Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (3 page)

And I had no desire to see
anything else.  The world doesn’t seem that great of a place.  I heard about
wars between species going on in some areas of the world.  I read online that
things weren’t always this way, that hundreds of years ago, humans were the
only animals on the planet that ruled.  But then something happened and other
animals became smarter.  Not all kinds, but many did.  And when you have that
many species aware of how smart they are, conflict is bound to arise.  I liked
my bubble, it kept me away from them.

But my dream scenario eventually
crumbled.  Without warning, something happened.  We were all eating dinner,
like we always did in the evenings, the eleven of us gathered around the supper
table enjoying a meal prepared by mother.  As we talked about the day’s events,
mom started coughing really hard.  She had always had an issue with her throat,
but it was usually very mild.  This time she was coughing up a storm.  We were
all concerned, but after a small fit, she assured us she was okay, so we went
back to our meal.

But then, five minutes later, it
happened again.  She coughed and coughed and coughed and then collapsed to the
ground.

Immediately, we rushed to her
side.  My sister Iris quickly raised her head and Isaac, her twin brother, got
a glass of water and tried to make mom drink it.  She wasn’t having it, though,
and furiously puked it out.  I looked at what she spewed and I saw pieces of
blood in it.  She turned over to her side and continued to cough and vomit
violently.

“We need to get a doctor!” I
yelled.  The others looked at me, with uneasy expressions.  They wanted to do
it but couldn’t because of the repercussions.

“You know we can’t,” Tiago said. 
I nodded sadly.  We could only sit there and watch.

The convulsions came.  She started
to shake violently, flopping around like a fish out of water.  One of her arms
flailed around so forcefully that the ground cracked.

I turned around to a corner and
shielded my eyes away from the sight.  But soon there was nothing to see.  Her
convulsions stopped and all I heard was silence.  I looked over to see my
brothers and sisters gathered around her with their heads down.  She was dead.

And so it came to be that my
mother, the only person who took care of us all these years, had died in front
of my eyes.

That night, we gathered in the
living room to figure out what we were to do next.  There was already talk
amongst my older brothers and sisters that the only plan we could pursue was to
leave, but we needed to figure out a strategy.

“We can’t leave her!” I
proclaimed.

“Well we can’t stay,” Tiago said. 
“Eventually, someone is going to come.  Bill collector, mortgage officer,
someone is going to wonder why things haven’t been paid.  You know mom was a on
a daily collection plan because of her bad credit.  If she was a day late, she
might have gotten a visit from the local collector.  None of us have access to
her information, either.  She kept that all to herself.  And if we stay here,
we’re going to be found out.  It might take a day, it might take a month, but
it’s for certain.  And you know what’s going to happen.  We’re practically dead
if they catch us.”

“And what makes you so certain
they’re going to harm us?” I asked.

“Are you a fool?” Tiago yelled. 
“You spend your time on the infospace, don’t you?  Have you seen what they do
to anyone who is different?  Did you read about what humans did to their own
kind thousands of years ago?  What they do out of fear and ignorance?  Mobs of
people are going to hunt us down and hang us.  At one time, they were
considered the most intelligent animals on the planet, and look at how they
behaved when faced with something unknown.  Things haven’t changed.  Any animal
that can think for themselves will act the same way.  They’ll murder us.”

“Perhaps Leonard is right,” my
brother Oscar said.  “Perhaps you’re only thinking of the worst scenario.”

“The worst scenario is the only
scenario,” Tiago said sharply.

“Look,” Isaac said, “regardless of
how the outside world is going to treat us, we should discuss whether staying
here is the best option.”

“I think we should consider
exploring the outside world.  We can’t stay here forever on what food and
supplies we have alone,” my sister Maddie told the group.  “We’ll eventually
have to go out, as we only have a few weeks of rations.  There’s no way we can
order anything, since mom’s insta-item is linked to her accounts.  We don’t
have access to them.  Perhaps we should take this time to leave and go to a
place where no one will be looking for the bills that aren’t going to be paid. 
There’s nothing for us here anymore.”

“And where do you suggest we go?”
my brother Alex asked.

“There are plenty of abandoned
buildings around here,” Maddie continued.  “We can stay in one of those, at
least until we figure out what to do next.  No one will be looking for us
there.”

“How do you know they’re
abandoned?” my brother Lombardi asked.

“I know.  You’re not the only one
who goes sneaking away at night,” Maddie said.  Lombardi looked embarrassed, as
did all my brothers and sisters.

“Looks like Maddie is right,”
Oscar said.  “What do you guys think?”

I looked around, and I saw
everyone nodding their heads in agreement.

“It seems wise to find a better
hiding area,” Tiago said.  “Then we can plan what to do from there.  We’ll need
to gather as many things as possible and move during the night so we are unseen
by any nosey bystanders.  Everyone, start packing your things.  We’re moving
out when the sun sets, in less than two hours.”

“But what about mom?” I asked
Tiago.  “We can’t leave her.”

“We don’t have time,” Tiago said. 
“We have to move as soon as possible.”

“No!” I yelled.  “That’s not
right.  She raised us and we can’t even give her a proper burial?”

My ten brothers and sisters looked
away from me, avoiding eye contact.  I saw the shame in their eyes.  I knew
they were thinking with their brains, that survival was their priority, but I
wish they thought with their hearts.

Tiago approached me, “I know this
is hard for you to hear, but it’s the only thing we can do right now.  You’re
scared.  You were the closest to mom and heeded all her advice.  But let me
assure you, the last thing she ever wanted was for us to be in danger.  She
didn’t want to see us hunted down by an angry mob, but that’s what’s going to
happen if they find us here.  C’mon, Leonard, we have to move.”

His words made sense, yet I was
still unsure.  But with all of my sisters and brothers leaving, I didn’t want
to be left behind.

“I suppose, I suppose you’re
right,” I said hesitantly.

“Good, now get your stuff, it’s
time we leave this place,” Tiago said.

I took an hour to get my things
and met everyone out front.  Maddie told us the abandoned building was a
warehouse two miles away.  We started to walk away, and I looked back to say
goodbye.

Thirty minutes later we finished
our trek and arrived at our destination.  It’s a large building, and it was
very empty.  We easily broke down the door and entered.  All eleven of us made
camp and lived off the food and water that we were able to bring with us. 
Tired from the journey, we settled in and dozed off.

I had dreams that night of my
mother.  Well, not so much dreams, but nightmares as I replayed her death over
and over and over in my mind.  I still couldn’t believe she was gone.

A day passed and I missed her.

Two days passed and I missed her
more.

Three, four, five days, and all I
could think about was her corpse rotting without a proper burial.

By the sixth day, I had had
enough.  I needed to go back home to get some closure, to say goodbye, to give
her a proper burial.

It is 5 AM, and my brothers and sisters are sleeping.  A week has almost passed since that fateful day.  I look for
something that will hide my face, and I find a hooded sweatshirt, boots, and
some sweatpants.  This will do.  I make sure no one sees me and I slink into
the morning light to make my way back home.

Things need to be ended.

I arrive in the front of the
house.  It’s a strange feeling coming back.  This is the place that I grew up
in, the only home I knew all my life.  And now I am coming back to it, like a
stranger.  Only a week has passed and already I feel like I am not welcome home
anymore.  It makes me sad.

I walk through the front door and
slowly approach the kitchen.  I smell the stench of death, and it is foul.  A
part of me is scared of what time has done to her body.  If the odor is any
indicator, it has not treated it well.

I reach the kitchen and see that
her once beautiful face is now bloated.  Her peach-colored skin is now grossly
discolored, a mix of yellow and light purple from her dead veins.  She is still
trapped in her shocked state, it looks anything but peaceful.

I shed a tear.  This is not the
way she should’ve gone.  She deserved better.  A part of me is angry at my
brothers and sisters.  How could they have abandoned her in this state?  All
that time she spent raising them and this is the thanks she gets?  It is
pathetic.  How is it that I am the youngest of them all, but I am the only one
who understands the meaning of respect?

I kneel down over her body.  I am
sorry mother, I should have never left you.

“Freeze! Hands up!” I hear.  I am
not alone.  My thoughts are interrupted, the shock of this discovery rocks me
to the core.

The man repeats his call again.  I
am too dumbfounded to comply.  How could this have happened? How is it that a
man, a cop no less, already knew to come looking for us?

The man is armed with a gun.  He
is not here to collect bills, he is here to capture something.

He repeats his order one more
time.  I slowly stand up and think about how to handle the situation.  If he
takes me into custody, I will surely be a lab rat or killed, like my mother
warned me.  If I run, it will give him another excuse to shoot.  Either way,
this will end in disaster.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a mob already
waiting to take me out.

I don’t know who this man is, but
I am not going to be taken.  I look down at my mother and remember the lifetime
of warnings she gave us.  All these years we had doubted her claims about how
the world would view us.  It looks like she was right.

I am not going to be killed.  I
can only do one thing - fight.  I know she’s looking down on me.  It’s what she
would have wanted me to do.  Time to make her proud.

I see in the corner of my eye a
kitchen knife in the sink.  It is the only weapon available, so I make a quick
lunge for it.  I’m counting on being faster than this man’s trigger finger.

But I am wrong.  After I grab the
weapon, I turn around and feel two hot burning sensations hit my chest.  It is
painful, but I can’t tell because things are starting to black out.  My chest
feels like there’s nothing there.  It’s hollow and I can sense movement going
through it, like wind flowing through a tunnel.

It’s the last thing I feel.

I’m sorry mother, I failed you.

November 16, 3040
6:05 PM

I got the call from headquarters
earlier in the morning about a special assignment.  It had been about four months
since my last case.  I am a commander for the Human Council, their star
detective.  When they call me up, it’s usually to investigate a crime and lead
a team to complete it.  If there’s a suspected terrorist in a town, I’d be the
guy who would find him.  Got tech that’s been stolen?  I’ll help you search,
track, and recover it.

So when they told me that they had
something extremely high security, something that they knew only I could
handle, I took it.  It’s from an order from the United Species Alliance, high
priority stuff.  The Council doesn’t hand out these assignments freely and
being on their good side will certainly help in the long run.

My superior called me at 4:00 in the afternoon and told me that if I was willing, the case would start in Las Vegas.  I usually have time to prepare first, to get my things, but my superior told
me that he needed me in as soon as possible.  I never heard him sound so hasty,
so I knew it was something big.  I packed my bags, put on a shirt and pants,
took the first teleporter into Las Vegas, and headed to the local United
Species Alliance headquarters for my debriefing.

When I get out of the teleporter
station receiver, a hovercar is there to pick me up and take me to HQ. 
Sometimes I laugh at the idea that through all this technological progression,
or maybe lack thereof, we still have hovercars, especially when we can teleport
across entire countries.  I guess it’s necessary.  If we were teleporting
around left and right with no order, you’d have people bumping into each
other.  It’d be chaotic, and in times like these, even the slightest order is
good order.

Besides, we can’t invent things
like we used to.  Those days are long gone thanks to all this change in
society.  Maybe one day when things settle down, we’ll be back on track.

About fifteen minutes later, I
arrive at HQ and meet up with my superior, Agent Leons.  He’s a large, portly
man, standing well over six feet.  He has a mustache and bald spot over his
oval shaped head.  His double chin hangs over the collar of his shirt, and his
blazer is slightly wrinkled.

He’s the man who usually notifies
me about these assignments and always gives me the run through on what I am up
against.  I’ve probably worked with him for twenty years or so.  He’s straight
forward, seems relaxed and carefree, but under that exterior lies a competent
manipulator.  He talks a lot, and sometimes tells me more than I need to hear. 
To put it bluntly, I don’t fully trust the man.