Halfkinds Volume 1: Contact

by Vu, Andrew

  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.

  Chapter 3 – Simon Trevor - Debrief

  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.

  We walk past the lobby and head towards the elevator. I had been to the Las Vegas branch before, but I still have a hard time navigating myself around. It’s a grand office building, and when I enter, I see steel colored walls reaching to the roof. Giant screens adorn them with the day’s news. The lobby is quite a sight, and there are several agents walking about. I politely make my way through the crowd as I follow Agent Leons to the elevator. He presses up, and we wait for it, standing next to each other in an awkward silence.

  The elevator opens, and we walk in. He finally speaks.

  “So you ready for some strange shit?” he asks me.

  “I’ve seen a lot, don’t know if what you plan to throw my way is really going to surprise me,” I respond.

  “That’s what I thought too, but once I got the details, I was pretty shocked.”

  “You could’ve given me a small briefing on the phone.”

  “If I did, you might have had second thoughts.”

  “Have you ever known me to not accept a mission?”

  “No, but I can’t be certain I know anyone that well.”

  “What’s with the rush anyway, Don? “

  “It’s time sensitive. You’ll probably only have until the end of the night to prepare.”

  “It’s already 6:00 PM.”

  “Yup.”

  “That high priority, eh?”

  “Yup.”

  The elevator opens and he makes a right, in the direction of one of the debriefing rooms. They all look the same, so I follow him to prevent myself from getting lost. He opens the door and I enter a large conference room with a beautiful polished desk in the center and a humongous screen on the wall. It looks like a standard debriefing room, but much nicer than what I am used to.

  “Have a seat,” he says.

  As I sit down and make myself comfortable, he tosses me a thin tablet device. I turn it on and see an image of a brunette woman. Judging by her appearance she looks to be in her fifties or so.

  “That is a picture of Maya Lawton,” Agent Leons says. “She’s currently fifty five in that picture, but it was taken about twenty five years ago. Quite the looker, eh? She probably ran the racket on clients, don’t know why she got into the shit she got into with that face.”

  “What did she get into?” I ask.

  “You’ll see.”

  He turns on the screen and immediately a hologram of a corpse flashes from it.

  “This is a more recent image of her,” he says smugly.

  “You want me to investigate the death of this woman?” I ask Agent Leons.

  “Hold off on the questions until after the briefing,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “Maya Lawton was also known as Maya Howl, a prostitute who was a member of this man’s stable of hookers.”

  The screen shows up a hologram of a fat man, well past his hundreds. He is bald and disheveled looking. He’s wearing a loose shirt and his neck is adorned with various pieces of jewelry.

  “This is Eddie David, grade A asshole, low level pimp. He had a small operation down in Primm. Eddie was incarcerated for running an illegal prostitution ring there. The judge sentenced him to life without parole in 3014.”

  “Life without parole? That seems pretty harsh for just running a prostitution ring.”

  “The ring specialized in interspecies prostitution.”

  “Ahh, I see. So he’s currently sleeping in a prison pod right now?”

  “No, he’s dead. Before he could carry out his sentence, someone murdered him during his transport to Mojave Penitentiary. Files say it was a former rival that arranged his hit. Man, sometimes things are easier when you let these scumbags take each other out. Makes it less messy for us members of the law.”

  Agent Leons is never one to shy away from his opinions.

  “I see,” I say dismissively. “What happened to Ms. Lawton?”

  “She was sentenced to ten years in a correctional facility. They didn’t put her to sleep. She only served two until she got released for good behavior. However, with Eddie gone, her source of income was limited. She stayed off the radar and eventually vanished, or so it seemed. The only thing registered to her was a broken down house and some energy and wireless bills. In actuality, she was still servicing other species.”

  “So no one ever found out?”

  “No, she was actually pretty good at lying low, other than the whole whoring herself out to animals part.”

  “How long d
id she do this for?”

  “We don’t have conclusive evidence, but we’re guessing she stopped doing it by 3024. Thank God. This brings us to today.”

  Another hologram emanates from the screen. This time it is a man with scruffy hair, aged probably into his eighties as well.

  “This is detective Scott Marsden. Last morning, he received an anonymous tip about the residence of 1523 Chakming Drive. It was where Maya lived. When he entered, he found her body in the kitchen, as I had showed you in the previous slide. He also encountered this.”

  The screen renders a hologram of something I’ve never seen before.

  “What the fuck is that?!” I yell.

  It’s an image of a human, except he doesn’t look completely like a man. He has green skin, big bulging black eyes on the sides of his head and a large, wide mouth. His face looks like a frog. The rest of his skin is green as well. But as I examine the photo more closely, I see that he has thumbs, hands like a human. He is wearing human clothing. He’s much too large to be a normal frog, yet he definitely doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen.

  “That, my friend is what the folks around here are calling ‘halfkinds’, that is what this is all about,” Agent Leons says.

  “Halfkinds?” I ask Agent Leons.

  “Well that’s what these beings are, half mankind, half animal-kind. From the bio scanners and medical analysis, we’ve determined that thing has both human and frog DNA. And guess what, the human DNA was a match to Ms. Lawton.”

  “But that’s impossible. There have been no successful cases of animal human splicing so far.”

  “That’s true, but we also had the medical team look at Ms. Lawton, and from their analysis it seems to suggest this wasn’t the work of a rogue faction of splicers, this was something else. We’re guessing this thing was her son.”

  “You’re saying she gave birth to it?”

  “Indeed I am. The medical team did an autopsy on her and they found tons of illegal tech in her body. Biotics, biological robotics, stuff that works inside you. It looks like she wasn’t only whoring herself out to other species. She was whoring her body out to some black market implanters. Mix both of them together, and I guess this is the end result. People will do anything for cash.”

  “What did they put in her?”

  “We can’t determine yet. It’s kind of a jumbled mess of bionic and robotic implants in her uterus. It’s hard to determine what kind of tech we’re dealing with since all of it seems off the market.”

  “Do you know the purpose of the implants?”

  “Not exactly, but early word from the science lab is that all the implants are related to birth enhancements. Makes sense. Genetically engineering a half man half animal creature would no doubt be on the radar of the United Species Alliance. This group needed something less detectable, so why not have a bunch of paid whores do it the old fashioned way? It’s kind of just a hypothesis, though. We won’t know until they have more time to research. It’s only been a day after all.”

  “Well your team does work fast.”

  “They do think that it attributed to her early demise. All of that biotech had traces of synconium in it.”

  “Isn’t that stuff poisonous?”

  “Sure is. I’m surprised she lived so long considering what was in her. But since synconium poisoning happens in a flash, she probably had no idea she was going to die so soon.”

  “I can’t believe she agreed to put that stuff in her body.”

  “She was desperate, and I’m pretty sure the last thing that tech went through was any kind of safety test. She probably didn’t even know what was in her. With all the shit she willingly did in her life, I would guess she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch.”

  Agent Leons walks to the other end where a water dispenser lies. He takes a swig of the liquid and goes back to the screen.

  “We don’t know who did it either,” he continues.

  “Maybe a group of fanatics? Perhaps, they’re trying to manipulate the evolutionary process, kind of like what happened about a few hundred years ago?”

  “That’s what we think. This is definitely some underground work. Our information is sparse and it’s pretty shitty. We don’t even know if Maya was the only person involved with these implants. I suspect she wasn’t, but that information is up the chain. I can’t get access to it.”

  “So to wrap up what I’ve learned so far, we suspect that there’s a rogue group of biologists out there that are working with women like Maya to breed half human half something else species?”

  “That seems to be the case.”

  “Is there any evidence to suggest that Maya is still involved with this group?”

  “That’s the thing, we don’t have any messages or records that suggest it. They, or she, probably cut ties with each other after this one was born.”

  “That’s why I’m here then, huh? You want me to find this renegade group, find out who’s performing these operations?”

  “No. Right now that trail is cold. All of this is theory. We haven’t had enough time to sift through the evidence that we found at her house to determine what the story is exactly. When we do get something concrete, we’ll go after the group responsible for this. For now, what we need you to do is find the others.”

  “Others?”

  “This guy right here, this frog thing, his name was Leonard. I find it kind of funny she gave them such normal names. I would have given these freaks freak names to match their appearance. When our team completed searching the Lawton residence, we discovered that he has brothers and sisters. ”

  “What?”

  “After Detective Marsden subdued Leonard, he investigated the house and stumbled upon the basement, a very large basement, with several rooms built underground.”

  He goes to the next render and it shows a hall with ten or fifteen corridors.

  “All this was constructed below the surface,” Agent Leons says. “This was where his brothers and sisters lived.”

  The structure impresses me. The hallway is quite spacy and, from what I can tell, the rooms look rather roomy. I can’t believe all of it was built underground.

  “How many are there total?” I ask Agent Leons.

  “A lot,” he responds. “Including Leonard, eleven.”

  “Are they all half human, half frogs like Leonard?”

  “Not quite. It’s kind of a potpourri of species mixing.”

  He goes to the next hologram. It is of a creature, a large one. He has the face of a human, but it’s covered with fur, striped orange and black. His eyes are round and yellow, like a cat’s. He has long, bushy white hair flowing from his head. His body is bulky, but muscular. The same striped fur adorns his arms and legs. His hands are like a human’s, but the fingers a round and stocky. They look like paws.

  “We were able to gather quite a bit of evidence from the rooms in the basement. That’s how we created these renders. There were documents, pictures, personal effects, all of them helped piece together the information you are about to receive now. This one’s name is Tiago,” Agent Leons says. “We’re guessing his father is a Bengali Tiger.”

  “Good guess.”

  “He appears to be the oldest of the group. From what we can tell, he’s roughly twenty two years old. I’m going to show you the profiles in order of age, if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem. Anything else you can tell from him?”

  “Not really, but since he’s the oldest and one of the biggest of the group, we’re guessing he’s a natural fit for leader. You’ll have time to go over our findings later on. All the documents should be in that tablet I handed to you.”

  “Okay.”

  Leons pulls up the next image. It’s another massive creature, much larger than Tiago, teetering on the obese side. His body is covered with a light brown fur. His fingers are long and at the end of them are claws. His face is round and a large snout protrudes from the center. On the top of his head are two fuz
zy ears.

  “Father was a bear?” I ask him.

  “From the looks of it. Grizzly, you think?” he asks me.

  “I guess, I can’t really tell. Not exactly an expert on this stuff.”

  “His name is Oscar. We figured his age is twenty two as well.”

  “How’d she give birth to him so quickly when she just had Tiago?”

  “The frog, Leonard, he was sixteen, and he was the youngest. We’re guessing she kept pumping them out. The implants in her body also might have expedited her pregnancies to a few months each.”

  “I see. What do you think this one’s role in the family is?”

  “We’re not sure exactly. We think he’s big enough to be the muscle of the group, but from his personal writings and journal entries that we found, we get the sense that he’s somewhat of a pacifist.”

  “What did you find from Tiago’s writings and personal effects?”

  “He’s more hostile.”

  “Did all of them have private journals?”

  “Almost all of them. The ones we confiscated are the only way we could figure out their personality profiles.”

  The next hologram morphs on the screen. It’s of a hulking creature. He is big, like Oscar, but muscular, rough looking. His skin is grey, eyes small and beady. He is bald and has the ears of a human. Oh, and there is a giant horn sticking out of his face where his nose is supposed to be. He is in full scowl mode in the image I see.

  “This is Alex,” Agent Leons says. “Age is about twenty one. He’s one of the two who didn’t have a journal. The horn is a dead giveaway that he must be part rhino. Judging from this mug, if Oscar isn’t the muscle, he definitely is. Good luck trying to take this bastard down. Let’s go on to the next one.”

  This creature is the strangest looking so far. He has feathers, for starters, shiny brown ones, along with a beak and wings as limbs. I do see human fingers extending to the tips of them. His eyes are globular and very noticeable. He’s wearing a jacket and pants, yet coming out from the bottom aren’t feet, but talons.

  “The biologists can’t really figure out what kind of bird he got his traits from, but most likely it’s a Golden Eagle, the only true intelligent bird out there,” Agent Leons says. “It’s pretty indistinguishable, especially with the human traits mixed in there. What we do know is that he’s the same age as Alex, just a few months younger. He’s also another one without a journal, so it’s hard to put a finger on what he’s like.”