The Intuitives(86)

“Roger that.”

Miller snatched a spray can from one of the many pockets on his camo pants and deployed it in the general direction Ammu had indicated. The imp screeched in annoyance, turning orange for just a moment over about half its body before shimmering in place, absorbing the paint and returning to its original dark gray hue. To Miller, it seemed as though half of a neon orange imp had appeared on the floor next to him for just a moment and then disappeared again.

“I am so not going to get used to that,” Miller muttered, his words coming through clearly over the intercom.

“It’s moving,” Mackenzie called out.

“Where?” Miller looked around the room helplessly.

“Straight at you!”

Miller sprayed the can again toward the floor at his feet, catching the imp in a new coat of orange just as it lunged for his pants leg.

“What the…” he exclaimed. “Hey!”

The imp was already halfway up his body before the orange coating disappeared, but this time Miller was ready for it.

“That was a mistake, little bugger,” Miller said cheerfully. “I might not be able to see you, but I can feel you all right. Ha! Gotcha!”

Grabbing at his own chest, Miller managed to grasp the imp around its waist, but it was moving quickly, already starting to pull itself through his hand.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Mackenzie warned him over the intercom. “You won’t be able to hold onto it.”

“Yeah, they briefed me,” Miller acknowledged. He reached into another pocket, trading the paint can for a tracking dart, managing to shove it into the imp’s back just before it broke free from his grasp.

“Nice!” Kaitlyn cheered.

“OK, per protocol,” Miller announced, obviously for a microphone that was recording the session somewhere, “ICIC Experiment 6A, trying paintballs first.”

He picked up the paintball gun from the table and shot it in the direction of the dart, which appeared to Miller to be floating in midair. Unfortunately, it was no longer in the imp’s back. The creature had reached behind itself and tugged the thing out, and it was now holding the tracker in front of it, staring at it curiously. The first two paintballs sailed between the imp’s face and the tracking device, causing the creature to screech and drop it to the ground.

Assuming the imp had fallen, Miller aimed the next two paintballs at the tracker on the floor, the first round hitting just in front of it, and the second landing just to its right, both of them exploding to shower the floor with neon paint—first yellow and then pink, as it happened.

Glancing back and forth between Miller and the tracker, the imp picked up the device and held it out in front of itself at about chest height, watching as Miller fired another two rounds at the tracker and then dancing about gleefully. It launched into an impressive series of acrobatics, holding the dart away from itself all the while, letting Miller try to hit the device as it bobbed and weaved through the air, the staff sergeant obviously getting more frustrated by the moment.

“It’s just holding the tracker in its hand, Miller,” Mackenzie called out—giggling, to be sure, but trying nonetheless to be helpful.

“I figured,” he growled back.

“It’s to the left… no, right… no, left…”

But the imp was too quick for her directions, and the observation room finally dissolved into laughter as it started tossing the tracker into the air, throwing and catching it twice until Miller finally shot it away, failing to hit the imp entirely but at least ruining its game by sending the tracker spinning into the window, where it hit and fell to the ground.

“ICIC Experiment 6B, attempting rubber rounds,” Miller growled, returning the paintball gun to the table and pulling a pistol out of a holster he wore on his right leg. “Tell me when it’s going for the tracker.”

“Now!” Mackenzie shouted.

Miller took aim in the general direction of the dart and sprayed a barrage of rubber bullets from left to right at about calf level. The imp let out an enraged scream that dissolved into an angry sort of chattering, waving a fist in Miller’s direction and then running away into the far corner below the window.

“What’s it doing?” Sketch wanted to know, the imp having moved out of view by ducking against the wall of the observation room.

“How the hell should I know?” Miller answered testily. “I hit it, though. I can see one in… damn.”

“What?” Mackenzie asked.

“The round disappeared.”

“It must have absorbed it, like the paint,” Kaitlyn suggested.

“So the bad things eat bullets for breakfast,” Sam commented. “Outstanding.”

“That wasn’t a bullet,” Miller interjected. “ICIC Experiment 6C, live ammo exercise. Repeat, this is a live ammo exercise.”

“Tell me this is bullet-proof glass,” Mackenzie said to Ammu.

“Affirmative,” Miller replied, not realizing she wasn’t talking to him.

“It is,” Ammu confirmed. “And the walls and ceiling have been constructed to firing range backstop specifications, designed to trap bullets without ricochet, for Staff Sergeant Miller’s safety as well as our own.”

Miller walked over to the abandoned tracking device, picking it up in his hand and turning his back to the observation window, tossing the device across the room so that it slid into the far wall.