by Max Jager
"It surely cannot be a coincidence that all these women died in the exact same fashion. No, in fact, your father was conducting an experiment, one very important to our organization."
"What possible kind of experiment could condone toying with human life?" Erand fired.
The cackling erupted yet again. "Human life, you say? Do you think we give two shits about human life? Do humans care at all for lab-rats and other creatures they subject to their experiments?"
"Gee, I just assumed that since you are a human, you'd have a little compassion for those of your own kind," Erand mocked.
"My, my, you'll never be a good lawyer if you let your assumptions lead you everywhere."
"I'm sorry if I misheard you, but are you implying that you are not in fact human?"
"Neither I nor anyone in the organization can call themselves human."
"Alright, what is all this about an organization?"
"So glad you asked! I daresay we are a political interest group but not quite in favor of a political party. Instead, we represent an entire race."
"You're suggesting that a race that possesses humanoid characteristics but is non-human is currently in existence? Preposterous!" Erand spat dismissively.
"My word, the IFG has done a fine job keeping hush-hush about this. Even one of the brightest among its citizens doesn't know. Well believe it, Erand. We are the Council for the Advancement of Orcs."
Erand's jaw dropped and he remained silent for almost a minute. "The Orcish race? But that's impossible! Their kind was made completely extinct in the Raid of 1035."
"So you simply believe the rubbish that the government has been spoon-feeding to you?"
Erand said nothing but rather curled his right hand into a fist.
"Then what is the truth?" he blurted suddenly.
"I'd expect a lawyer of your caliber to be capable of some basic deductive reasoning," the voice chided. "If the government was lying about our extinction, then..."
"Your kind still exist," Erand finished disbelievingly.
"Now that you've learned the basic principle of our organization's existence, let's play a little game of 'Did you know?' Did you know that the venture capitalist, the victim in that first case of yours was a Half-Orc?"
Erand lost his breath in the middle of exhaling it. "How is that possible? He looked perfectly human."
"Once again, Erand, you're letting the obvious and what you perceive deceive you. It turns out that many of us Orc-kind were actually exploited by the government at some point because they thought we had features that would be useful to them. So they invented this cute little surgery that makes us look indisputably human in order to disguise us as we did their bidding. Eckram was one of these people."
Erand couldn't believe his ears but pressed on. "So then, what was the real truth behind my case?"
"Oh he committed suicide alright, but for reasons other than the revelation of his sexual orientation. The Council asked him for funding, hoping we could reach out to him as one of us. When he refused, we threatened to reveal his identity as a Half-Orc, a hollow threat though."
"Hollow?"
"The worst thing for our organization would be the knowledge of us among non Orc-kind. We showed decisive evidence as to what his identity was, and the mere thought of himself being non-human drove him to suicide. Figuring that his suicide would be fishy, we decided to cover it up by means of planting a murder case around it. The life of an innocent man who could be seen as having a serious murder motive meant nothing to us."
"You're vile," Erand said disapprovingly. "Truly vile."
The voice ignored this comment. "Continuing on with this explanation game, the Serann you report to at work every day is actually one of us. A very gifted lawyer and a Half-Orc by the name of Brent Knox. It turns out that we too have access to state-of-the-art surgery. We can alter anyone who is similar in size and stature to a person into that actual person. We simply need copious amounts of data on that person's body structure and skin patterns. This of course was accomplished by our successful kidnapping of the man himself. We also took data from his voice, recorded from countless court proceedings and speeches, and made a modulator that would allow our fake to sound almost exactly like the original."
"I... see," Erand said tepidly, as if not knowing what to believe anymore. "Anything else I should know?"
"I was expecting some sort of special reaction, denial perhaps, out of you when we mentioned that no one in this organization could be considered human but rather some variety of Orc-kind."
"So what about that?"
"Did I not mention minutes earlier that your father is a member of our organization?"
Erand's knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor.
"You can't be suggesting..." he mumbled fruitlessly.
"Oh yes we are, Erand. You're one of us."
B3 Chapter 4
IVThe last statement that had ushered from the speaker seemed to enter one of Erand's ears and exit the other without undergoing any processing from his brain.
"I'm sorry, what was that again?" Erand uttered.
"Not hear me clearly, boy?" the voice mocked. "Or are you just in denial? Either way, whether for your brain or for your ego, I'll say it slowly. You're... one... of... us," it repeated as clearly as possible with a one-second pause between each word.
"One... of... you," Erand regurgitated as though he had lost control of his mind.
"Yes, very good Erand. I see that you're quite capable of basic information processing. Indeed you are one of us, one of the Orc-kind. As long as you have so much as a drop of Orc blood in your veins, you can never consider yourself human, and your peers will never acknowledge you as one."
Erand had begun to laugh uncontrollably now. "Me? An Orc-kind? How funny. I'm...I'm human."
"We just told you, Erand, your father was a Half-Orc which means twenty-five percent of your heredity at the very least originates from the Orc-kind, assuming your mother didn't have any such blood in her as well."
"You lay off my mother!" Erand screamed, now in hysterics. "She was a kind and gentle person who genuinely cared for me! Not some vile creature who places no value on human life!"
"Must I repeat yet again that humans place no value on animal life? What does the extraordinary intelligence that we humanoids possess count for? Nothing! A life is a life, simple as that. You'll find that we are a very accepting race; whether you're three-quarters Orc or one-sixteenth Orc, it doesn't matter to us."
"I need not your charity!" Erand bellowed, having completely lost his mind. "I'm still valued, respected and endeared by my perfectly human colleagues, whom I am one of! I won't buy into some bullshit about some stupid surgery, so just leave me alone, alright?"
Erand turned and started running as fast as he could. The columns of crates seemed to be set up in some sort of maze.
Follow wall right! Follow wall right! Erand thought agitatedly, tapping into how he had solved mazes on paper as a child. He extended his arm outward, allowing his hand to brush against the crates that formed the wall on his right side. Several minutes had now passed, and he had still not found his way out. Furthermore, stamina was not a forte of his, and his pace degraded to panting and jogging. Suddenly, he heard the familiar beeping that indicated he had received a message. He chanced a pause and opened the message, glancing first at the sender name, which read "CAO."
"RLRLRLLRLRRRLRLRR - Follow that path if you're willing to join us. Otherwise, the Royale District Police Force has a little tip-off that the kidnapper of Serann lurks in the very warehouse you're residing in. They'll be in there in one minute and won't hesitate to use violence."
Erand's heart raced. So he only had one minute to escape, and his only option was to join up with the renegades who had put him in this predicament. Not allowing panic to grip him, he carefully followed the path outlined in the message. It led him to a clearing but with no sign of a visible exit as far as he could tell. He could now hear a banging on some d
istant doors.
They've arrived.
Panic slowly began to assert itself. Did I not follow the directions exactly? What if they were supposed to lead to an exit where the renegades would be waiting?
A large crashing noise now echoed throughout the entire warehouse.
"Royale Police! Come quietly or we will not hesitate to use force!"
The sounds of several footsteps echoed throughout the warehouse.
So this is it? Erand thought hopelessly. Shall I, too, be indicted for a crime I did not commit?
Suddenly, the din of a turbine penetrated Erand's eardrums and grew louder with each passing second. The noise appeared to be coming from above. Erand glanced upward and noticed an open skylight in the ceiling.
So that was their plan all along?
Shadow bled into the clearing as the large, metallic gray underside of a cruiser flew over the skylight. A panel in it retracted, out of which descended a rope ladder. Erand could hear the scattered footsteps coming closer. They'd be there any minute. The ladder quickly unfurled and hung before Erand, at which point the footsteps were undeniably close to the clearing. Mustering all his strength, Erand jumped as high as he could (such that his feet stood two or three rungs from the bottom) and held on for dear life. He began to ascend, and as he did so, he heard voices.
"Move, move, move! He's getting away! Ready your weapons and fire at will!"
Now fearing energy rays over heights, Erand started climbing as quickly as he could manage, greatly facilitating the ascension into the cruiser. Before long, he was only ten feet from the hatch. He could now sense that the guns were fully loaded and ready to fire. They let off a high pitched squeal, and a ray of energy whizzed past him, coming within an inch of his right shoulder.
Only one more rung!
Erand reached for the top rung with his right hand, preparing to use his left arm as leverage to board the cruiser, but as he did so, a ray struck true in his left arm and shocked his body with a paralyzing jolt, causing him to buckle over. The sensation of falling backward seemed to happen in slow motion.
I couldn't make it. So this is the end? Then I died learning the truth at the very least. I'll have no regrets.
As the word "regrets" crossed his mind, a hand reached out and grabbed him by his right wrist. Soon afterward, another joined it, and with a tremendous tug Erand found himself within the confines of the cruiser before ultimately collapsing for the second time in the day.
Erand opened his eyes, looked around and immediately ahead of him saw a roundtable around which were sitting six strange-looking humanoids. Four vacant chairs also surrounded the table.
"Speed away, Nek!" ordered a humanoid seated at the far end of the roundtable.
"Aye, sir," replied a masculine robotic voice.
The figure who had rescued Erand restrained him from behind by the shoulders. "It's going to be a rough ride until we get into free space and lose the IFG fleet," he said in explanation.
Erand felt as though the gravity in the room had shifted toward his position as the nose of the cruiser tilted upward, and then, without notice, the ship sped off. The normal force exerted by the ground and the man gripping him from behind seemed too much for Erand to bear. He could barely move his diaphragm under the immense pressure and slowly felt himself begin to suffocate.
"Just relax," the humanoid behind him said calmly.
Erand nodded uncomfortably, and soon the cruiser began to decelerate, lifting the tremendous burden off of Erand's body. When the ship had finally come to a halt again, the man who had ordered it to move spoke once more.
"Sorry to put you through so much stress. I take it you are not accustomed to space travel?"
Erand shook his head drowsily and stood up slowly after the figure behind him released the grip.
"Well then, on to introductions shall we? I am Lem Griffendar, Chairman of the CAO; in other words, the Council for the Advancement of Orcs. All of us sitting around the table, as well as the man behind you, are Half-Orcs. Our records indicate that you are one-quarter Orc-kind."
Erand rubbed his eyes and studied the others. Their skin had a dark, purplish shade and an abnormal amount of wrinkles. They had fairly wide jaws and canines large enough to stick slightly out of their lower lips. In general, they also had large and muscular upper-bodies as well as burly arms and legs.
Clearly a race that is designed for manual labor, not politics, Erand thought with disgust.
Before Erand could harbor any more unpleasant feelings, Lem spoke again. "Right then, let us all introduce ourselves going clockwise around the table."
The Half-Orc to Lem's left nodded.
"Drin Ferron, Treasury and Commerce."
"Andravard Feldon, Director of Outreach."
"Estin Vankok, Director of Identity Creation."
"Avar Sulten, Director of Diplomacy and Negotiation."
"Zal Kriften, Director of Military and Armament."
"Sil Griffendar," said the man behind Erand. "You could say I'm the hitman."
While glad to not see Azer among the men in the cruiser, Erand raised an eyebrow. "My father is among those in this organization is he not?"
Lem nodded. "He indeed is. You could say he's among those doing 'field work' in the government capital of Aezar along with Brent Knox."
"You mean your substitute of Winston Serann," Erand said breathlessly. "Where is Serann? I demand to know his whereabouts if you expect any cooperation from me."
Lem, too, assumed a dubious expression on his face. "Do you, Mr. Drel, think that you are in any sort of position to bargain with us when the lives of yourself and your superior are in the hands of the organization? I think not."
Erand grunted.
"I shall however answer your request, as doing so makes no difference to me. Your beloved Serann is currently being held at Royale Prison under the guise of Brent Knox's looks and identity. You see, the alteration process that we have mastered goes two ways. We can not only alter ourselves to look human but also we can alter humans to look like ourselves. Fascinating technology isn't it?"
Erand bared his teeth but said nothing.
"Now," Lem continued, "as for your assignment. You will continue to do as Brent, under the guise of Serann, tells you to do as well as follow any orders given to you by the Council. No one else is to hear of these orders, and if they do, it will spell bad news for yourself and Serann. The orders will be given to you with your regular case files by means of a special code. The code will correspond to a set of words found in the case file. For instance, the code might contain the sequence: two, three, five, seven. That might mean look for the seventh word in the fifth sentence in the third paragraph on page two. This set of words will spell your instructions given to you by us. Furthermore, to minimize suspicion, the numbers will be given to you as government-issued lottery tickets. If anyone asks, you can claim you've recently taken an interest in the dumb luck of the lottery. That understood?"
"Yes," Erand said grudgingly.
"Good. Well that is all for now. We will shortly be landing in an uninhabited area in the Greenshire province at which point we will have a ride ready to take you back to your residence."
Erand nodded and decided to stay slumped against the back wall of the cruiser until it landed.
8:45 p.m.
Erand had made it back to his flat only an hour after the vessel landed and with good time to ponder how his life had completed changed in merely the past few hours. They hadn't explained to him how he looked perfectly human despite claiming one quarter of his blood to be Orcish.
If they're actually right, then both my father and I must have had this "alteration surgery" done on us. How many others out there are like that? Hundreds? Thousands? Their kind appears savage and prone to violence. I'll never acknowledge myself as one of them, even if I am by blood. Was the government really doing a smart thing by allowing them to blend in with the rest of society? Then again, only those who were seen to potentially be big c
ontributors to our civilization had the alteration done on them. But damn those bastards! Somehow, they have Serann locked up as the man who's currently disguised as him! I'm sure Serann would have attempted to exploit every loophole possible in order to prove he isn't Brent Knox. Clearly, they've done a pretty convincing job with the alteration. For now, my main priority is somehow alerting the authorities that the man currently posing as Serann is an impostor without showing any signs of infidelity to the Council. They'll likely be monitoring my every movement and every message I send. If I give any sort of hint toward my intentions, it could spell trouble not only for me, but for Serann and the rest of Royale.
9:00 a.m.
Barely able to sleep the previous night, Erand jumped out of bed before his alarm even sounded and quickly made his way to work. He could only imagine what his first order from the Council would be as he waited at the door of his impostor superior's office.