Authors: Andrew Lane
She was sitting on a bench at a heavy wooden table outside the inn in Ruspiri where they were staying. The sun had just dipped below the rounded shapes of the Caucasus Mountains, outlining them
in orange and purple. It was probably less than an hour before sunset, which meant that it was mid-afternoon in England.
She reached up to touch the high-definition video camera that was attached to the headband just above the left speaker. She had a horrible feeling that the headband made her look like a refugee
from a 1980s fitness video, but she supposed that was a price she had to pay.
Right. Time to check that the connection actually worked, otherwise they’d brought the headbands all this way for nothing.
Her mobile phone and her tablet were sitting on the table in front of her. She reached out and tapped a message –
Ready to synchronize?
– into her mobile and texted it
straight to Calum in England. Thanks to the magic of wireless technology, the message took longer to type than it took to wing its way via radio waves and satellite communications several thousand
miles away. Within a few seconds Calum’s response was displayed on her screen –
Let’s go!
She reached up and pressed a button behind the tiny camera ‘Can you hear me?’ she asked.
Calum’s reply was so clear that it sounded as if he was standing right behind her. She had to fight the urge to turn around and look for him. ‘Not only can I hear you, but I can see
what you’re seeing as well.’
‘Remind me not to wear this thing into the bathroom,’ Tara murmured, then said, more loudly, ‘OK, let’s check the basics. Audio first.’ She counted to ten slowly.
‘Did you get all that?’
‘Everything was loud and clear apart from “three”. That was a little fuzzy. Can you do “three” again?’
‘I see that sarcasm gets transmitted clearly as well,’ she said. ‘OK, video now. I’m going to look left and right. Let me know if there are any digital artefacts or any
obvious buffering.’
She glanced left to where a group of local kids was climbing up a pile of lumber that had been stacked there and jumping off from the top. They looked like smaller versions of Gecko. As her gaze
tracked back past the inn, she automatically focused on the window of her bedroom on the first floor. To her right was an area of cleared ground where the Delica van was parked.
‘All video is clear,’ Calum’s ghostly voice said. ‘Is that the famous van I’ve heard about?’
‘It is.’
‘No clues inside as to who hired it or bought it?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Ouch – don’t do that!’
‘What?’
‘Shake your head. The way the picture goes makes me feel suddenly nauseous.’
‘Take a pill,’ she said. ‘You think you’re nauseous now, you wait until you’ve got all four of us walking over rough ground.’
‘Fair point.’
‘Do you want to check that the satellite band width can cope with video and audio together?’ Tara asked.
‘Not much point,’ he said. ‘I can hear you fine, and the video doesn’t seem to be dropping out. All in all, this is a neat little piece of technology. I feel like
I’m almost there with you.’
‘But you’re not – you’re somewhere the beds are more comfortable and the food is better.’ She paused, considering. ‘How
are
things back in
England?’
‘As usual, the newspapers and news channels report lots of activity but very little change,’ Calum replied.
‘And what about Nemor Incorporated?’ Tara asked carefully.
‘What about them?’
‘Have they been in contact – about me?’
Calum didn’t reply for a moment. When he did finally say something, his tone was as carefully composed as hers had been. ‘I’ve not heard anything from them.’
‘Are you sure?’ Tara pressed. ‘If anything’s happened, I can take it. I don’t like being kept in the dark.’
Calum sighed. ‘Look, someone tried to break into my apartment. It might have been burglars, it might have been Nemor Incorporated or it might have been those Russian gangsters who were
targeting Gecko. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve upgraded my security to the point where a mosquito would need a photopass and a set of references to get in here.’
‘Are you OK?’ Tara asked, concerned. ‘Have you told the police?’
‘I thought about it, but decided not to. They can’t tell me anything I don’t already know.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Enough of this – what’s happening
out there? Do the villagers know anything about the Almasti?’
‘They say that something’s been sneaking around the village at night and stealing their food, but nobody’s seen it. The older villagers claim it’s an Almast, but the
younger ones think it’s a wolf, or maybe someone from a nearby village.’
‘Well,’ Calum said, ‘it’s a start. Now, what about my pet?’
‘What, Natalie? She’s OK.’
‘I see the sarcasm works in both directions,’ he said, his voice sounding like he was smiling. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know.’ Tara twisted on her bench to look directly behind her. There, in an open area of ground, stood ARLENE. The robot mule looked like some futuristic metal sculpture of a
horse. A six-legged horse.
‘Very nice,’ Calum said appreciatively. ‘You’ve run all the self-test routines?’
‘Every single one.’
‘Then let’s see what it can do.’
Tara turned back and tapped instructions into the application that was open on her tablet. Wireless connections carried her instructions to ARLENE. The robot’s head perked up, and a blue
LED lit up on the side of its head.
‘Oh, wow, that’s bizarre,’ Calum murmured. ‘Through your camera I can see ARLENE looking at you, and through ARLENE’s camera I can see
you
looking at
it.
Very disturbing.’
Tara held up her left hand. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
‘Technically, two fingers and a thumb.’
‘And do my lips move in synchronization with what I’m saying?’
‘As far as I can tell, yes.’ Tara heard him take a breath. ‘I think we have ourselves an expedition.’
‘I think you’re right,’ she said, pleased with herself.
The sun had dropped way behind the mountains when Natalie left the inn.
The sky was the purple colour of an old bruise, and the stars were beginning to come out. Fortunately there was an almost full moon in the sky, because Ruspiri, as she had discovered,
didn’t have any street lights.
Un
fortunately there were rag-like skeins of cloud being blown by the wind all across the sky, which meant that the moon kept vanishing and then
reappearing.
Not only did Ruspiri not have any street lights – it didn’t have a lot of other things as well. There was no pharmacy, no shoe shop, no gymnasium or swimming pool and no sauna. And,
judging from the bright, smiling faces of the villagers she’d encountered so far, it didn’t have any dentists either.
This was the very definition of hell, she decided.
She held her mobile phone up and checked the screen. Several of her friends had sent her emails and texts, wondering where she was and what she was doing. Part of her wanted to look through them
all and find out what was going on back home, but another part of her didn’t want to know how epic Savannah’s pool party had turned out to be, or how Bryce – whom she was kinda
supposed to be dating - had made out with Deanna, or how the latest handbags had just arrived in Madison’s and were, like, really
unbelievable.
On the other hand, she supposed that she could message
them
and let them know how she was, what she was doing. Yeah, that would
really
work. They’d be all
But who is doing
your manicures for you?
and
How can you survive wiihout MTV?
and she’d feel sad, and there would be tears. The world was passing her by while she was stuck in a backward village in
a backward country that didn’t even appear on any maps that she’d ever seen. Or, if it had, she hadn’t noticed it.
Natalie was so wrapped up in her thoughts that by the time she came back to reality she had wandered into a part of the village that she didn’t recognize. The buildings were mainly barns
and stuff, and there was nobody around. The sky was completely black now, apart from the scattering of stars and the tattered grey scarves of cloud that moved across the face of the moon.
Natalie muttered a word under her breath that her mother would have disapproved of. Who would have thought that this place was even big enough to get lost in? She supposed she could pull the
headband and camera thing from the pocket where she’d screwed it up and ask Calum for help, but she really didn’t like the idea of people always keeping tabs on her. She’d had
enough of that with her mother and the security firms she had hired over the years. No, that camera was staying in her pocket for as long as she could manage it.
She turned round, intending to retrace her steps to the inn.
Someone was standing in the shadows of the nearest building.
‘Hi!’ she said brightly, feeling her heart speed up. She was beginning to regret listening to Rhino when he’d told her that there was no chance of her getting her Mace spray
through customs. ‘Can you direct me back to the centre of the village? I’m kinda displaced from where I should be.’
That’s right,
a little voice in the back of her mind said.
Tell the creepy man that you’re lost. That’ll engage his sympathy.
‘You know what – don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll just walk back the way I came.’
The shadowy figure didn’t move, and didn’t say anything. Natalie almost convinced herself that it was a trick of the light, maybe a tree or something that looked like a person, but
she could suddenly smell something really pungent, like the kind of smell you got in the elephant house at the zoo. Despite herself, she winced and waved a hand across her nose. Before she could
stop herself, she said, ‘Did you get that aftershave for Christmas?’ Even as she heard the words come out of her mouth she wished she hadn’t said them. The only thing that was
likely to save her from violence was the fact that the person she faced probably didn’t understand English.
The figure in the shadows made a strange
snuffling
sound and took a step backwards. As it did so, a sudden strong waft of that zoo smell made Natalie cough and nearly retch.
The wind chose that moment to push away the rag-like clouds covering the moon. Strong, bright moonlight illuminated the village like a stage spotlight, banishing the shadows for a few
seconds.
Natalie found herself face to face with something from a nightmare.
It was halfway between a chimpanzee and a man. Its arms were hairy and longer than they should feasibly have been, and it stood in a half-crouch, but it was the face that made her gasp and
clutch a hand over her mouth. The face was grey and wizened, like that of an old man, but fringed in wild black hair. The forehead jutted out sharply, casting the eyes in shadow. The thing had a
distinct but flattened nose. Its teeth, revealed as it snarled at her, were massive slabs of yellow ivory.
Natalie backed away, hand still over her mouth. Her heart was pounding.
The creature – the
Almast?
– stepped forward. Its back was curved, giving it a hunched look. Its shoulders were almost level with its ears. Its hands were large, and tipped
with thick, dirty nails that looked like they could disembowel a pig.
It was only when she saw its body clearly that Natalie realized
why
this wasn’t a chimpanzee, or a gorilla, or some other kind of monkey that had somehow ended up in a small village
in the wilds of Georgia.
It was wearing a rough linen shirt and something that looked like a kilt. A turquoise pebble with a hole drilled through it dangled from a leather thong round its neck.
The Almast took a step towards her, holding out its hand. Was it trying to make friends, or was it reaching for her throat?
She made a quick decision, and screamed.
The creature stepped backwards, shocked. Its eyes opened wide. They were startlingly brown and mild. It raised its hand in
a stop
kind of gesture. Natalie noticed that its other hand was
holding a bag, little more than a long length of cloth that had been wrapped round something – probably meat, or grain, or a chicken that the Almast had stolen from the village.
The ape-like Almast glanced left and right, looking for any sign that Natalie’s scream had alerted anyone to its presence. Nobody else appeared. Natalie couldn’t hear anyone shouting
or running towards them.
The Almast turned back to Natalie. With incredible speed it reached out and clamped its right hand across her mouth. Its skin was dry and hard, like leather, and she could feel the prickle of
hairs on its palm sticking into her lips. Her heart was racing so fast that she was worried it was going to burst under the strain.
Bizarrely, she became fixated with the hairs on its chest, and the polished turquoise stone that hung from its neck.
The Almast moved closer to her. Tucking the raggedy bag it was holding beneath its right elbow, it raised its left hand to its mouth and pinched its lips together. It stared at Natalie
meaningfully. It was trying to tell her to shut up! It was
communicating
!
If Natalie wouldn’t take orders from her own mother and father, then she was damned if she was going to take orders from a dirty ape. She wrenched herself free from its grip and shouted at
the top of her voice, ‘Help! Anyone, please help!’
The Almast snarled at her, teeth bared in obvious anger.
‘Hey!’ a deep voice shouted. ‘Get off that woman!’
Natalie turned her head to see Levan Ketsbaia running along the path towards her. He came to a stop a few metres away, mouth open to say something else, but his eyes widened in shock as he
suddenly realized exactly what was standing in front of him.
The Almast dropped the bundle it was holding beneath its right elbow. It stepped forward, arms reaching out for the guide.
Levan took a step towards the Almast, bringing himself within the circle of its arms. He pushed it hard in the chest. The creature staggered backwards, arms flailing wildly.