Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (38 page)

November 17, 3040
5:32 AM

We’ve made it to 1523 Chakming Drive.  It took about twenty minutes, of traversing through the dawn-lit Primm
streets, but we are here.

Apollo’s gears have switched, he’s
in full rampage mode.  The only thing that guides him is his blind fury.  Tiago
and Alex Lawton felt his wrath for killing the Commander, his teacher, his
comrade.  Now it seems that the dog is here to complete the job and finish his
circle of revenge.

He’s made things personal.  Any
halfkinds left alive are no longer individuals to him, just enemies that need
to be eliminated.  He wants to get even.  It’s no longer about the mission, or
the honor of duty for the United Species Alliance, it’s about himself. 
Completing our mission will be his final parting gift to Trevor’s corpse.

I find myself in a mixed frame of
mind concerning the events that have transpired.  These halfkinds may have
killed more than half my team and our fearless leader, but I can sympathize
with their cause more than our own.  If we had left them alone, if the order
had never been made by the United Species Alliance, perhaps things could’ve
ended peacefully.  We didn’t have to kill them, we could’ve co-existed. 
Instead, the order is the order and it’s caused a lot of unnecessary bloodshed.

We backed them into a corner and
the only thing they can do is fight back.  It’s for their survival.  Unlike the
dog, for them it’s been anything but personal.  We are their faceless enemy. 
We are not victims, they are.  We are the murderers, it’s just that we murder
in the name of our leaders.

Things made themselves so clear
during our raid on the Li station.  With wrath coursing through his veins,
Apollo brought out their vulnerabilities and exploited them in order to finish
them off.  He tricked Alex and rubbed Tiago’s demise in his face.  Trevor’s
death has completely transformed him into a dog on a mission, a relentless
killing machine that now won’t stop until his friend is avenged.  There is no
honor in that.

I already had doubts about my role
as an assassin for the Brotherhood of Wolves.  Now I’m at the brink of
quitting.  I don’t want to fail my colleagues, but as we get closer and closer
to the end, things feel so wrong.  These halfkinds aren’t criminals or
dangerous crime bosses, they’re civilians.

I think about Tiago’s last words,
dog and wolf and himself.  What could he have possibly meant?  The question
leaves me confused and I thought about those last lines on our way here.  I
still haven’t come up with an answer.

We’re at the porch and the front
door is cracked open.  The house is dilapidated, the paint, chipped and worn
off.  The inside looks vacant.  Apollo has his scent booster on and gives the
ground and air a sniff.  He looks around and breathes the smells in deeply.

“They’re here,” he whispers. 
“Their odor is everywhere around the premises and it’s fresh.  Alex was telling
the truth.  Let’s proceed.”

“Let me go in first,” I tell
Apollo.

“Be my guest.”

I nudge the door open with my nose
and stick my head out.  I look to the right and see nothing.  I look to the
left and see a cat halfkind with a giant stick that crashes down, right over my
back.  Crap.

It hits me hard and I fall flat on
my stomach.  Luckily, my armor absorbs most of the impact, but it still hurts
like hell.  I roll around so my head faces the ceiling and I see the cat
halfkind raise the stick again, preparing for another strike.  He swings wildly
downward, but I evade it and roll out of the way just in the nick of time.  I
recover and get back up to my feet.

We stand face to face.  He’s lean,
but toned.  His face is an odd but appealing mixture of whiskers, hair, and a
pink nose.  His alluring yellow eyes narrow and look at me harshly.  The stare
down thickens the air with tension.  Neither of us are willing to make a move,
we stand there and gaze at each other cautiously.

However, a move is made, but not
by either of us.  Apollo storms in and shoots at Isaac.  A blast hits him in
the arm and he falls to his side.  He keels over, but Apollo continues his
assault.  He shoots another ball of energy and it hits him again in the arm. 
Now the cat halfkind is on the ground, doubled over.

The adrenaline takes over his body
and the cat halfkind gets up.  But Apollo’s attack is relentless.  He shoots
him again, now on his forearm, and he kneels on one knee, the other hand
clutching his wounds.  This time he stays down.

“No!”  Another voice creeps up
behind me and I see his twin running towards him.  She lunges and embraces her
brother as he struggles to maintain his posture.  Her body covers his
completely.

“Move over!” Apollo yells.

She doesn’t budge an inch.

“Do it, Iris,” her brother says. 
“He’ll kill you if you don’t.”

She reluctantly complies and
stands to the side.

“Now on your knees, hands behind
your head,” Apollo barks out.

She’s frightened and trembling. 
Tears are rolling down her eyes.  She’s about to cry hysterically at any
moment.  Iris Lawton slowly puts both knees on the ground and raises her hands
behind her head.

Apollo looks at Isaac Lawton. 
“You too.”

Isaac lowers his other knee and
raises one arm behind his head.

“I said both arms,” Apollo
demands.

“I can’t,” he retorts, scowling
over his injury.  “You kind of shredded one.”

“Very well,” Apollo says.

I take a look at Isaac Lawton.  He
can barely open one eye from the pain shooting through his body.  His teeth
grind so hard they might crack.  He inhales in air intensely with intermittent
pants coming out here and there.  Blood flows down his arm like a steady river
flow.  It empties in drips and stains the floor with dark, thick crimson
circles.

“So, you’re going to kill us?”
Isaac asks bluntly.

Apollo isn’t expecting the
question and dwells before he answers.  “Yes.”

“Why?”

Apollo lowers his head, not
knowing the answer.  He struggles to understand the reasoning and all he can
say is “Because we were told to.”

“So you always do what you’re
told?  Even if you think what you’re doing is wrong?” Isaac shoots back.

Apollo doesn’t hesitate this
time.  “I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing before taking on this
task.  I sympathized with your cause, I saw that we were the big bad hunters
picking on the little guy.  But, you know what I realized?”

“What?” Isaac says dejectedly.

“You aren’t the little guy.  You
are the future.  You represent a change and from what we’ve seen, change is
dangerous.  Much like yourselves.”

“Change?  What are you talking
about?” Isaac says in a perplexed tone.

“I assume you know what the Event
is?” Apollo says.

Isaac thinks about Apollo’s
question in his head.  After a few seconds it seems he’s come to a conclusion.

“That’s what this is all about,
you think we’re going to blow up the world?” he yells.  “Our little family? 
You think we’re capable of that?  You’re delusional.”

“The humans who were against the
Ark Project were also viewed as delusional, and they ended up being the ones
who were right,” Apollo says.

“Yeah, and now you’re free because
of it.”

“The irony is not lost on me.”

“So, then we come along and you
think we’ll form some kind of secret society, one that will blow you up? 
That’s the wave of destruction you speak of?  Why?  Because we’re not like you,
because we’re abominations?  Savages?”

“I suppose,” Apollo says quietly.

“How do you respond to that?  With
more destruction.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a dog, wolf, human, whatever. 
You all walk around and think you’re civilized, that your new intelligence
makes you better.  But, inside, you’re as savage as you were before the humans
gave you the smarts.  You just don’t want to admit it.”

“Say what you say,” Apollo
responds apathetically.

Isaac’s voice quickly turns
angry.  “Don’t kid yourself, you don’t believe in any of the junk you’re
spewing.  When you captured us, you and your human friend didn’t want us
killed.  And now all of a sudden you’re going to execute us like criminals? 
What happened?  Your friend die or something?”

“Don’t say anything about
Commander Trevor!” Apollo says furiously.  He speaks with anguish and raw
emotion.  “That human was killed because of your kind.  He was my friend, my
brother in arms.  Is it personal?  Perhaps, but don’t even pretend that I don’t
know what you halfkinds are capable of.  His death opened my eyes - I now see
the damage your kind can do.  I saw it in Tiago, that’s why I killed him.  All
of you are so thirsty for freedom, you’ll do anything for it.  Our ancestors
had that same thirst and we all know how that turned out.”

Isaac, a little astonished asks,
“Is Tiago really dead?”

“Yes,” Apollo says.

He shakes his head in disbelief
and says, “Well, I’m sorry your friend died.”

“I don’t believe anything you
halfkinds say anymore.”

I look at Isaac and his face
sours.  He realizes that no matter what he says, nothing will help.

“I should’ve killed you back in
the sewer,” Isaac says sorely.

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Apollo
responds.  “Fire.”

Just like the others, a comet of
energy zips from his helmet and through Isaac’s brain.  He probably doesn’t
even have time to realize what has happened before he blacks out of
consciousness and his head hits the floor.

Immediately, Iris Lawton bursts
into hysterics.  She lunges at her brother, and picks up his body to place it
on her knees.  She grabs him tightly, holding on for dear life, and buries her
head into his chest as tears pour out of her eyes.

Iris then let’s go of her grip
slightly and rubs his face with the back of her hand, wiping the blood off his
fur.  She gazes into his soulless eyes and cries even harder as she places his
limp head over her shoulder, clutching her dead brother’s body like a mother
and a newborn.

I watch and I can’t help but feel
her pain.  Her tears are the culmination of a lifelong struggle to be accepted,
to have that one word that has been tossed around so much - freedom.  And now
she sits there, dead brother in her arms, the last of her kind, looking up at
the barrel of a smoking gun.

Apollo has it aimed directly at
her head, but she doesn’t feel fear, she doesn’t feel anxiety, she only feels
the grief of her loss.

His helmet is armed, his shot
ready to fire.

“I’m sorry it had to end this
way,” Apollo says.

“Fire.”

Iris Lawton sits there, still
clutching her brother’s body, in shock.  Apollo turns around and looks at me,
bewildered at what has happened.  Blood trickles down his snout and he sniffs
it.  His legs start to shake and he strains his body to stay up.  It’s no use,
though, because his legs give in to the weight and he collapses.  He falls
lifeless in a pool of his own blood.

I snort the air and breathe in the
smoke from the barrel on my helmet.  He’s the only kill I plan to make.

Iris is still stunned and slowly
sets her brother’s corpse to the ground.  She approaches me softly, curious yet
reluctant.

“Are you going to hurt me?” she
asks me.

“No.”

“Why… why did you do it?”

I look at Apollo, blood still
spilling from his head.  I think about how in the blink of an eye he changed
from easygoing suck up to a maniacal, cold blooded murderer.  It was done all in
the name of a human, his master.  It is at this moment I realize what Tiago was
trying to say.

Dog and wolf, that’s how it ended.

“I did it because I call no one my
master,” I say.

Iris is unsure of my words, but
her reaction tells me she understands the subtle message in it.

“Are Tiago and the others really
dead?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then, I guess I was right all
along.”

I don’t know what she means, but
it doesn’t matter.  She gets up and stands over her brother.  Iris is the sole
survivor in a family of eleven, possibly the only halfkind on Earth.  She takes
a few moments to soak up this information.

I still see water coming from her
eyes and she walks around the room, pacing slowly, peering at walls as if
there’s something to look at.  I imagine that she’s looking at faded memories
in her mind, places and events that will only haunt her for the rest of her
life.  And as these thoughts consume her, she falls to the ground and weeps
softly and tenderly.

I approach her warily, unsure of
how to react.  But as I see the raw emotion pouring from her soul, I lose my
inhibitions and nudge my head against hers as a sign of comfort.

At first she scoots back,
surprised by the gesture, but she looks at my eyes and sees that my intentions
are genuine.  She lets go of any fear and moves forward to give me a heartfelt
hug.  Her eyes bury into my body and I can feel her tears as she lets her
emotions go.

As she sits there, gripping my fur
tightly, I look outside.  Through the door, the sun stretches out over the horizon. 
The streaks of warmth hit my paws and warms my coat.

I close my eyes to imprint this
moment in my memories.  I want to remember it as long as I can.

December 31, 3040
11:57 PM

I walk outside of my quaint little
cabin and breathe in the crisp winter air.  I have a large coat on and I sip on
freshly brewed hot chocolate.  My legs tread through the snow as I lose myself
in the millions of stars that fill the sky.  The moon is glowing, radiating its
bright blue and green shade across the landscape.  It’s quiet, the only thing I
hear is the rustling of pine trees in the wind.