Maven On The Hunt

167 pages. The report produced by the committee investigating the NYC Blackout had more detail than she’d expected. Each of the committee’s investigation targets had been followed, bugged, scanned, and even washed. Financial records accessed and wiped. Audio records obtained and analyzed by HIVE intelligence agents. Sentiment analysis performed on every handwriting sample available in the ether. Real-time satellite feeds had been authorized for “past view monitoring”, “present-day feed”, and “future-follow.” Then, once the committee had reviewed everything, the investigation targets had been ‘erased’ from all records and given new identities.
 
Maven sighed heavily as she sat under the dim glow of the single light in her small basement apartment.
 
“What in the world is past-view monitoring?!” Maven thought to herself incredulously. Though none of the data feeds were available in the printed report, just the mention of them made her question how far-reaching was the IERA’s authority and capability.
 
There had been thirty-two targets in the report, codenamed “Project Greyhound”. And only eight of the targets had ultimately been confirmed as responsible for the blackouts. That meant the IERA had wiped twenty-four people unnecessarily.
 
“Wow” she thought. “These people’s lives were just destroyed by the IERA.”
 
Nothing like the LFER causing her father’s death and the death of thousands in the blackout…but still, she hadn’t thought of how heavy-handed they could be before now.
 
The report provided an inordinate amount of printed detail on the eight convicted targets and on the twenty-four individuals (and families) who had been wiped and relocated: their new addresses, names, occupations, tracking numbers, and mutant registration information — along with all sort of seemingly unrelated details like allergies, life expectancies, and even their connections with “The Hollow” and familial vanishings.
 
“I wonder if the IERA knows about my mother…?” she thought to herself before turning off the light and slithering into her bed, now surrounded by countless jars of severed heads lining the walls.
 
The next morning, she began to plan out how she would track down the seven remaining targets — she’d already eliminated Samuel Cominsky in a Motel 6 the prior year. He had been named as target number three in the report.
 
She awoke early in the morning, opened the jar on the wall containing her father’s head, lifted it momentarily from the fluid he’d helped her develop, and inhaled his scent. In a split-second, she shifted into his perfect likeness and began to speak in his voice.
 
Her body a few inches taller, her muscles more defined, she walked confidently up the stairs to open the Pharmacy on Saturday morning. In a few moments, two employees arrived and she chatted with them briefly before returning to the basement. At this point, the Pharmacy ran itself. Maven only needed to keep up the role of her father as the Pharmacy’s owner because she had been too young for him to transfer it to her before he died during the blackout.
 
And so every day, the same routine passed. Open the shop, make small talk, and then return to the basement to plan how she would eliminate the people responsible for her father’s death.
 
After several months, her plan was ready. She would visit the seven cities where the convicted targets had been relocated. Eavesdrop on a colleague of the ‘target’ for a week. Learn enough about them to take on their identity. Then, begin coming to work as them and use proximity to the ‘target’ to learn more and ask questions about their past, eventually, finding a time to be alone with each ‘target’.
 
Then, for the fun part.
 
For Alex Oranick (convicted target number six), it was an after-hours conversation in the supply room of the Ft. Lauderdale Digital Currency Express Headquarters. Maven had taken on the identity of Alex’s boss, Joe Montfort, and required him to stay later than everyone else for an inventory project.
 
“Alex — I like you. You’ve only been here a short time, but you’re doing great!” she said heartily in the form and voice of Joe Montfort while they were reviewing the shelves’ ledger entries for accuracy.
 
Alex responded with humility and they carried on a cordial conversation for a few minutes. They talked about family and sports, but the topic eventually moved on to hunting. Alex collected antique guns (all registered) and knew a great deal about them. His affinity with weapons triggered Maven’s emotions and she blurted out:
 
“Do you feel remorse for the people you’ve killed?”
 
Alex was startled by the question. ”What?” he asked with sincere surprise. But Maven couldn’t recover and she pressed further,
 
“In New York. You killed at least a thousand of people…” she spat with accusation, losing control of her emotions even further.
 
Alex made a move to bolt for the door, but Maven relinquished the form of Joe Montfort and took on her natural form, grotesque and undulating.
 
She blocked his escape from the inventory room, with hooked spikes forcefully protruding from her body as Alex collided with her in the narrow hallway. Blood spurted from his back as the spikes held him close to her hardened skin and very near to her razor sharp teeth.
 
Stunned from the loss of blood, Alex was bewildered. In the next moment , Maven’s hardened skin thinned and she encapsulated him with her own body and began to whisper as his panic set in. Alex could not escape from the entanglement of Maven’s body around his.
 
“Your family will be scared too.” she said calmly.
 
Alex began to weep.
 
”I will come to them tonight in your form, Alex.”
 
Muffled cries were all that he could form as Maven’s hooked spikes pierced through his neck.
 
”But I will not harm your daughter. She will have to live without her father, just like me. Because of you.”
 
With two more spikes thrust through his abdomen and lungs, Alex collapsed to the floor and Maven returned to the likeness of Joe Montfort, but covered in Alex’s blood.
 
She walked throughout the office, leaving behind tracks of blood and traces of Joe’s DNA. She passed in front of the cameras enough times to remove any doubt as to the identity of Alex’s killer.
 
Then she drove to the Oranick family home and took on the form of her last victim, his scent fresh in her memory. In the form and likeness of Alex Oranick, Maven tucked Alex’s daughter in bed and read her a story. Later that night, as Maven laid next to Alex’s wife, she thought of her own mother and began to weep. Alex’s wife hugged her and asked gently,
 
“Oh honey, what’s wrong?”
 
But Maven didn’t answer. Now in her natural form, she looked at Alex’s wife for a moment and stretched her razor-like arms across her neck. With a flit, her head was separated from her neck without a sound.
 
Maven returned to Alex’s form and walked out of the house, hailed an UberAI with the digital thumbprint of Joe Montfort and requested an uninterrupted route to Austin, Texas.