Mammoth

"We stay," Matt said.

AT just about that moment, Fuxxy fell over.

Only Jack saw it happen. That particular camera was not displaying at Darryl's station at the moment, though it would soon come up in the regular rotation, and a marching band parading through the room would not have been likely to wake up Ed. Jack watched the stinking, lousy, bug-ridden, useless hunk of junk topple in disbelieving horror. Burned-out fuse, busted gyroscope, loose screw... something.

Jack didn't encourage idle talk with his crew. They were supposed to stay alert, speaking only when there was something to report. But any movement of the star of the show was a reportable event. Fuzzy's moved to the other side of his pen, he heard that a dozen times a night. Fuzzy's taking a nap. Fuzzy just dropped a big load, chief.

A minute passed. "Looks like Fuzzy's taking his nap, chief," Darryl said. He waited, but Darryl said nothing more. Three minutes passed.

"He's taking a snooze. What's the problem?" But he could see it himself. The damn thing was twitching its legs, jerking around. Not horribly, not an epileptic fucking fit or anything, but Fuzzy usually slept like a log, and when he got up it was in one smooth motion, surprisingly graceful. Jack knew that and so did Darryl.

"Where's that night girl?" Darryl said. "Come to think of it, I ain't seen her go through that room once all night." The night girl spent most of her shift in Susan's office, where there were no cameras, just a window to observe Fuzzy.

"Chief, I think I better go down there and see what's up."

Okay, that's it. Jack stood.

"I'll go. Stay where you are and I'll run take a look."

Jack hurried out of the pit, flew up two flights of stairs, tried to walk calmly down the hallway but ended up almost ru

DARRYL was no Einstein, but he wasn't stupid.

He saw the chief walking down the corridors, following him with three cameras in sequence, saw him reach the place where he should have turned to reach Fuzzy's quarters... saw him hurry right on past it.

Saw him go into the parking lot, get in his car, and drive away.

Something fu

There was a red button on his console that they called the panic button. It was only to be used in the event of fire, explosion, terrorist invasion, earthquake, or the second coming of Jesus. It had a clear plastic cover so you couldn't accidentally punch it. Darryl had wanted to punch that button from the first moment he saw it.

Ed was second in command—what a joke, the man hadn't stirred for hours, could have had a heart attack and died for all Darryl knew. He decided to show some initiative. That's what officers were supposed to do, wasn't it?

He ran all the way to Fuzzy's enclosure. He glanced through the window into Susan Morgan's office. No one there. He looked over the rail at the recumbent mammoth. It was twitching alarmingly now. He had never been this close to the star of the show. Hesitantly, he climbed over the rail and eased up on the beast, thinking about getting kicked by one of those big feet.

He felt a sudden urge to throw up... then an even worse feeling as he saw no blood on the eyeball, saw that it was hanging out of the socket on wires, saw metal in the empty eye socket.

What the fuck?

He got back to his station in half the time it took him on the way out, flipped up the plastic cover on the panic button, and slammed it with his fist.

The alarm was so loud Ed Crane woke up and fell out of his chair.

IT started to rain as they walked Fuzzy down the ramp. Fuzzy stopped and looked around. The poor thing hasn't been outside in so long he's forgotten what rain is, Matt realized. He got his washing from hoses and his—very clean—wallow tub, and his drinking water from a tank. Susan got him moving into the second unit she had rented, which was strewn with hay and had a basket of Fuzzy's favorite fruits. Matt drove the truck and trailer out of the storage yard and parked it two blocks away under some tall trees that met over the street, the best they could do to foil aerial surveillance, which was their biggest fear. He hurried back and found Fuzzy had decided to sleep off his drug hangover.

"Snoozing," Matt observed.

"Yeah. Trouble is, so is the other one. I got a call from Jack Elk. Fuxxy went haywire. Jack ran off; nothing he could do about it. The alarm is out by now."

Matt saw she was shivering. He was soaked to the skin but she welcomed his arms around her. She had done so much, so incredibly much, pla

"Makes no difference," he said, stroking her hair. "Howard gains a couple hours."

"I don't know... I feel we should just get him back in the trailer and run."

"Big mistake. If the cops are looking for us, we're screwed, we both know that. If we move now, we stand out like a sore thumb. He'll have us before the sun comes up. We stick to the plan, it's the best one we have."

"But it gives him more time to—"

"He'll expect us to keep moving. Every minute the circle he has to search gets wider, and he'll concentrate on the circumference of that circle. We stay here, the most intense part of the search spreads away from us, the search gets harder." She smiled up at him. "Okay. You're the guy who can do the math, I guess."

He hugged her again. The only trouble was, he knew, Howard was no slouch at math himself.

27

THE panic button rang in several places other than Fuzzyland. The nearest fire station and the local police were alerted and were soon on their way.

It also rang in Warburton's bedroom, waking him from a sound sleep. He sat up and looked at the communications console beside his bed. When you worked as the chief troubleshooter for Howard Christian you were never far from the vast machine that protected Howard and Howard's interests. He saw at a glance that there was trouble at Fuzzyland.

He punched a few buttons, heard a phone ring and go unanswered. He frowned, punched a few more keys. He knew that now, in the security pit in Oregon, every single screen on the huge video wall would be displaying his no-doubt groggy face, rumpled hair, and the collar of his orange pajamas.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Somebody pick up the fucking phone!"

Somebody did. The face of a frightened young man appeared on his screen.

"Who are you?" the kid asked.

"My name is Warburton, and I am Howard Christian's personal assistant. What is going on?"

"Sir!" the kid shouted, and actually stood up and saluted.

"Sit down, your face is out of the picture."

"Sir! The... the, uh... somebody stole the mammoth. Sir!"

"Stole Fuzzy?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Okay, hold on." He punched a few more buttons and heard the phone ring in Howard's

bedroom. Howard answered on the fourth ring. There was no picture.

"Somebody stole Fuzzy," he said. He listened a moment, heard pretty much what he had expected to hear. He brought the kid back onto his screen.

"Get your supervisor, right now." "Sir... he's... uh, he's gone."

"I mean, sir, he got in his car and drove away. Sir."

Of course. She had help. Warburton rubbed his head. This was going to be no fun at all. He'd