Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact Page 8

  “After our debriefing, we know there are ten halfkinds remaining. You’ve gone through their profiles, I assume?” I ask the team. They all nod. “Good. We know that Maya Lawton’s corpse had been there for about a week, thus, I think they vacated 1523 Chakming Drive immediately after she had died. It seems they didn’t even take time to bury her properly, which meant they were in quite a rush to leave their home.”

  “Judging from the evidence that we’ve obtained, they had lived there their whole life. Why would they be so quick to leave?” Apollo asks.

  “Perhaps they knew someone would be coming,” Borton interjects. “Maya was on a daily plan for her energy bill since her credit was so bad. That means she had to pay every day or else a collector would be coming. The Las Vegas County Energy Department has always been very punctual about bill collections, and for someone who already had late incidents before, they wouldn’t hesitate to have someone stop by.”

  “It seems that they want to keep a low profile. But why?” Apollo persists.

  “Because they think we are hostile,” Colbo interrupts. “Think about it, when that frog half-man, Leonard Lawton, saw Detective Marsden, what was his first instinct? To attack him. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t give any terms of peace, he went straight for a weapon. Judging from what I’ve read on Maya’s profile along with the actions of Leonard, these things fear us.”

  “Do you blame them?” Fenrir asks. “You all realize that our mission is to track down and kill these creatures, right? Maya Lawton raised her children with the right mindset, that they will be feared and attacked. Her upbringing made them understand their place in the world.”

  There is an awkward silence in the room after Fenrir’s comments. The reality of our mission sinks in. We are given our orders, but we are not the good guys. We are the predators, hunting a prey that didn’t ask to be hunted.

  “As long as I get paid, that’s all I care about,” Borton says.

  “Of course,” Fenrir responds. “That’s all you pigs care about.”

  “Excuse me?” Borton says defensively.

  “Calm down both of you,” I say sternly. “We’re here to discuss our plan, not argue with each other.”

  Borton and Fenrir stop their squabbling, but give each other dirty looks. Apollo interjects to ease the tension. “My original question wasn’t answered, though. Why do you think they left so abruptly?”

  “I thought my statements answered that question, but I guess I have to spell it out for the less intellectually inclined,” Fenrir says. “They’re afraid of making contact with the world. They’re motivated by fear, avoiding any creature that comes their way, especially ones that ask questions. They’ll do anything to keep their secrecy, even if it means leaving their dead mother to rot in the house they grew up in.”

  “Sounds cold,” Apollo says.

  “Survival is their only mission. Sympathies are trivial,” Fenrir says casually.

  “Okay, so we know they’re on the run,” I say. “They’ve been out there for a week. How do you think they are on supplies?”

  “From the reports at Maya’s crime scene, it seems that they took things with them. Not personal items, but the house was scarce of any items that are necessary for their survival,” Agent Leons says.

  “Food, water, clothing?” I ask. He nods. “How much do you think they took?”

  “A lot,” he responds. “It’s hard to determine, but there was barely anything in the house, in terms of that stuff.”

  “What about their insta-item?” Apollo asks.

  “Negative, that was still there,” Agent Leons responds. “Maya had one linked to her accounts and it was a special security model. It had a bio scanner on it, so it would only work if she activated it. The thing is useless without her. They wouldn’t be able to order any supplies with it, nor receive any goods unless she was physically alive to get it for them. Seems that she wanted to be the sole provider.”

  “That’s good news for us,” Colbo says. “That means they’ll be running out of supplies eventually.”

  “You’re correct,” I say to Colbo. “You all know how the insta-item process works right? The items that you can order through the intsa-item are stored in supply depots. Various delivery companies have many scattered about small towns, like Primm. That’s where all your food and goods are held. When you make an order through the insta-item, it’s automatically processed in a supply depot. So, say you want to order a bag of rice. The supply depot gets the order and sends it through their teleporters to the coordinates sent via the insta-order. Once it’s sent from their side, it only takes a couple of moments until it pops in your insta-item. Ingredients for your day’s dinner are ready.”

  “So,” Borton asks. “You think that once their stash runs out, they’ll head to a supply depot to get what they need?”

  “Yes,” I respond. “I assume they don’t have an insta-item with them, so they’ll need to go directly to the source to get their goods. I think our first task should be to stakeout all the depots in Primm. They’ll be bound to try and get supplies sooner or later, and we should be there to intercept them when they do. Apollo, do you have your compcube with you?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Do a quick search on all the supply depots in Primm.”

  He takes out his cube. The user interface appears in front of him, a floating hologram. He uses his paws to navigate the menus and search my query. Within a few seconds he has an answer.

  “Looks like there are six different ones in Primm,” he says.

  Great. There are six of us, and I can’t risk sending one animal to each supply depot. We have the weapons to take them on, but if we spread the team thin and it becomes a "one on ten" situation, whoever that one is will be screwed. Yet, I need to make sure all of the supply depots are monitored.

  “Leons,” I say. “Is it possible to bring in reinforcements?”

  “Yes, but it’ll take at least a few days tops to get all the necessary permissions. It was already hard enough for the Human Council to maneuver through the bureaucracy to get this team assembled.”

  “Damnit. We can’t risk sending one team member to each depot, but we need to have them all covered. How about drones?”

  “Again, more paperwork.”

  “Shit!” I say to myself in a frustrated tone.

  “They don’t have an insta-item right? That’s probably the only thing they need, that and credits,” Fenrir says to the group. “We should cross reference Apollo’s results with depots that carry insta-items.”

  Once again Fenrir impresses me. His logic makes sense. “Apollo, do it.”

  Apollo quickly enters the query into the compcube. “Looks like there are three depots that carry insta-items. Primm-Phillips, Primm-Austen, and Primm-Burke.”

  “That’s where we should start looking then,” I say. “We can split into teams of two and each pairing can do recon there. We’ll want to stay low and only spring into action when we encounter the targets. Does anyone object to this plan?”

  No one raises a hand. However, Fenrir speaks. “Remember, when we’re on stakeout, we want to stay inconspicuous. The halfkinds won’t be expecting us to act so soon, so the element of surprise is key here. It could take a day, or five, to stakeout the area, but they’ll come eventually. They’ll have to.”

  “I want to focus on these three depots only,” I say. “I can work on the paperwork to get the drones out, but the earliest we can get them here will be in a week. We can’t wait that long, so for now we’ll have to make do with what we have.”

  “When do you want to start?” Borton asks.

  “Tonight,” I say authoritatively. “We don’t have a moment to waste. Apollo, has there been any reported break-ins to any of the depots?

  “Give me a second, I can check.” Apollo scans the information presented to him on his compcube. “Nothing in the past few days. No stolen items, no missing inventory. If anything came up, it would have been reported and I
can’t find anything.”

  “Good, that means they haven’t made their move yet,” I say. “But they’ll make it soon, I can feel it. I hope you all got enough sleep, because most of our operations will happen at night.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Borton says, “why is that?”

  “You heard what Fenrir said,” I respond, “they’re scared of what’s out there. And right now they’re hiding. Why would they want to go out in broad daylight and risk being seen?”

  The answer is obvious and Borton knows it. His face shows frustration, as if he angry at himself for asking such a stupid question.

  “How do you want to assign the teams?” Apollo asks me.

  “We will take Primm-Austen. Fenrir and Colbo, you’ll secure Primm-Phillips. Borton and Erawan, take Primm-Burke. Are you all okay with these assignments?”

  They all nod their heads.

  “We have to act fast, team, so let’s go back to the armory and suit up.”

  We head back to where our gear is stored, but I wait for everyone to pass until Erawan walks by. I want to have a word with him. I am curious that he remained silent during the entire strategy session.

  “Something on your mind, Erawan?” I ask him.

  “No sir,” he says.

  “You didn’t say one word during our meeting, something must be on your mind.”

  “No sir, just the mission.”

  I know his background. He is a member of the elephants’ elite guard, probably the most decorated animal on our team.

  “I would have expected more talk coming from someone so experienced,” I say to him.

  “Experience is the reason I stayed quiet. I’ve been on more of these kinds of missions than anyone on this team. I’ve seen it all, been on covert assignments on the Moon, fought secret wars in Africa, things I can never tell anyone. That is the key to my point, a true soldier has nothing to say unless he needs to say it. And right now, there is nothing I need to say. I will fulfill my mission. Everything else is optional.”

  He walks away without a hint of emotion. I was wrong to question his lack of participation and now I realize that. This is my team and I will respect how they operate.

  Time to get started.

  Chapter 8 – Fenrir Snow - Hunters

  November 16, 3040 9:50 PM

  The night sky is shaded with a hue of pink and orange. The lights from Las Vegas make stars non-existent in this part of North America, especially in Primm which is thirty miles away from it.

  Colbo and I have arrived at the Primm-Phillips supply depot. We stand outside its gates and I see no sign of a break in. The local law enforcement has been surprisingly cooperative with giving us full access to most of the public buildings in Primm. We didn’t really give them any specifics about our mission, just that we were hunting fugitives and that they were most likely hiding within the confines of one of these depots. When law enforcement gets the order directly from the highest members of the United Species Alliance, they tend to cooperate hastily, even if it means answering to a lowly wolf or gorilla. In human territory it’s still a human mentality.

  The police have provided us with general access keys, allowing us to get past any security the depot may have. When I first heard about what systems they have, or lack thereof, I thought it was a joke. I almost let out a laugh, but then I realized this is all they really have. I guess I wasn’t expecting a human city to be in such shambles.

  When you’re in a close proximity to a place as morally questionable as Las Vegas, these kinds of things aren’t surprising. Corruption tends to leak from the source. Just look at all the cities surrounding it. They are hotspots for prostitution, gambling, and illegal drugs. Interspecies hooking, an act that is strictly punished and looked down upon by most societies, human or otherwise, could only happen in a place as poor as Primm.

  We walk through the front gate toward the main entrance. It’s automatic and slides open the instant we are in range. The area inside the gate looks decrepit. Dead plant life litters the premise.

  With the access keys, Colbo and I plan to enter through the front door. The supply depot itself isn’t difficult to navigate through. Trevor handed us the floor plan, and I examined every detail on it.

  There’s a front lobby that is no larger than an average living room. Two doors are at opposite sides, leading to two different areas of the depot. The left one, marked ‘holdings,’ goes to a hallway that leads to an enormous warehouse where all the supplies are kept and processed. It holds several items, but what the halfkinds are looking for will most likely be food and the insta-items. The warehouse is a large maze of stacked boxes and automated conveyor belts that lead to different teleport stations. Someone far away orders their item, it gets processed through the belts. At the end of all the twists and turns, it is sent out for consumption to whomever ordered it. There are cranes and mechanical arms that help in the shipping process, picking certain items and dropping them in the teleporters for jobs that the belts can’t handle. I’ve never seen these things in action before, but I heard when it’s working, the only thing you hear are hundreds of gears and robotics moving simultaneously at one time. So many parts are in motion, too many for the naked eye to keep track of.

  The other door in the lobby leads to the clerical rooms. That is where workers do their inventory checks, making sure that all the orders are processed correctly. Machines do most of the work flawlessly, but bugs still occur in the programming and it’s up to these workers to maintain things. They set up these offices in case any manual labor needs to happen.

  Colbo and I are here mainly to patrol and investigate the warehouse. That’s where the goods are, that’s where the target will be snooping around. I doubt we’ll even step foot into the office side of the depot.

  “So Colbo, what do you make of all this?” I ask him as we head to the entrance door.

  “Make of what? Our mission?” he asks me quickly as he looks around for anything suspicious.

  “No, of this whole situation. These halfkinds and their existence.”

  “My opinion doesn’t matter. I’m here for the same reason you are, because my kind asked me to.”

  “You obey your orders blindly? Don’t you ever stop and think about if they’re right or not?”

  “Judging by your question, it seems you are the one who has trouble with what we’ve been assigned to do.”

  I look at him sharply.

  “Not even,” I say. “I am loyal to the Brotherhood of Wolves and would never suspect any of my orders. I’m curious, that’s all.”

  “It is not my place to question the motives of my leaders,” he says.

  “Ah yes, of course not. But I assume you do know the Gorilla Government is in cahoots with the humans. I imagine the Human Council will now be funding a chunk of your war against the lions in South Africa thanks to this mission.”

  I get under Colbo’s skin and he looks mildly angry by my comments.

  “Since we have just met, I’ll be polite and refrain from knocking the fangs out of your mouth,” he says. “And you should be one to talk. Rumor has it that the wolves need some upgrades in their tech. I’m sure human engineers are jumping at the opportunity to help your kind out…”

  I flash a small smile.

  “Whatever you say,” I say. “Guess both of our governments are free dealing then. Politics aside, why do you think they, the Human Council and the other species, want these things dead?”

  “I think they feel that these halfkinds are a threat to the balance our world has maintained.”

  “Balance?” I scoff. “Last time I checked, our world is anything but balanced. The humans are still in control. They have the leg up on all of us, always will. They got better tech, higher numbers, and more resources. We’re second class citizens compared to them.”

  “Better than no class,” Colbo says matter-of-factly. “There was a time when we didn’t stand a chance. Much has changed and now we are equals in our intelligence. We
aren’t on the verge of extinction like in the old days.”

  “Yes, and now we are on a mission spearheaded by their council. And to do what? To make a new species extinct. Seems that things haven’t changed at all.”

  “Don’t be so cynical. They are abominations and shouldn’t even exist. Their conception only happened through the most perverse actions that the sickest minds could think of. I do not see eye to eye with the Human Council all the time, but I can see why they pushed for this operation. These things are a disgrace to the laws of nature, created by bio techno monsters, a rogue group that is playing God. We need to send a message to those who think they can wield such power.”

  “If I recall correctly, the last time humans played God, our intelligence was created. Perhaps it’s something we should encourage more often,” I say wistfully.

  “But if I recall correctly, they lost their path to a perfect world. They had everything before we came around. Teleporters had broken through. There were plans for advanced biotics, technology that could be integrated into your mind. Imagine watching a TV without having one, it appears in your eyes. Amazing. So much could’ve been created. But all of that became lost after the Event, after we showed up. Their development stood still. It’s a miracle that they were able to finish completion of the terraformed moon.”

  I sneer.

  “Who cares about the humans, it worked out for us,” I say.

  “Not this time,” Colbo says. “It could open a plethora of issues. People trying to breed halfkind children, genetic mixing that shouldn’t exist, and none of us, wolves, gorillas, humans, would be able to control the chaos that might ensue from it.”

  “Seems like we’re picking and choosing.”

  But in a way, Colbo is right. The existence of halfkinds would bring upon issues that could put society in a panic. Things have barely smoothed out after the Event, the world was not ready for another one.

  “I see your point, Colbo,” I say. “But what we’re doing isn’t a mission, it’s an assassination.”

  “What must be done must be done,” he says. “It’s the cold reality of what we signed up for. Besides, you don’t seem like the type to care.”