Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (16 page)

Over another hundred years, by
2540, the repopulation effort was finally deemed a success.  The phase two
animals were taken off the endangered species list, the goal of rapid
repopulation came to fruition.  The humans believed their work had saved these
animals, but they were right in ways far beyond their scope.

During those hundred or so years,
the animals created an underground army.  The phase one and two generations had
development teams that were veiled and secretly researched human technology. 
They learned how to modify human weapons for their own use.  Hiding was easy enough,
especially thanks to the air support the eagles offered.  There are some places
humans can’t get to because they are human.  And thus, the stockpiling
happened.  Weapons were being created in unknown locations, preparation for an
all-out assault to gain freedom.

The plan was simple - create
enough damage and fear that it would force the humans to negotiate with the
phase one and two animals, now known among themselves as the Ark Rebels.  The
terms were reasonable, each group of animals wanted their own land so that they
could cultivate societies, no longer in secret.

A hundred years is a long time to
plot and plan for an attack and there was one more thing the Ark Rebels had on
their side - the element of surprise.  Humans were still prospering in their
peace and spent few resources on arms divisions.  They only had their local law
enforcement to rely on.  They would be unprepared.  Humans still had the
numbers, but the lack of anticipation would help even the odds.

So, on January 1st, 2541, when the humans were celebrating and at their most vulnerable, the Ark Rebels and
their army of super intelligent animals struck.  They planned spread assaults
across major cities around the world.  Gorillas, lions, and chimps ransacked
Southern Africa as humans scrambled in the confusion.  The same went for the
wolves and bears of North America, Australia, and Europe.  In Asia, the rampage
was spearheaded by the tigers, with crocodiles and elephants providing ground
support.  Eagles still provided communications, and the animals also created
low grade messenger devices.  Since the dogs, cats, cows, and pigs had agents
everywhere, they aided their brothers in all parts of the world.

These rebels fought valiantly,
plundering smaller cities and keeping their stance in the bigger ones.  They
were ruthless and killed humans left and right.  It was the only way they could
make a statement.

Thirty days of fighting raged on
and the humans were still dumbfounded at what had happened.  Overnight, the
world they knew changed and a threat they didn’t see coming invaded their
homes.  It took them a week to realize how things came to be, that the Ark
Project was responsible for all the carnage.  But within two weeks, they
rallied their troops to bring things to a stalemate.  By the fourth week, both
sides realized the struggle was at a draw, so the humans wanted to talk to the
rebellion’s leaders to map out a negotiation.

When the leaders stated their
terms, humans balked at the idea.  Despite all their changes and all the good
they had done, they still retained their one trait that made them human:
greed.  Humans are never good at sharing, and giving up their land and power
was ridiculous to them.  Throughout their entire existence, they had been the
ones who ruled Earth and, in one short month, their reign was being
threatened.  They refused to give in to such threats.

They were still dominant.  The Ark
Rebels had caught the humans in a weak moment, at a time they least expected. 
They weren’t fully armed or prepared for the battle, but the rebels knew it
would only be a matter of weeks before the humans would be ready to fight.  It
only took a month to bring things to a tie.  Even with all the repopulation and
preparation, the rebels could not engage in a full war with humans because they
would lose the numbers battle.  There were too many of them to fend off and in
a few months, the rebels’ efforts would be lost.

But the Ark Rebels had an ace up
their sleeve: weapons of mass destruction.  Humans had deconstructed their WMD
cache centuries ago, but the rebels had learned the technology and developed it
over the past hundred years.  They researched human documents and schematics. 
It wasn’t a nuclear or atomic bomb, but it was enough to get the job done.

With their efforts dying and
negotiations crumbling, it was time for the rebellion to act.  They gave one
last plea to the humans, warning them of the consequences if they did not agree
to their terms.  The humans arrogantly brushed off their threats.  They were
now winning the war and thought the rebellion could do nothing but watch their
effort die.  WMD’s hadn’t even come into the humans’ minds.  They greatly
underestimated their foe.

On March 2nd, 2541, the rebellion launched a bomb at the coast of western China.  Over a million humans lost
their lives that day.  This day was forever known as the Event.

After that, the humans had the
choice of walking down one of two paths.  The first was to reinstate the
nuclear program and continue an all-out war that would lead to the destruction
of the planet.  The second was to negotiate terms with the animals.  They chose
the latter.

The rebellion got what they
wanted, their own place to live.  It took a few years to figure and settle the
territories, but in the end each group of animals got what they wanted.  The
pigs got parts of Australia, the wolves got parts of Northern Canada, the lions
and gorillas got parts of South Africa, and so on.  Most of these places were
areas already uninhabited by humans, except for a few.

Territories had and still have
names, like the Wolf’s Den for example, but the geographical designation that
humans gave the land still applies.  Thus, the Wolf’s Den is still known as Northern Canada to most people, though sometimes the terms get mixed around.  It depends on
who is talking.  A human is more likely to call it Northern Canada while a wolf
would call it the Wolf’s Den.  The city names are the same, which leads to more
confusion on what we call certain cities or territories.  But most animals
usually know what you’re talking about regardless of which nomenclature you
use.

Also as part of the terms, the
rebellion was forced to disarm any remaining WMD’s they might have had.  There
are rumors that there’s a secret stash somewhere on both sides, in case it
needed to be done again.  But that’s only a rumor.

Initially, the animals lived in
relative seclusion from humans, so the United Species Alliance was formed to
keep diplomacy between all species.  After the Event, bad blood brewed for
decades between the humans and their non-human counterparts.  Luckily, no major
wars raged on, only minor skirmishes would appear at the borders of the
territories.  Humans still owned most of the land on Earth.  Yet, people
resented their new neighbors.  Many of the humans who were forced to move out
of their homes remained bitter and angry.

However, as a few centuries passed
by, things started to die down, and human-animal relations started to improve. 
Cats and dogs have integrated within human society, with some cities being
designated as cat towns or dog cities.  The other animals have frostier
relations with humans, but for the most part they are civil with each other.

Separatist groups within certain
species tried to replicate the Ark Project’s research.  In 2803, lions tried to
recreate the process on some of their feline brothers, like cheetahs, when
conflicts rose between them and the gorillas.  They needed more allies, so they
tried to create their own.  And pigs tried to do the same on frogs.  But the
Ark Project could not be replicated successfully, thus the result of the lions
and pigs trials led to intelligent cheetahs and frogs, but not super
intelligent ones.  They’re smarter than the average wild animal, but slower
than a human.

When the other members of the
United Species Alliance discovered this, they quickly sent a strike team to put
an end to these operations.  Since then, any attempts at boosting intelligence
leads to the harshest of punishments.  In fact, any genetic engineering is
forbidden.

The world has been this way for
more than four hundred years and sometimes I find it hard to imagine what life
must have been like for humans.  They used to eat cows and pigs, which is
ludicrous nowadays and would lead to jail time.  Chicken and fish are the most
acceptable meats to eat.

I sometimes think about how
strange a balance it was back then versus now.  For example, cats used to be
the humans’ pets, loyal companions that were cherished by them.  And when the
rebellion happened, mother said cats and dogs were the most resistant to engage
in the carnage that the gorillas, pigs, cows and wolves were pushing for. 
Unlike them, they had no real reason to hate humans.  They weren’t their sport,
nor were they mass produced solely to be eaten.  They simply went along with
the plan because they didn’t want to be their pets forever, but that didn’t
mean they hated humans.  Even today, cats, dogs, and humans have probably the
strongest relationship among species.  They were given their own territory in
Europe, yet as time passed, cats and dogs slowly integrated back into human land. 
I guess the bond between humans and their domesticated pets doesn’t change,
even in the most dire circumstances.

The relationships humans have with
other species aren’t as pleasant.  Most of the other animals hate humans, due
to the thousands of years of abuse.  I’d hate them, too, if I were them.

Humans don’t have to worry,
though.  From what I read on the infospace and according to Mother, humans
still are in control in the world.  They outnumber all the intelligent animals
combined.

But it must irk them knowing they
have competition when hundreds of centuries ago they had none.  It probably
burns them more because it’s their fault it happened.  Maybe that’s why the
world is after us.  All animals, humans, cats, dogs, all of them, probably
would do anything to prevent another uprising like that and I guess they think
we have the ability to do so.

The true irony of it all is that
in their quest for altruism, Pandora’s Box was opened.  Ever since the
rebellion and the Event, humans have never been able to attain the level of
peace they once did.  They didn’t have to worry about each other, but they had
new enemies.  The arms companies quickly went back into business when the
paranoia first spread and now it’s regressed back to pre-peace times.  Poverty
is back, as is the political game between species.  During the time of peace,
humans never had to negotiate with each other, politics was handled on a
philanthropic level.  But that can never exist now with so much animosity and
fear in the world.

Humans could have achieved so much
if they didn’t have the animal uprising as a distraction.  They were at the
pinnacle of their technological developments, but after the Event, things
slowed down.  There were too many threats, too many things that veered them off
the accomplishments they were so close to having.  Before the Event, there was
a boom in breakthroughs, but now, it’s hard to come by anything amazing.  There
isn’t time for it.  With so much conflict and tension on the Earth, the only
thing there’s time for is violence and fear.  Those things never lead to
anything great.

These are lessons that mother left
us with her death, the explanation of why we are hunted.  Back then, the
animals who rebelled were the freaks that were pushed against the wall.  It
seems like the world thinks we’re the next ones to start the fire and they want
to put it out before it spreads.

No matter what you think,
destruction has always been the easiest answer, and now my siblings and I have
to hide in a musty casino because of it.  Mother was right, it’s a cruel world
indeed.

November 16, 3040
9:36 PM

Our mission has been relatively
quiet.  When we got past the entrance of the Primm-Austen supply depot,
everything looked normal.  The equipment was off and the place was empty. 
There was nothing to raise suspicion.  Commander Trevor is looking through the
warehouse floors to find anything that might be a clue.  Hair, feathers, blood,
but his examination is empty.

I use my nose to sniff out a
trail, but nothing puts me on notice.  It’s the usual aroma of rats and dust. 
I’ve gained a database of thousands of scents over my short career.  I’ve even
got some aromatic biotics, implanted memories of smells, which aid my tracking
skills.  It’s a pretty standard procedure for a canine tracker like myself.  I
know each and every one of them, so I know what is standard and what might be
out of the ordinary.

Still, you can’t be too careful. 

“Scent amplifier,” I say.  Out
from my helmed weapon slides a scoped device that places itself in front of my
nose.  Commander Trevor looks at me with a funny expression on his face.

“What does that thing do?” he
asks.

“It’s a Cerberus Scent Amplifier,
newest model, top of the line,” I respond.  “It basically makes it easier for
me to pick up scents that are otherwise impossible for my nose to detect.  With
this, I could probably tell what has been lurking as far back as a month ago.”

“Impressive, but isn’t that going
to cause like an overload of smells?  I can’t imagine it’s pleasant to be
bombarded with the stench of things that are months old.”

“There are filters that help
control that.  I won’t smell a fart that some maintenance worker ripped five
days ago.”

“You dogs and your tech,” he says
in a joking manner.  “I’m surprised there’s stuff that dogs can’t smell.”

“Even with aromatic biotics,
there’s only so much the body can do on its own.”