Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (11 page)

“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.

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.”

“I don’t.”

We have reached the front
entrance.  Colbo takes his access card and puts it in front of the scanner.  It
takes a few seconds to complete, but when it is finished the device says
“Security systems already disabled.”

“Our access cards didn’t do
anything,” Colbo says.  “It looks like the security system is already off.”

“What do you make of this?” I ask
him.

“Either the security system
malfunctioned or someone turned it off already.”

“If it malfunctioned, repair
drones should have been sent already.  This was a manual shutdown.  Someone is
here.”

We both look around.

“Did the police say if there was
any maintenance scheduled for today?” Colbo asks.

“No,” I respond.

“We should contact Commander
Trevor to report our status.”

“No, I think we should investigate
first.  I don’t want the human to get involved yet.”

“It’s protocol Fenrir, just do
it.”

“Fine.”

Begrudgingly, I activate the
communicator that Trevor has given to us.  It provides direct communication via
headset to all our squad mates, and has video holographic capabilities.

“Trevor, do you read me?” I ask.

Trevor’s face pops up on a video
hologram in front of me.

“I read you, Fenrir.  What is your
status?” he says.

“Colbo and I have entered the
Primm-Phillips supply depot,” I say.  “The security system was already disabled
before our arrival.  We both agree that an intruder has turned it off.  Do we
proceed?”

“Yes, but be careful.  Over.”

We both walk through the front
door and, as the schematics tell us, there are two doors, one that leads to the
warehouse, the other to the offices.  Without hesitation, we head to the
warehouse and slowly saunter through the hallway, trying to be as discreet as
possible.

The warehouse machines are off, so
the whole building is silent.  If there is an intruder in the premise, they
must be very good at keeping low because I can’t hear anything.

We make our way through the
warehouse doors and hit an outsized cage that separates the entrance of the
warehouse from the rest of it.  There’s a small doorway that has a manual
handle, as opposed to all the automatic doors we had walked through.  Since I do
not have hands to operate the human handle, I motion to Colbo to open it.  He
proceeds to gently pull it down, creating a large enough crack for me to pass
through.  I motion for him to wait until I scout the area, since I am shorter
and possess the stealth that his hefty frame doesn’t.

All I see are stacks of boxes
everywhere.  They are labeled with the product names.  One box says Alphabrans,
a popular cereal among the human population.  Another is labeled peaches.  It
seems this place stores fruits and vegetables.  They must be pumped with
fresheners.  I don’t see how a peach could last long in a dank warehouse like
this.

All the boxes looked untouched, as
they are still piled up neatly.  If there was a halfkind looking for supplies,
it hasn’t happen yet.  Things would have been strewn about messily from the
rummaging that would have taken place.  Either that, or our would-be intruder
took every precaution to mask whatever evidence they would have left.  I doubt
they are that good.

I pace around to see what else is
in the warehouse, but I become disoriented by the clutter and shipments.  I
look back and can’t even see where Colbo stands.  The fact that my vertical
height reaches just over three feet prevents me from seeing over the stacks.