay together as a family." Serena sniffed back her tears.

"Mommy has been sick." Sarah let her tears roll down her cheeks.

"What did your mommy do?" Comet asked.

"She didn't come home." Serena said.

"Hank is talking to me now through my implants," Comet told the girls. "You were very clever finding us. What did your mother do for a living? Who are your godparents? Capitallia requires baby licenses because just being born here isn't enough to become a Legal Resident. Citizens have that license by virtue of being citizens. Legal Resident mothers either need a Citizen or three other Legal Residents to sponsor a child. There's no social safety net. The sponsors make sure that the child has someone. Who were your sponsors?"

"Daddy and Mommy are both Citizens," Sarah said. "There was nobody else."

By this time Tornado had carried Hank close enough so that Hank could talk directly to the girls himself.

"You're pretty," Tornado commented. "Hank, if all three of you ride I can get you to the doctor faster."

"We don't need a doctor," Serena said. "We're not sick."

"You want to help your mother? Then let me make sure that you are safe." Hank extended his hand to the girls. "One at a time, I'll boost you up on Tornado and we'll go someplace safe."

"I made him put on pants just for you two," Tornado falsely bragged. "What was the point of running away to Silver Orb if you don't let Hank Dalton help you?"

"Monty will be waiting for you there," Hank promised.

Serena raised her hands and was lifted to sit on Tornado's back. Sarah was next. Hank questioned the girls on the way in. Serena was chatty, Sarah suppressed. Tornado used care so that his two youngest riders were not dislodged. The ride was 20 minutes to cover the last three point seven kilometers. As Hank approached the gate it automatically opened. Hank watched his sky car fly over the compound wall back from the lake. The trip through town was quiet, the streets and alleys deserted. At the clinic Judge Golovin met Hank and the girls.

"Bucky Woodward has something for you inside," the judge said. "He needs to see you in the doctor's private office. I'll be with you."