Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (13 page)

After I enter, the door shuts
behind me.  I turn back to Candy’s instructions to see what I need to do. 
According to her, it’s a standard Tang Phalanx Third Generation, meaning it’s
one of the earlier models.  These ones have a manual override, which is
configured by remapping certain wires on the circuit board.  The newer models,
which Candy said were in the ninth generation at this point, removed this
feature, but I guess they didn’t bother upgrading this console.

I open a small panel at the bottom
of the box and I see nothing but a sea of wires attached to the circuit board. 
Candy’s instructions make it very clear where I should place what.  Switch
circuit A from port A1 to A2, wire R from port B2 to B5 and so on.  The goal of
all this switching is to cause a system failure without making it obvious to
the system.  If I go about randomly pulling wires, the system’s AI will be
aware of tampering and automatically cause the alarms to go off.  The wires I’m
programming are masked switches that the artificial intelligence purposely
ignores.  Then after I’m done, the system failure goes off before the AI can
react.  It’s a manual override designed to trick the AI from doing anything
about it.  It was installed in case the AI goes haywire and prevents a manual
override.  Once a system failure is detected, and after the AI realizes it
can’t do anything about it, thanks to the override, it automatically shuts down
the security programs and my task is done.

After I make my modifications, I
put the panel back in place and fire up the console.  The graphical interface
appears to me and it boots up.  The artificial intelligence then speaks.

“System failure, going into
automatic shutdown mode,” it says.  “Security programs will deactivate in five
minutes.”

It works!  A timer then appears on
the screen.  I guess they give a five minute buffer in case someone wants to
manually turn the security programs back on.  So now I wait until I can enter
the grounds.

During the five minutes, the
console has computing capabilities, meaning I can use it to enter the
infospace.  With some time to kill, I decide why not.  I open a new window and
use the graphical interface to move some windows around.  With my hands, I
guide the display in front of me and open a browser.

Although I am not as technically
gifted as some of my brothers and sisters, I am good enough to browse the
space.  It’s easy enough.  Once a window is popped open, simply enter your
query and all this information pops up.  The infospace has been around as long
as intelligent animals have, probably longer.  In its infancy, it was called
the internet, but now the moniker has evolved to the infospace.  I guess it’s
to emphasize the size of it.  I heard back then you actually had to wait to
open up browser pages and that it would take multiple queries, or searches as
they called it, to find what you really wanted.  They even had to remember web
addresses.  I can’t imagine living in a time like that.  Now, all you have to
do is ask a question and ninety nine percent of the time, the results you’re
looking for get to you in a flash.  Thank God for modern tech.

There’s still about two minutes
left and what I want to investigate is our next move.  Tiago mentioned using
the teleporters to connect to the Moon via a stop at San Francisco, but he
might want to know some information about the teleporter stations around here. 
I use a quick query to get the locations of all the local teleporters near our
hideout.  The infospace returns information on two stations, the Li and
Gonzalez stations.  I wonder which one Tiago plans to lead us to?  The Gonzalez
one is closer to our hide out, it’s probably that one.

Tiago and the others would no
doubt need to know this, so I decide to retrieve the information.  A few
seconds later, a data cube pops out from the console.

“Security programs shut down,” the
computer says, breaking my thoughts.

It’s time to go, but before I do I
take some time to scan the warehouse, to get the locations of the items I plan
to grab.  I use the console to do an inventory search and I take note of where
the food, insta-items, clothes, and other things are.  I take the floor plans
that Candy has handed to me and mark the locations on my map.  The list has
been double checked and I take one last look at it to make sure I have the
rundown.  I then climb up the ladder and open the grating that leads to the
warehouse floor.  It’s lighter than the grating outside, making it much easier
for me to remove.

I get above surface, put the
grating back on the hole, and take a look around.  There are boxes piled sky
high.

“Crap, how am I going to sort
through all this stuff?” I ask myself.  “I didn’t expect this place to be so
crowded.  I thought it was a small supply depot.”

Digging through them might be more
difficult than I thought.  But it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.  After
all I had done thus far, I feel a new sense of confidence that I have never
felt before.  I knew I could achieve, I just needed the opportunity to do it.

But then, my eyes go back to floor
level and I see two figures in the shadows.  The light from the Moon shines
through a window on the wall, and from the darkness they step through it.  A
wolf and a gorilla appear before me, wearing militaristic uniforms.  The wolf
doesn’t look too armed, he has some odd looking helmet headset combo on him and
some kind of box on his front leg, but the gorilla looks menacing.  The main
thing I notice is his very big gun.

These must have been the animals that
killed Leonard, these must be the animals that are after us.

“Stop right there,” the gorilla
says.  I’m surprised because his human speech is very good for a different
species.  I understand him clearly.

I tense up and put my hand on my
tote.  I remember the explosives that Tiago had given to me and wonder if I
should use them.  It’s too early, and I am seriously outgunned, so I wait for
them to speak again.

“Drop the bag,” the gorilla
instructs me.  I do not.

“Who are you?” I ask.  “Are you
here to kill me?”

The wolf then speaks. “Yes.  On
orders of the United Species Alliance, straight from the leaders.”

A part of me is shocked.  This was
a direct order from the top of the top of the United Species Alliance.  I knew
they were involved in some scope, but I didn’t think the big bosses were
involved.  This is larger than I imagined.  The world really is after us.

Suddenly, without warning, the
gorilla props his gun up from his arms and aims it at me.  I only have a few
fractions of a second to react, so I dash to the side, reaching for cover
behind a stack of boxes.

I hear a deafening blast echo
behind me, causing items to fly everywhere.  The force from it sends me flying
headfirst and I use my arms to break my fall forward.  Dust and debris rise and
it becomes hard to see.  I am little discombobulated, but uninjured.

The boxes don’t provide much to
hide behind, but since there are so many of them, they keep me hidden.  I
quickly get to my feet and hide behind another one as I try to figure out where
my pursuers went after the first shot.

“Damnit, I missed!” I hear the
gorilla shout.  I realize that they’re not far and that my only option is to
bolt out of here.  The supplies would have to wait if I want to live.

I start running towards where I
think the entrance is, knocking down piles of boxes that stand in my way. 
Unfortunately, my sprint is a dead giveaway and another shot from the gorilla’s
massive gun comes hurdling my way.  It once again misses about three feet from
me, but it’s still enough to knock me off my toes and cause another rain of supplies.

Once again, I am disoriented, but
I hear the footsteps of the two coming my way.  I look around to see if there’s
anything I can use as a weapon.  I still have my bomb, but now is not the best
time to use it unless I wanted to blow myself up in the process.

Luckily, though, fate intervenes. 
I see a button on a nearby pole that says conveyor switch.  I’m not one hundred
percent sure, but I believe it turns on the machinery in this room and might
provide a good enough distraction for me.  I dash to it and press the button.

The machinery starts to run. 
Boxes move and the warehouse becomes noisy from the echoes of gears and
devices.

“He’s turned it on!” I hear
faintly hear the gorilla say.  “I can’t hear shit.”

Not wasting an instant of time, I
make my way to the exit, bulldozing anything in my way.  I don’t care about the
noise I make, I just need to get out.

I see it, the chain link fence
with the word ‘exit’ marked on top.  Never in my life do I feel so relieved to
see a sign.  I might not have what I came for, but at least I’m going to make
it out alive.

Or so I thought.  Something jolts
me from the side.  Feathers poof into the atmosphere.  I fall to my right and
tumble on the ground face first.  Instinctively, I try to get back up, using my
arms for balance.  But as I lift myself up, my arm suddenly has a strong
stinging sensation, like someone has pinched me.  I collapse and once again my
body hits the floor.  I roll over, face up, and I reach my right arm over to my
left, where the pain comes from.

To my surprise, a dark, thick
liquid covers my hands.  It is my own blood.  I look to the left, the direction
the blow came from.  It is the wolf.  His helmet protrudes a barrel that is
smoking.

The gorilla rushes over.

“Nice shot!” he says to the wolf. 
“It’s a good thing we decided to split up.  Now let’s end this.”

I look directly into the eyes of
the wolf.  They are cold and empty.  I sense that he has no satisfaction in
what he is doing, but from his lack of emotion, I know he is going to kill me.

But I will not go down like that. 
I reach in my bag for the bomb and press on the trigger.  I hear a high
screeching noise, take it out, and throw it in their direction.  I then jump as
far away as I can.

Time freezes.  I hear the
explosive hitting the ground, the bellow of the gorilla yelling to move.  And
as quickly as I threw it, I hear an ear shattering boom behind me.

This is the third time I have been
knocked down this evening.  The gorilla’s shots barely moved me, but this bomb
flings me clear across the room.  The force throws me directly into a wall,
back first.  It feels like someone has slammed me with a sledgehammer.

I lay on the ground, bones probably
broken from my encounter with the wall.  Everything on my body is sore, my
legs, back, arms and head.  I look at my arms and legs and see that they are
bleeding, but at this point, I can’t even locate where my wounds are.  I see
that they are painted with a thick coat of dark red.  I touch my head and I
feel the same thing.

I guess it’s the adrenaline,
because under normal circumstances, I would have been out cold.  But things are
visible, I can still see, and what I see is a large cloud of smoke in the air. 
Everything in my field of vision is dusty.  I don’t see the gorilla or the wolf
either, nor do I hear them.

“Did I kill them?” I say to
myself.  But before I could even continue speaking, something trickles from the
smoke.  They’re bright and blue, like a neon light.  They’re also small, and
bounce on the ground toward my direction.  They look like little spheres of
lights.

“What is that?” I ask.

And then suddenly, I am flung from
the ground again.  The little blue spheres burst in front of me with violent
aggression.  Each explosion is like a tiny bomb and the collective of them
sends me into the air and tears up my body.  I feel things that I have never
felt before, cuts so deep that it feels like something is eating at my flesh. 
Things I had control over suddenly do nothing.  I try to move my fingers as I
hit the ground, but I have none.

My body falls to the floor, and I
know that pieces of me are gone.  I cough as smoke and fumes enter my lungs. 
My vision is fuzzy, my ears are ringing, and I look down to my waist and see
that my right leg is gone.  My left hand has disappeared too, replaced by a
stump that oozes out red liquid.  My feathers, once glistening and healthy are
now charred and burnt.  My body is in agony, but the shock and adrenaline make
it hard to focus on any one part.  I am literally smoking.

There’s nothing left to feel.  I
have failed.  I came this close to being good enough, to being the guy who my
family could depend on, but success evades me even until death.

I see the wolf emerging from the
cloud of smoke, the barrel from his helmet still out and pointed at me.  I hear
him say something, and I’m not clear what it is.  It sounds like fire, but it
doesn’t matter anymore.  It’s the last thing I hear.  Seconds after the wolf
speaks, I feel a jolt hit my head.  An incredible pain occurs, like my skull is
collapsing on itself.  Everything turns black.

Looks like I didn’t have what it
takes.

November 16, 3040
10:45 PM

It’s been a little over an hour
since Lombardi left on his quest for supplies.  He should’ve been back by now.

I am worried about my brother.  He
isn’t strong like the rest of us.  He’s slower than the runners in our family,
and can barely lift half the weight that I’ve seen Alex or Curtis press.  He’s
no genius like Candy, either.  But I can see why he volunteered.  He wants to
prove himself and who am I to brush off his request?  He probably isn’t the
best among us, but I believe in him.  He is my brother and I know he won’t let
us down.

Some of the others aren’t like
me.  They don’t have faith and this attitude is broadcasted by the likes of
Tiago.  We’ve never really seen eye to eye, Tiago and I.  While he wants to
dictate his commands to the group with an iron fist, I see the value of
compassion.  You can’t scare people into doing things for you, especially your
own family members.  We both hold the heavy burden of being the leaders among
my brothers and sisters, but the way we handle things are worlds apart.