Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (27 page)

“Thanks, sister,” he says
smiling.  “Okay, now that we have a plan let’s get out of these tunnels and…”

The sound of dragging metal echoes
throughout the sewers.  Someone has opened the grating from which we entered.

“The dog is still on our case,” I
say with a hint of fear.

“Damn, he’s good.  Can’t believe
he followed us here,” Isaac says.  “With his skill, even the stench won’t deter
him from our trail.  I have to think of something…”

He sees some metal pipes on the
floor and races toward them.  He picks two up, hands me one, and keeps the
other for himself.

“Even if we try to out run him,
his nose will know where we are,” Isaac explains.  “The only way we can stop
him is if we take him out.”

I look at Isaac hesitantly.  “I’ve
never fought anyone before.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll sneak up on
him.  I’ll create a fake trail that circles around and we’ll obscure
ourselves.  Then, while he’s figuring out our location, we’ll jump him from
behind.”

“Then we make a run for it?” I ask
him.

“Then we make a run for it. 
Follow me.  We have to stay quiet.”

We walk forward ten or twenty
steps, then backwards.  Isaac points to a small opening in the wall and motions
me to go and hide there.  He then finds another groove and places himself in
it.  And we wait.

I hear the dog’s footsteps getting
closer.  He walks lightly, but even his delicate stride echoes throughout the
tunnel.  The sounds of his sniffs get more and more rapid as he traverses the
ground.

He’s only a few feet away.  He’s
so close that I hear his uniform crunching and rubbing on itself as he moves
toward us.  And then, only a few paces to the right of me, he appears.

The dog is practically standing
next to me, but away from Isaac.  I look over to my brother and he motions me
to strike my blow.  I stare at the pipe in my hands, cold and heavy, and wonder
if I have what it takes.

Isaac starts to motion more
furiously than before.  He wants me to make my move.  The dog is already out of
my striking distance and will soon reach the end of our trail and circle back. 
I have to hit him before he turns around and sees us.

I stalk him in the dark, staying
graceful on my feet.  I see him halt and I raise my weapon in the air.

But then he says something, and it
catches me off guard.  I stop in my movements, and the dog blurts out. “That’s
odd.  Why is it going the other…”

I don’t think, I just react, and
bat a mighty swing at the back of his head.  His neck flails up and he lets out
a sharp yelp before falling to the ground like a ton of bricks.

Isaac emerges from the shadows as
I look at the dog.  He’s not dead.  In fact, he’s not even knocked out.  His
eyes are still open, though it seems they are fighting hard to stay that way. 
They rapidly blink and look left and right, towards me and Isaac.

“What should we do now, Isaac?” I
ask him.

His face narrows and starts to
intensify.  It glowers a frown.

“We should kill him for they’ve
done,” Isaac says, his voice shaking.  He raises his pipe as if he’s about to
thrust it into the dog’s battered head.

I’m surprised by my brother.  I
had not known him to be an angry person.  Then again, we had just seen our
brother and sister murdered before our very eyes.  The thought of it fills me
with rage.

But then I look at the dog.  He’s
lying down, eyes hollowed out, and holding on to whatever consciousness he has
left.  He’s so helpless.

“But he’s defenseless right now,”
I say.

“So was Oscar,” Isaac shoots back.

I remember when Maddie and Oscar
were killed, the dog was the voice of reason.  He was like the human, he didn’t
want us to die.  It was the pig who fired the first shot, the pig that started
this mess.  After that, things got crazy, that’s all.  I’m sure he didn’t want
things to turn out this way, either.

“No Isaac,” I say.  “It’s not
right.  It wasn’t his fault, it was the pig’s.”

“Sister, if we don’t kill him now,
he and his team will kill us later.”

Isaac might be right, but the
human commander was adamant that we stay alive and so was this dog.  Even if
they find us eventually, I don’t think he would do us in.  If anything, sparing
one of them might actually help us in the long run.  They would see that we’re
not the monsters they think we are.

I just don’t want anyone else to
die.  What’s the point of all this killing?  Four of us are dead, one of them is
dead.  Haven’t enough lives been taken?  Will killing this one help our cause? 
We can escape, we can run, but I don’t want blood on my hands.  It’s not right.

“Isaac,” I say as my eyes get
watery, “please don’t do it, please.”

He looks at me on the verge of
tears and starts to relent.  He never could bear to see me cry.

Isaac drops the metal pipe and
slumps his body down in disappointment.  “Fine, sister, we’ll do it your way.”

We turn the other direction and
start to walk, leaving the dog behind.

“We need to make it to Tiago as
soon as we can,” Isaac says, “but I’m not sure where to go.  He’s probably at
the teleporter now, but it could be either of them.”

Suddenly, an odd feeling hits my
brain.  It’s sharp, but not painful, just unexpected.  I stop in my footsteps
and pause.  My eyes widen open.  One of my visions comes to me.

“They’re at the Li station,” I
say.

Isaac had noticed my odd
behavior.  “Another one of your visions or whatever?”

I nod.

“Okay,” he says.  “I guess that’s
where we’re going.”

“So, now you trust my ability?”

“Little things, remember?”

As we walk away, I turn around to
see the dog still on the ground.  His eyes are closed, but he is still
breathing.  He must have passed out from my blow, but I am glad that Isaac
didn’t kill him.

“Thank you for listening to me,
brother,” I said.

“It wasn’t an easy thing to do,”
he says.  “I still think he shouldn’t have lived.”

“You sound like Tiago.”

“And you sound like Oscar.”

Things stay silent between us for
a few moments.

“One day, sister,” he says in a
serious tone, “you’ll realize that the world isn’t always such a nice place,
that you have to do what you have to do to survive.”

“If I ever come to that
realization, I don’t think I’d like the person that I’ve become,” I say.

Isaac looks at me unusually then
looks back ahead.  We don’t say another word for the rest of our trek.

November 17, 3040
2:34 AM

Almost an hour and half has passed
and we still haven’t gotten the call from Commander Trevor.  I’m tired of
waiting, I want to make our move now, I want to storm this teleportation
station and end this mission.

We’ve already done plenty of
recon.  I’ve run circles around this building and didn’t find anything
suspicious.  Erawan and Colbo remain at their posts on the opposite sides and
have reported nothing.  If there was someone here, they weren’t outside, and
they certainly didn’t get past us.  The only thing we have left to investigate
is the station itself.

But no, the Commander has made it
very clear that we are not to engage until he’s done checking out the casino. 
I think this strategy is wasting my time.  What information could he find in
his meeting that would help us?  He says he can get us numbers after he’s done,
scout who we’re dealing with if he talks to them face to face, that we will be
more prepared for what’s coming if we take our time.  That’s fine if our
targets were taking theirs, but they’re not.  Time is something they cannot
afford and every moment we wait gives them more and more minutes on the clock.

I remember when we killed that
bird halfkind, Lombardi.  I could smell the desperation in the air and I didn’t
need my powers of scent to sense that.

Colbo treated the kill as if it
was a trophy, another achievement on his list of accomplishments.  He probably
didn’t sense what I was feeling.  It wasn’t pride, I don’t feel that when I
finish these missions.  I never felt one ounce of happiness through all the
things I’ve done for the Brotherhood of Wolves.  I do it because they ask me
to.  It’s what I owe my kind.

Yet, all those times, I didn’t
feel any remorse either.  Every mission I’ve done, every task I’ve been
assigned, I was okay with.  Even when I killed creatures I didn’t know, even
when I saw the fear in their eyes, I never felt the burning sensation of
guilt.  I think.

And I’ve done a lot in the name of
my brothers.  I’ve tracked human supremacist groups who wish to take back the
world that was never theirs in the first place.  I’ve hunted lions who captured
wolves and used them as slaves.  I’ve ransacked shanty towns of dogs and cats
who cooked up drugs.  I’ve killed these beings without hesitation, without
moral conscience.  They deserved to die.

But this time, things are
different.  These halfkinds are on the run, scared and alone.  They pose no
real threat to society, they’re a small group of misfits trying to live, yet we
hunt them down like they’re criminals.  It’s not right.

And why?  Because we don’t want
another Ark Project to happen?  We don’t want another Event to occur?  Because
the humans can’t create more of their precious toys?  We want to make sure no
more genetic mistakes are made.  Yet my superiors fail to realize these mistakes
turned us wolves into what we are now.  The irony isn’t lost on me.

When we killed Lombardi Lawton,
Colbo approached me to get a gauge on how I was feeling.  I didn’t say anything
or bat an eye his way.  Instead, I walked away from the kill and said I was fine. 
But inside, I wasn’t.  When I blasted that shot through his head and saw his
charred body lay limp, a part of me mourned for my victim.  It seemed wrong
killing him.  I’m not under orders from the Brotherhood of Wolves, I’m under
orders from the United Species Alliance.  To me, this is a human directive.  I
agreed to this mission because the Brotherhood asked me to, but they’re being
played like puppets.  I vowed I would never take an order from a human unless
it was completely necessary.  This mission isn’t necessary, yet here I am, a
grunt under their command.

Why did I even take this task?  I
wondered that as I watched Lombardi Lawton’s dead body, the end result of my
success.  Is my sense of loyalty so high that I’ll do anything?

But I can’t think this way.  Now
is not the time to crack.  One second of weakness could get me killed.  The
bird man threw a bomb at us and if I didn’t have my instincts, I could have
been killed.  As much as I sympathize with their plight, I’d rather be the one
who comes out alive.

The more I think about that kill,
the more I’m surprised they want to meet us at all.  It seems like poor
strategy to invite your enemies into your lair to negotiate when you don’t have
anything to bargain with.  My peers didn’t seem to think twice about it,
though.  They’re foolish because they completely underestimate what these
halfkinds are capable of.  Am I the only one to see the obvious?  That it could
be a trap?  Am I the only one who gives the halfkinds any sort of credit?

We haven’t heard from our leader
since he embarked on his operation.  I wonder how things went.  I wouldn’t be
surprised if Commander Trevor and his crew of heroes got captured and it was up
to me to save his sorry ass.  Though, to be honest, I would find satisfaction
in that.

Then, as if fate is listening to
me, I hear a beep on my communicator.  The others react to the beep as well.  I
receive the signal and a graphical holo display appears before me.  I see boxes
with Colbo, Erawan, and Commander Trevor on my screen.  We’re all linked up.

“Where’s Apollo?” I ask Commander
Trevor.

“He’s recovering from an injury,”
he says.

“What happened?” Colbo asks.

Trevor pauses a bit, hesitant to
tell us the answer.  I see his eyes looking away from the screen nervously. 
“Borton’s dead.”

“What?” Colbo says, shocked by the
news.  “What happened?”

“When we got to the casino, we
ambushed a small camp of halfkinds there.  It was Maddie, Oscar, Iris, and
Isaac Lawton.  We were able to subdue them, but Borton fired without permission
and killed Oscar.  This led to an argument between the three of us and, while
we were distracted, Maddie impaled Borton with a piece of debris.”

“Good job,” I say sarcastically.

“Shut up!” Trever yells.

“I thought you were there to
negotiate,” Colbo says to ease the tension.  “Why did it all of a sudden become
a stand down?”

“Because they didn’t know we were
there to negotiate,” he says.  “Someone had set them up.  They had no idea we
were coming.  Then Borton, against my orders, went in firing a barrage of shots
and things got messy.”

“Why would someone set them up?”
Colbo asks.  “And who?”

“We think it’s one of their own,
but we can’t confirm,” Trevor responds.  “We just know they weren’t expecting
us like we thought they were.”

“When did all this happen?” I ask
Commander Trevor.

“About thirty minutes ago,” he
says.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” I
demand.

“Because I was looking for
Apollo.”

“And where was he?”

Once again Trevor pauses.  “He was
chasing after two halfkinds that got away, Iris and Isaac Lawton.  He followed
them all the way down to the sewer and they attacked him, knocked him out
cold.  When he didn’t return, I went looking for him and found the open manhole
cover he entered from.  It didn’t take me long to discover where he was.  He was
unconscious and I had to attend to his wound.  He’s okay now, though, but he
lost their scent and doesn’t know where they went.”