Read The Menagerie 2 (Eden) for Free Online Page B

questions—the answers to my questions.”
    “And don’t forget to answer the government’s questions,” added Savage. “Let’s not forget them.”
    O’Connell allowed the muscles in the back of his jaw to work. Savage’s veiled insinuation was laced with undeniable suspicion directed against him, a conduit to the most powerful men in the world. You, Mr. Savage, need to keep yourself in line.
    “Yes,” O’Connell said very dryly. “Let’s not forget them.”
    Alyssa heard the exchange, could feel the tightness between them. But she also knew John to be a man of caution, someone with the awareness of his surroundings. Obviously his senses were picking up red flags.
    O’Connell waved his hands over the gem and the holograms disappeared. “Follow me,” he said.
    They walked the length of the ship between enclosures that were filled with creatures from oceans of toxic ammonia to sulfur-rich caverns, from glacial wastelands to scorching hot planets—with each specimen designed to handle a very specific environment.    
    As they toured there were teams of scientists everywhere—logging or taking notes, some running diagnostic machines Savage could only hazard a guess as to their functions. Other machines poured steady streams of laser capable of cutting through the densest metal had absolutely no effect at all on the energy fields. There was a sense of desperation—at least in Savage’s view—to solve the vessel’s mysteries by serendipity.
    There were more enclosures, seemingly endless aisles of them, bearing captives from all over the universe, creatures great and small, some intelligent and some not so, most appearing vicious and cruel, and all sharing the same fate.
     But what grabbed Savage’s eye the most were the heavily armed personnel. They were wearing domed helmets with a formation of gadgetry marching up one side and down the other, an assemblage of NVG goggles and thermal ware. Their faceplates were a convexity of opaque plastic. And their ensembles completely ‘Robocop’ with specially designed composite shin and forearm guards.
    More disturbing, however, were the patches they wore on their shoulders, that of a grinning skull wearing an eye patch and beret with two crisscrossing tantos beneath it, the insignia of the Tally-Whackers, a legendary wetwork team operating strictly for the DOD. Their existence is by rumor only, a unit mentioned only in whispers, a group of men who tallied high numbers of kills with impunity.
    John Savage dismissed the idea that they ever existed, mere fabrications of simple myths and legends and nothing more. But all legends had a foundation of truth—all of them. But this one came with the rumored insignia no other group sustained.
    By John’s estimate there were at least eight, maybe nine, all meat and muscle.
    Why are you here? he wondered. For what possible reason ?
    He glanced at Alyssa, who was completely enamored by the surrounding specimens.
    And he worried for her safety and for his. The presence of Tally-Whackers was never a good sign. By rumor they were vicious and unmerciful, killers who thrived on adrenaline while waiting to make the next kill at the direction of the government.
    He grabbed Alyssa and pulled her close.
    At the end of the ship there was a downward incline that led to the next level. The tunnel was slim, the walls ribbed and coated with a textured sheen, and the grating beneath their feet glowed a pulsating phosphorous green, the light casting ghoulish lines along the walls and on their faces, their features writhing with shadow play.
    At the bottom of the corridor was a circular room with a domed ceiling. The ribbing of the dark walls curved upward to meet a central point on the ceiling, the roof’s center, where a conical-shaped beam of light alit on the chamber beneath it.
    Inside was a cloud mass, a free floating mist that continuously morphed into Rorschach shapes, the vapor moving with slow, hypnotic grace. Not only did the