Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact (36 page)

“What’s this?”  I hear him yell. 
“Shit!”

A giant blast shakes the ground
and I can see smoke fly into the air.  The second this happens I stand and hold
the Spitfire up.  Alex is too distracted to see me rise and Ace has made it to
the door, back turned to me.  Damn this guy is fast, I thought my grenade
would’ve damaged him in some way, but he was able to react and dodge it with
his speed.

It’s irrelevant.  The Spitfire is
already armed and aimed at him and with one pull of the trigger, I fire.

A wall of blood sprays the door
and his body violently pushes forward.  His back is painted red and his shirt
has been torn to pieces.  He falls forward, arms out stretched on top of him,
and slides against the door as his wound wipes against it and creates a streak
of red.

Alex, not wasting a moment, takes
this opportunity to dash inside.  I see him and fire another shot, but I miss. 
I usually don’t miss at such a close range, I suppose he’s blessed.  He makes
it through and forgets to shut it in the chaos.  It’s wide open.

I look at Apollo and Fenrir.  Both
of them have risen from their concealments and we approach the open door.

I take a look inside and see
Alex’s back as he continues to stumble into the hideout.  There’s a chimp
halfkind who was working three compcubes at one time, but now her focus is on
the three of us.  As we stand on the front doorstep, Ace’s body is right below
our feet.

And then I see Tiago.  I stand
tall and for a moment put my firearm to the side of my body.  He returns the
gesture and straightens his back.  We look eye to eye at each other, leaders locked
in a dead stare.

“Something smells off,” Apollo
says.  “I can’t quite put my paw on it.”

Suddenly, I hear a scratching
sound, like sandpaper.  It’s Ace.  He’s still alive and is crawling slowly in
agonizing pain back into the building.

We look at him in astonishment,
dumbfounded that he isn’t dead yet.  There’s a few holes of missing flesh on
his back.  His skin and fur has been singed from the extreme heat of my weapon,
yet here he is, doing whatever it takes to try to get back in.

I look back at Tiago, still
standing confidently, arms folded up on his chest.  There’s something different
about his expression.  He’s smiling.

“Wait, I know this smell,” Apollo
says.

I look to where Ace is crawling
and I move my head closer.  I see a glimmer of light glint in front of him.  My
eyes sharpen in on it, it beams faintly.

I realize what it is, a wire.  My
eyes madly follow the string.  There are metal canisters strung along the wall,
near our position.  Ace is now in front of the string and raises an arm above
it.  With one final burst of energy he lets it fall, right on the wire.

“Bomb!” I tell the others.  We
turn around and do a mad dash away from the door.  I feel a ripple shake the
ground and the front view lights up from the explosion behind me.  It can’t end
like this, it won’t.  I see the trash bins I was hiding behind earlier. It’s
our only chance, so the three of us jump behind them.  I sure hope they’re made
out of something sturdy.

The blast is smaller than
anticipated, the only thing that reaches us is dust.  We’re fortunate.  I stand
up and see the doors are charred.  The inside of the station is slightly
damaged, but capable of working.

The bombs were only meant to blast
away intruders, not level the building.  In his last moments of life, Ace Lawton
tried his best to kill us.  He failed.

The lights turn on and I can see
the others hiding behind a makeshift fort of furniture.  Fenrir said Curtis
Lawton did the same thing.  They’re concealed, but we’ll smoke them out.  The
final assault has just begun.

November 17, 3040
4:32 AM

I’m hiding behind a flipped over
metal table and I see the human and his canine companions entering through the
front door, guns drawn cautiously.  I immediately fire at them with my pistol. 
They split to the sides, the human and dog go right, the wolf goes left.  I try
to hit them as they scurry away, but they’re too fast and within seconds they
find something to hide behind.

I empty my gun at both targets, as
does Alex.  Candy hides behind a table, per my instructions.  I tell her
whatever happens to stay there, I can’t afford to lose our family prodigy. 
They return fire promptly and we both duck and wait for them to recharge.  They
have heavier weapons, like the human’s hand cannon, but our fort is remarkably
sturdy.  Back and forth it goes for five, no, ten minutes.  Our fortifications
are strong, but our weapons are too weak.  Their weapons are too strong, but
there’s too much clutter to do any damage.

We’re at a standstill.

It’s not dark like it was a few
minutes ago.  The bulbs now glow, making everything visible.  Candy’s many
compcubes, food, clothes, and our other belongings can be clearly seen.  Before
they barged in, the station was almost fully charged and power started to flow
throughout it.  As a result, the lights turned on.  My eyes had to adjust, as
we’d been working in the dark the whole time.  Yet it’s nice to see things
lucidly when it was so difficult earlier.

“We have to do something,” Alex
says as the shots continue to rain in.

I take a look at my surroundings
to formulate a plan.  About fifteen feet to the right is the teleporter, our
ticket out of here.  It’s a twelve feet high pod that has a sliding door made
of teleranium, a special metal used to handle teleporting.  A faint glow leaks
from the outlining of the door, signaling that it is powered and ready to go. 
To teleport, all one has to do is set the destination at the control panel, and
when it is ready the door will slide open.  Once you step in, the door closes,
and in a dash you’re in a new city, country, or even the Moon.  You see a flash
and you’re done.

But there’s one complication that
prevents us from busting out of Primm: the control panel is on the other side
of the station, right in firing range of our enemies.  Candy was working on
getting the teleporter fired up before they arrived, but once the battle
started and a bloody Ace fell through the door, she had to abort her mission.

Ace, my loyal brother, didn’t
deserve such a gruesome death.  When I saw him crawling in agonizing pain
towards the trip wire, I knew what he was going to do.  I wanted to go out
there to tend to his wounds, but he looked up at me and shook his head.  He let
me know it was okay, he had a plan.  I gave him a sneer.  If things worked out,
Ace would trigger the blast and we’d be rid of these hunters forever.  Candy,
Alex, and I would be free.  My smirking face was the last thing I wanted that
human to see, a final “fuck you, we made it.”

I watched him crawl, and all I
could do was think about the times when we were young.  He tried to win my
admiration.  Whether it was by taking my side in fights or doing anything at
the whim of my command, I could only think of one word to describe him:
devoted.  There hasn’t been a moment when he wasn’t looking for my approval,
when he wasn’t trying to make me proud.  Well, brother, you did.

“We have to get the teleporter
running and make a break for it or Ace’s sacrifice will be in vain,” I say to
Alex.

“Obviously, but there’s no way we
can get it started in all this chaos,” he says.  “We’ll be killed on the spot. 
And Candy is the only one who knows how to operate the thing.”

“Wait a minute, something is off.”

I hear something that I haven’t
heard since the assault started - silence.

I stand up to see that there has
been a cease fire.  The human, dog, and wolf are still hiding behind their
cover, but nothing is happening.  That is until the human pops up from his
position and uses his right arm to volley something in the air.  It’s small and
hard to see, but he launches it far enough for it to come flying in our
direction.  I reach up in the sky and catch it, plucking it like a low hanging fruit. 
I open my hands and in my paw I see what it is.  Oh, shit!

I throw it back in their direction
and, like rats, they flee from it.  It explodes right when it lands.  Broken
bits of concrete, metal, and wood erupt into the atmosphere.

The three are still alive,
though.  They’ve moved forward and hunkered down behind some more
fortifications, away from the blast, but closer to the control panel.  They
start to fire again.

“They’re moving in closer,” Alex
says.  “It’ll only be minutes until they come close enough to kill us.  We’re
out-powered and out-matched.  We have to make our escape now.”

“And how do you suppose we do
that?” I ask Alex.  “Whoever is going to start the teleporter is embarking on a
suicide mission!”

“I know,” Candy says.  Her
hallmark smile and her uplifting demeanor are nowhere to be found.  It’s been
replaced by a no nonsense attitude and grave stare.  She’s serious about it.

“No, Candy, you don’t have the
same stake in this as Alex and I.  You’re too valuable and intelligent to
sacrifice,” I say.  My tone is stern.  I really don’t want her to go.

“It’s not a sacrifice,” she says. 
“It’s a choice.  None of you know how to operate the controls, only I do.  If I
don’t do it, then we’re all dead.  It’s better that two of us make it than none.”

“No, Candy,” I say harshly.  I’m
hoping I can scare her out of it, but she doesn’t budge.

“She’s right,” Alex says.  “She’s
the only one who can get us out of here.”

“Shut up, Alex!” I yell.  Wave
after wave of ammunition continues to hit us.  I start to see holes and cracks
forming in our stronghold.  We won’t last very long if we wait around.  But
this is a choice I do not want to make.  Candy has done so much with so
little.  Her future holds so much greatness.  I could never live with myself if
it was thrown away.

“I’m sorry, Candy, but the answer
still is no.  We’ll figure something out instead,” I say.

She looks disappointed by my
decision, but abruptly lifts her head up and says, “Tiago, there’s nothing left
to figure out.”

Candy gets up from where she was
sitting.  Her legs start to churn as she begins her race to the teleporter
controls.  In a last, desperate act, I grab her foot, but she promptly kicks it
away and continues towards her goal.

Energy shots fly past her.  She
jumps and ducks to avoid getting hit.  But it’s no use, I see her take one to
the arm.  She falls over and clutches it in pain.  Lucky for her, she tumbled
right behind a column and it blocks her from the team’s aim.

“Candy!” I yell.  “Stop!  Come
back!”

She peers out from behind.  “No,
I’m too close to quit now.”

Candy gets back up and makes a mad
dash to the panel.  I see her run, savagely with all her might and, amazingly,
she makes it.  She only has seconds to fiddle with the panel and she works on
the controls in incredible time.  I look over to the pod and the door opens. 
She did it.  San Francisco, here we come.

But it will only be two of us. 
The human and dog circle in on their target and direct all their firepower on
her.  She’s hit with a shower of fiery light, her body jerks around like a
puppet on a string.  It only last a few seconds but seems like an eternity. 
Every small flail of her limbs, every agonizing expression she makes on her
face, I can see so vividly.

Her violent dance stops and
there’s nothing left but my sister, torn up from head to toe, leaned against
the wall, any life extinguished from her.

As I see her lifeless body slumped
against the wall, visions flash in my mind.  I see her as a scientist finding
cures for diseases that have just been discovered.  I see her as an engineer,
developing new tech that could revolutionize the industry.  I see her as
biologist, unlocking the secrets of not only our origins, but of every creature
on this planet.  She is the future, a mind unmatched in this world.

But, I realize even if she lived,
the brightest gem can’t shine when people can’t see past the rough edges. 
She’d never do those things and it makes me mad.

This world is ignorant, this world
is blind, this world is a horrible place.  All they see is what is on the
outside without realizing the gifts that lie inside.  What a stupid place
indeed.  The anger I feel fuels my fire to make it, to avenge not only her, but
all of us who were never given a chance.

“The teleporter is live,” I tell
Alex.  “It’s time to leave.  Get the final present ready.”

He grabs Candy’s last bomb.

“I hope when we get out of here,
there won’t be a trace left of these guys to weep over,” he says.

I grab two energy pistols and lead
the way to teleporter pod.  Its door is still open, all Alex and I have to do
is walk in and we’ll be gone.  I empty sphere after sphere of bright lights at
the enemy, creating enough cover fire for us to make a straight dash to it. 
They duck under their barricades for safety as I lead the way.  Alex is right
behind me and adds to the pandemonium with fire of his own.

They don’t return anything back
and I can taste the freedom.  We are feet away from the pod and I make a final
leap towards it.  I’m inside, but nothing happens.  I’m confused.  I wonder if
I’m already in San Francisco, but I look forward and still see the damaged Li
station in front of me.  The teleportation pod has been powered down, the
mesmerizing glow that emits from it has now disappeared.  What could’ve
happened?

I scan my surroundings and see the
cause, the control panel has been destroyed.  The human had his gun aimed at
it, but he draws it down and back to me.  The fraction of a second before I
made my final dive into the pod, he blew it to pieces with his hand cannon. 
Without the control panel, the teleporter is useless.  It automatically shut
down.  My attempt failed.