Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (30 page)

I look behind him and see Colbo
with his cannon of a gun.  It’s smoking.  I then look at Erawan.  His firing
baton is also smoking.  Two shots had been fired indeed, the first from Erawan,
who stopped this halfkind from choking me to death, the second from Colbo, who
saved me from getting disemboweled.

The halfkind is now completely
incapacitated, lying on his belongings, life fading away.  I gain a second wind
and recover from my encounter.  I arm my weapon.  A shot in the head should do
it.

I look at him.  He’s helpless and
his eyes tell the story.  I don’t have to kill him, he’s already dead inside. 
The toll of running and losing family members must be quite heavy.  Poor guy.

“Trevor,” I say.  “We’ve subdued
one of the halfkinds.  He was firing shots and I engaged him physically.  Colbo
and Erawan then fired a few of their own and he seems to be mortally wounded.”

“He’s not going to live?” Trevor
asks me.

“No, he’s not.”

“Was he the only one there?  No
others to be found?”

“That’s correct.  He was alone,” I
say.  The halfkind coughs out some blood and continues his struggle to hold
on.  “Should I end his misery now?”

“Not yet.  See if you can get any
information from him, like the location of the others.”

I look at him, his condition
getting worse.  Even if he was healthy, he wouldn’t talk, but an order is an
order.

“Do you know where the others
are?” I ask.  He says nothing.  “He’s not going to talk.”

“Very well, then,” Trevor says. 
“End it.”

The barrel from my helmet juts
out.  It’s armed and ready to go.  I take one last glance and say, “Sorry,
guess you’ll be joining your brothers and sister.”

Suddenly, his eyes widen and he
shakes his head.

“Brothers and sister?” he coughs
out.  “Who are you talking about?”

I look at him cautiously.  The
expression on his face is of utter confusion.

“The bear and the cow, Oscar and
Maddie,” I say.  “They’re dead.”

Even though he’s approaching his
last breath, he has enough energy to display the shock he is feeling.  I’m no
mind reader, but he looks like he has no idea they’re dead.

“You killed… them?” he agonizingly
musters to say.  “But, how… did you know where to find them?  They were…
hiding.”

“We found a clue to their
whereabouts, a letter on our vehicle,” I tell him bluntly.  “It said your
brothers and sisters wanted to meet us, but when my colleagues got there, they
only found, Oscar, Maddie, Isaac, and Iris.  Then a standoff occurred and those
two died in the process.”

“Letter…?  Clue…?”

Astonishment still carries on his
face and it starts to shake.  I see him moving his mouth, but no words come
out.  It’s like he’s talking to himself, figuring out some kind of brain teaser
while I watch him, dumbfounded by his actions.  After he’s done, he lets out a
small laugh.

“That.. bastard,” he says to
himself.  “He sent you your clue… everything… the bomb… the betrayal… even my
death… was part of his plan… we were all pawns… family duty indeed…”

I stand there confused by his
words.  “Excuse me?  Pawns?  What are you talking about?”

He looks me dead in the eye.  “My
brother, Tiago, they’re… at the Li station.  They’re planning to… use the
teleporter to get out of this… city…first to San Francisco, then… to the…Moon. 
If… you… want to…stop him… you and… your team…will find him there.”

He picks up a wrist transmitter
that is next to him.  He must have been wearing it, but it probably flew off in
the heat of battle.  He clutches it and uses his finger to press a button.  It
makes a beep and he tosses it away.

“I’ve given him the signal,” he
says.   “He’ll think everything… is… going according to …plan.  He won’t know
what’s… coming his… way.”

“Signal for what?” I ask him.

He then lifts his other arm, which
he had hidden behind the rubble during our whole conversation.  He’s gripping a
bulky metal cylinder.  It looks familiar only because I’ve seen it before. 
Lombardi Lawton had tossed one at us when we were fighting him.  It’s a bomb. 
Crap.

The trigger is squeezed tightly,
and I pray that he has the strength to hold on.

“Sorry… I armed … it before… you
told me… about Oscar…and Maddie…This one… is supposed to be…pretty… big,” he
says, blood spewing from his mouth.  “Better… run… fast…neither… of us… has
…much time.”

Those are his last words.  His
eyes close and his head tilts back, the bomb he clutched so firmly releases
from his hands and hits the floor with a clang.  Seconds seem like an
eternity.  I turn around and sprint as far away as possible.  The ground jolts
behind me and a tidal wave of force flings me forward.

After that, I don’t hear or see
anything.  I lose my breathing in a typhoon of fire and a swirl of objects. 
Gravity seems to be going up and down, left and right.  My mind gets lost in a
sea of nothingness.

November 17, 3040
3:01 AM

“How are things going, Candy?” I
ask her.  She’s on her infocube looking at some monitoring programs.  She, Ace,
Alex, and I got here about two hours ago and went to work right away.  The
teleporter wasn’t going to start itself.

When we arrived, she disabled the
security systems.  It was easy enough, at least for her.  When we were hiding,
she had hacked into the central security mainframe the teleportation stations
use.  Since it’s all maintained remotely on a cloud, she got access into their
servers, changed some of their code, and set an open window of time to disable
the locks.  She put a thirty minute window of down time between 1:00 AM and 1:30 AM.  We arrived at 1:10 AM, and disabled the security programs for the
rest of the evening.

Candy also covered any traces of
her code that could be detected by the guys upstairs.  She said big companies,
like the transportation ones, usually had programmers constantly on duty to
make sure there are no security irregularities occurring.  There are no cameras
or visual recorders inside, everything is done through the cloud and programs. 
If you have a smart enough hacker, and I mean really smart, like Candy, masking
your moves, you won’t have anything to worry about.  Those guys in their comfy
chairs won’t even know what’s going on.

We did the same for the Gonzalez
station, so Curtis could get in and out with ease.  Candy disabled it an hour
ahead of ours, since he arrived earlier to his location.

With all the work she’s been
doing, I’m surprised she’s not stressed.  Even under these circumstances, she’s
easygoing.  Candy has this way about her that’s nice.  Everyone gets along with
her and she’s straight forward in her opinions.  Her motives for supporting me
are different from Ace and Alex.  Those two joined me out of pure allegiance. 
Candy is a true believer.  She knows that my plan to the Moon sounds crazy, but
it’s also the best shot we have at staying alive.

“They’re going on schedule,” she
says, answering my previous inquiry.  “The power modulator is charging up as we
speak.  It will probably start up in thirty minutes.  All I had to do was move
the scheduled start time from 3 AM to midnight.  These things normally charge
for three hours before the station opens.  That charge supplies enough energy
for these transporters to run on until closing time, which is ten at night. 
Then they cool down and the whole process starts over again.”

“Why do the stations need separate
power sources to do all this?” I ask her curiously.  “Why can’t they get power
from the energy companies?”

“I think it’s a political thing,”
Candy says ambivalently.  “It takes a lot of power to run these stations and
the energy companies are worried about putting too many resources into the
operation of these teleporters.  There are so many now and this could prove
costly.  There are two of them in Primm and we’re just a small town.  Imagine
how many are out there in the world.  The only way these things could operate
without the globe running out of power is if the transportation companies
offered to sustain it themselves.  That’s why these things aren’t open 24 hours,
at least in Primm, they need the time to cool off and charge.”

“But we’re kind of jump starting
things, so they won’t have enough time to cool.  Won’t that damage the source?”

“Probably, but I guess it doesn’t
really matter to us.  We’ll be long gone by then, right?” She asks this with a
hopeful smile on her face.

“We sure will,” I respond.

“I wonder how the others are
doing?” she asks me earnestly.  “I hope they’re okay in their hideout.”

I want to avoid her question,
because it reminds me of the things I’ve done to get us four to this point.  We
started as a family of eleven, now only a few of us remain.  The faces of
Leonard and Lombardi flash through my mind.  For so long, I had deemed them
useless members of my family.  But was that enough justification to use them in
my schemes?  Yes, it was.  If they had continued on with us, they surely would
have slowed us down.

Then I think about Curtis, a
brother on the brink of suicide.  I saw him about to take his life and I didn’t
save him.  I pushed him over the edge.  I could’ve helped him, I could’ve
veered him away from ending it all.  Instead, I sent him on a suicide mission,
knowing that he wouldn’t return.  I loved, love my brother.  I’ve tried to help
him for a long time.  I know him better than any of my siblings and I knew
persuading him to live would be a pointless cause.  Eventually, he would break
and we would mourn.  At least now he can die a hero.  My brothers and sisters
will remember him for his bravery, not his cowardice.  I gave him the chance he
wanted.  I even made sure he could bail out anytime.  But I know for him,
there’s no looking back.

And then there’s Oscar and his
followers.  My younger brother has been a great ally, but also a great enemy. 
He couldn’t accept the choices that must be made if you want to survive.  In a
time where we have to make tough decisions, this difference is what drove our
family apart.  He lives in a fantasy world that doesn’t exist.  If only he
could see the reality in front of him, then perhaps we’d be leaving this
godforsaken city together.

It’s too bad he took the twins
with him.  They, especially Iris, are special, and when they decided to leave
us, it burned a hole in my soul.  I will forever be hurt by their decision.

I ratted out Oscar, but that’s the
decision I had to make to buy us time and get the agents off our tails.  I
don’t know if my ruse worked, but Oscar and the rest are dead if it did.  A
part of me feels the guilt, but another part of me knows he made his choice
when he decided to leave.  When we make it out alive, the regrets I have will
sting, but eventually they’ll subside.

Curtis, Lombardi, Leonard, Oscar,
I did all these things for the sake of survival, for the family I love, for the
family that can make it to the end.  This is for Candy, Ace, and Alex, this is
for those who are loyal to me, who share my vision.  In the long run, whatever
has happened, whatever sacrifices I made, it’ll be worth it.

I realize I haven’t responded to
Candy’s comments.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” I tell
her.  Sometimes, the truth is best when it’s hidden from the world.  “I’m going
to go check on Ace.  Good work so far, sister.”

“Thanks, Tiago.”

I make my way towards the exit of
the station and press a button on the wall to open the outside door.  I see no
one, so I raise the transmitter on my wrist and press a button.  It sends out a
signal to a receiving one and I hear footsteps hurrying my way.  Within
seconds, Ace appears in front of me.

“You called, Tiago?” he says.

“Yeah, just want to see how things
are going out here,” I respond.

“Nothing unusual.  I haven’t
encountered anything, not even a raccoon.”

“That’s good.”

I have Ace patrolling the
perimeter.  If anything suspicious is going on, he has a transmitter to warn
me.  I don’t expect any visitors, though, especially after all the plotting I
have done.

“You think your plans worked?” Ace
asks me.  He’s well aware of what I did to Curtis and Oscar’s group, but he
doesn’t care.  Loyalty will make you look past the worst atrocities.

“I don’t know,” I say.  “I haven’t
gotten the signal from Curtis and I don’t even know what’s going on with
Oscar.”

“I can go to their hideout if you
want me to scout.”

It’s a good idea, but not worth
the risk.  Ace is far too valuable at this stage of the game.

“No, that’s not necessary,” I say.

“Okay,” he responds.

“You’re doing a good job Ace, keep
it up.  I’m going back inside.”

“Thanks.”

I can tell he’s elated by my
approval.  That’s always been the case, I’m the big brother whom he idolizes. 
I’m not sure if it’s a feline thing or not.  Or maybe it’s an inferiority
thing, because he isn’t exactly the brightest bulb.  When I trust him with
responsibility, he probably feels smarter than he really is.  Whatever the case,
he gravitates towards me.

And, in all fairness, I treat him
pretty well.  I’d do anything for him because I know he has my back.

I open the door and walk back
inside the station.  The last person I approach is Alex, who is tinkering with
some of the weaponry that Ace smuggled from the supply depot.  There’s a pile
of pistols and a large stash covered by a musty old blanket.

“How are the preparations going?”
I say to Alex.  My tone is much more serious than when I talked to Ace.  It’s
always been like that when talking to him.  He’s much bigger than me and I
could be overpowered in seconds.  Yet, I’m the boss.  It’s small things, like
the way that I talk to him, that allow me to grasp power and reinforces my
leadership.