Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Without the illusion, the route to Amaru was shorter than either Dean or Arion had believed.

The corridor that had seemed to curve through a comfortable private residence continued for barely twenty meters before ending at the pair of reinforced glass doors they had seen only after shutting down the synthetic pheromonal system. Clinical lights reflected from seamless grey flooring, and the walls were interrupted at regular intervals by monitoring panels, emergency connections, and narrow observation windows whose darkened glass revealed nothing from their side.

Dean kept his field active anyway.

The artificial atmosphere surrounding the outer section had begun dissipating through the ventilation system, but neither of them knew how much remained trapped inside adjoining rooms or whether shutting down the main output had activated any secondary containment.

Arion walked close enough that his arm occasionally brushed Dean’s shoulder.

"Duncan," he said into the communicator. "We’re at the inner doors."

There was a brief rustle before Duncan answered from the security area.

"They should unlock from the panel on the right now that environmental control is down."

Dean found it.

Unlike everything they had passed before, the system required no biometric identification. Arion entered the authorization code Duncan gave him, and the first glass door slid sideways into the wall.

A narrow decontamination space waited beyond it.

Then came the second door.

Dean stepped through first.

He stopped immediately.

The room beyond was a medical ward built around a transparent enclosure.

The enclosure occupied almost half the space, separated from the observation area by thick glass running from floor to ceiling. Several lines entered through sealed ports along the rear wall, connecting to medical equipment positioned both inside and outside the chamber. Displays covered one wall, their muted light showing heart rate, respiration, body temperature, blood oxygen, and several measurements Dean did not immediately recognize.

And inside the glass was Amaru.

The prince lay on a low medical bed with his head turned slightly toward one side, dark hair falling across the pillow and nearly reaching his shoulders. He looked thinner than the illusion had made him, though not emaciated, dressed in loose dark trousers and a simple grey shirt that left his forearms exposed above the blanket. Sensors had been fixed to his chest, wrist, and throat, while a narrow line disappeared beneath the sleeve at his left arm.

His breathing was slow.

Dean moved toward the glass.

"Duncan."

"What?"

"You said he was functional."

"He is."

Dean stared at the man who did not so much as twitch when they entered the observation room.

"He is unconscious."

Silence.

Then Duncan said, "He shouldn’t be."

Arion’s attention had already moved away from Amaru and onto the systems surrounding the enclosure.

There was a second ventilation circuit.

Separate from the one they had just disabled.

"Dean."

He pointed upward.

Small vents ran along the ceiling inside Amaru’s chamber.

Dean felt something was still pressing against his field.

It was different from the synthetic mixture that had saturated the corridors.

He stepped closer to the glass until only centimeters separated him from it.

The pressure strengthened.

"There are pheromones inside."

Duncan went silent.

Dean glanced toward Arion.

"Not the same ones."

Arion touched his communicator. "Duncan?"

"I don’t know anything about that."

For the first time since they had entered the residence, Duncan sounded genuinely unsettled rather than merely irritated by discovering another secret inside the building he had guarded for years.

"You never came this far?" Dean asked.

"No. Security stopped at the central perimeter. The physician entered when necessary. Claudia’s people controlled medical systems remotely."

"What about Price?"

Duncan hesitated.

"I doubt he knew either."

Dean looked through the glass again.

Eight years guarding a prince neither man had actually been permitted to see.

The arrangement suddenly looked less like security and more like layers designed to make every participant believe they understood more than they did.

Arion had already opened one of the compact cases Hunter had insisted they carry.

He removed a narrow diagnostic unit barely larger than his hand, connected a sterile sampling tube, and approached one of the external maintenance ports beside the enclosure.

Dean recognized it.

Seven had given them three such units before they left Alamina, supposedly because sending Dean anywhere near an unknown biological problem without diagnostic equipment had become, in Seven’s words, ’an avoidable form of stupidity.’

"What are you doing?" Duncan asked.

"Sampling the chamber."

Arion connected the device to the port without opening the seal.

The small screen illuminated.

Air composition began scrolling rapidly across it.

Dean watched numbers populate faster than he could interpret them.

"Can it identify pheromones remotely?"

"Not completely."

"But Seven can."

Arion nodded.

The unit could separate volatile biological compounds, catalogue them, and transmit the molecular profile through the secure medical network. Seven’s laboratory systems would do the rest.

Arion started the transfer.

The progress indicator moved slowly.

Dean turned back toward Amaru.

The prince’s vital signs remained stable despite his unresponsiveness.

Dean disliked "dormant" much more now than he had when Hendrik used it for the beasts.

He looked at Arion.

Arion was already looking at him.

Neither said anything.

The same thought had occurred to both of them.

"No," Dean murmured.

Arion’s expression remained unreadable.

"Wait for Seven."

The data transfer completed.

Three minutes passed.

Then four.

Dean used the time to inspect every display surrounding the enclosure while Arion photographed the systems and encrypted the files for Alamina. Nothing identified the composition being dispersed through the internal ventilation. The controls listed only dosage, concentration, and cycle length.

Continuous administration.

Dean’s jaw tightened.

Amaru had been receiving it for at least eleven hours according to the current cycle.

Possibly much longer if previous cycles had restarted automatically.

His communicator vibrated.

Seven.

Arion accepted the call immediately.

Seven appeared in what looked like one of Alamina’s medical laboratories, hair disordered and a laboratory coat thrown over clothes that suggested someone had dragged him away from breakfast or sleep. Several screens glowed behind him with the data Arion had just transmitted.

"You are standing beside the chamber?" Seven asked.

"Yes."

"Do not open it."

Dean moved closer to Arion. "What is it?"

Seven looked at him.

"What exactly did you find?"

"Amaru. Unconscious. Stable vitals. There is another pheromonal system inside the glass enclosure that Duncan didn’t know existed."

Seven’s face changed slightly.

Arion noticed too.

"What?"

Seven turned toward one of his screens and enlarged a molecular comparison.

"I ran the sample twice because the first result did not make sense."

Dean felt cold despite the controlled temperature of the clinic.

"Seven."

"The synthetic carrier is different from the mixture you found in the corridor. There are stabilizers, metabolic suppressors, and several compounds I need more time to identify, but the active pheromonal profile is recognizable."

Arion’s hand settled against the edge of the console.

"From what?"

Seven looked directly at them.

"The infected beasts."

Dean did not move.

Behind the glass, Amaru continued breathing slowly beneath the monitoring lights.

Seven continued, voice quieter now.

"Someone is keeping him dormant with infected-beast pheromones."

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