Huma realized almost as soon as the laser gun had fired that an impulsive, terrible mistake had been made. The default setting for laser guns was always kill, not stun. This was, of course, obnoxiously non-intuitive, and resulted in quite a bit of accidental death. Huma had once made a mini-documentary on the subject, going over the technical reasons why laser guns worked this way. The current had to be suppressed compared to normal to get down to stun levels. Laser guns had to be set to kill as a default setting because if left in stun mode too long they would explode.
For all these technical issues, as well as the fact that Huma had unintentionally created a corpse where a prisoner had been desired, Huma still had faith that laser guns were an improvement over traditional firearms. After all, traditional firearms had no stun setting at all. They created so much messy blood. And what to do with all the trash they left behind- bullet casings, powder...it was just so unsanitary!
Huma was strangely unconcerned by the murder which had just occurred. Huma was able to achieve this level of detachment principally through the comfort of knowing that this particular snafu was not really Huma's fault. After all, Huma had not meant to kill Jill Smith. It was the fault of the laser gun, for not functioning as Huma had intended it to.
But as Huma searched the house a mounting feeling of anger did arise as Huma started to realize that the plethora of evidence presumed to be present was not forthcoming. Huma found some old tapes and discs and documents, to be sure, but they were all ancient and useless. For the most part they pertained to arcane television shows and movies. Mostly they came from the twentieth century, although a precious few did appear to have been produced during Huma's own lifetime. There were plenty of books, most of them more ancient than the visual archival material. There were also some home videos and pictures. Evidently an interracial couple had lived here, presumably before the Hunter's Guild had murdered them in a fit of bigoted rage.
However, as the minutes wore on and Huma's search become more and more frustrating, it was obvious that neither the Hunter's Guild nor the Free State of Iowa had any kind of organized system of recordkeeping. Huma couldn't understand how such clearly dysfunctional organizations could keep track of or control anything. How could there be no written orders documenting their countless crimes of humanity? Huma might have assumed that they had been destroyed except this entire attack had been a big surprise. Jill had no inkling that Huma was coming here.
About half an hour after Huma's personslaughter of Jill Smith, Huma heard a rumbling noise. Though Huma could not place the noise immediately, diving through the memory augment Huma quickly realized it was the sound of a motorcycle. And not just any motorcycle. It was Esther Okerye. Huma was beyond excited. Huma skipped and leaped coming out to meet Esther.
Esther parked the motorcycle in the driveway and took off the helmet. There was a big scowl on Esther's face. Huma might have thought the scowl had something to do with Huma except that Esther hadn't spotted Huma yet. Or at least, it was so dark out that even through the headlight Esther couldn't make out who Huma was. When Esther finally did step off the motorcycle, Esther squinted in obvious disbelief.
"Huma?" Esther said, baffled. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you," said Huma with a cheerful goofy smile. "It's good to see you!"
"Barack said he had been attacked by a known terrorist," said Esther. "Based on the way he described the terrorist, as well as the fact that she had been seriously wounded, I guessed that she would come here."
Huma had a brief flash of curiosity that managed to overwhelm her visceral disgust at Esther's usage of repressive pronouns. How was it, Huma wondered, that Esther would have any idea where a Hunter's Guild safehouse would be located? But Huma was not in an interrogatory mood. At long last, Huma Reid had a means by which the legendary Esther Okerye could be impressed.
"You don't have to worry about the terrorist," said Huma, still beaming. "I shot the terrorist."
"Well that's-" said Esther, calmly at first, before suddenly changing intonation with a sharp "What?!"
"I know I know," said Huma apologetically, bashfully avoiding looking at Esther directly as Esther dashed into the house. "Maybe I was a bit rash. But it's just, look, I know that I'm more helpful for the Rainbow Shirts on the outside, reporting on your mission. But I always thought you all were just so cool. I wish I could do what you do, just fighting evildoers on a regular basis-"
By the time Huma looked up again, Esther was up close. Huma observed that Esther's face had taken on an odd purple hue. Huma realized that Esther was angry. Very angry, as a matter of fact. Leafing through all known footage of Esther in the memory augment Huma could not locate a single incident where Esther was so angry as to provoke a face coloration.
Having only had time to process this one fact, Huma was caught completely off guard when Esther grabbed Huma by the waist. Esther then picked up her leg, put it behind Huma's, and in a swift instant that Huma could barely perceive cracked a knee bone that immediately put Huma into horrific pain throes and somehow disabled Huma's pain management augments. Huma collapsed into a screaming, crumbling heap on the ground.
Esther put a stop to the screams with a strange finger movement delivered to a specific part of Huma's throat. Huma could no longer scream, or indeed say anything at a level much higher than a whisper. Huma could only just barely hear a voice, but soon realized that even this much might be a mental illusion. Because of course, Huma could recognize the sound of personal vocalization, having heard it so much in the past. Trying to speak in any case was horrifically painful, though not speaking at all was only slightly less severe in the pain department.
Then, Esther picked Huma up one handed while with the other hand hastily fastening some sort of knot via a rope. Where Esther had found the rope Huma was not immediately sure, but digging through still functional memory augments, Huma had also seen the rope inside the house. Esther somehow managed to tie the rope around Huma's left breast, and from that vantage point alone, hung Huma from a nearby tree dangling just centimeters above the ground. Again, the pain was excruciating, from three different points. Huma had dabbled in sadomasochism some but this was too much. Huma started crying, faintly mouthing the word why as Esther grabbed Huma by the chin and forcing eye contact.
"You are going to die here," Esther snarled. "I have somewhere else I need to be, so this will have to do. Even if by some miracle someone does find you most of the damage is permanent. You'll also lose your grip on your sanity before long. Best case scenario? You're a test subject for experimental augmentation treatments. Oh, but don't worry. Your precious memory augment still works. You idiot. You imbecile. Maybe if you dig through it long enough you'll figure out why I did this to you."
And with that, Esther was off. Huma tried to adjust to the pain but it wasn't working. At least, Huma appeared to have run out of tears.
Huma lost all sense of time hanging from the tree. To try and dull the pain Huma started digging through every memory. Huma had heard the expression, of course, about one's life passing through their eyes when they died. But Huma was dying too slowly for that. Huma could feel in those memories, poring through old academic journals only just skimmed back in college, that there was a definite art to this particular form of execution. As torture it was divine. It was as if hope had completely crumbled to nothing right in front of Huma's eyes, and Huma was still feeling the after-effects.
Huma tried to do as Esther suggested and figured out the why. Something about Jill Smith's death had obviously triggered it. Presumably the current mission of the Rainbow Shirts had important nuances that Huma had failed to consider in a rash decision to take this matter personally. Possibly even stunning Jill Smith might have ruined their plans. The fate of the country may have been destroyed by Huma's own stupidity. Yes, Huma thought, this was the most logical interpretation. That Huma had somehow gotten in the way of a sting operation.
Huma thought back to various interactions over the years with Barack and Homer and Esther. Now that Huma was more carefully looking at the subtext of those meetings, it seemed obvious that none of them had ever liked Huma very much. They praised the importance of Huma's reporting work, but there was never a real sense of respect. Though the four of them were all the same age, all born in 2009, all conceived in the joyous aftermath of Barack Obama's first presidential victory, the three of them had always seemed to look at Huma like a little child playing dress-up. Even Joel Rotierre, Huma realized, had just been acquiescing to Huma's whims, as if Huma were but a spoiled brat.
Thinking of other recent events Huma also started to fixate on Cassidy Jones' cruel words about parentage. Huma wondered, could those words really be contradicted? Did the story of that conception even make sense? Why would a Palestinian person want to impulsively conceive a child with an Israeli person the same building just because Barack Obama had been elected president..? What was it about such a story that appealed to Huma? Or anyone else for that matter? What difference did any of it make?
Throughout the night Huma heard scattered far off noises. But none of them meant anything. Every so often Huma's eyes managed to close. Huma was thankful Esther did not have time to forcibly pry those eyes permanently open. Surely Esther would have done so, had there been time, to intensify the torture. What could Esther's errand have been? Something important enough that even the immediate rage of discovering that...oh no...Huma finally understood. The Goddess of Light...thoughtlessly and deliberately exposing everything to the world...yet never in the slightest understanding...
At around daybreak Huma was aware of company. Kitties! They were so big and cute, with their adorable little stripes. And the sounds they made! It was like they were purring, but in a raspy way. Through all the pain Huma smiled.
It took Huma a moment to realize what these cats really were and why they were calling. That's when the parent appeared. A puma. There were pumas in Iowa now? Evidently. The parent puma started pawing at Huma. Then the puma cubs were jumping in excitement. Huma realized that this was the end. Huma was going to die. It was going to get worse, as the puma family would tear Huma limb from limb, possibly eating Huma alive just because the odd way Huma was strung up would make a quick death difficult. But sooner or later, it would get better. Huma prepared to enter the final light.