by Watts, Peter
"At Capital City-"
"Yes, Capital City. Where the remaining one percent of humanity lives in fear of the outside world. Hunting a creature that is, by all rights, the dominant species."
The mullos seemed to be moving in, closing on Twenty-Seven and her clone. Where were her weapons?
Forty-Five continued, "You and I share the same dreams, sister. Don't forget that I know you as well as you know yourself. I know you share my desire for freedom. How long can you continue to hunt at the whim of Capital City? Do you think they will let you retire when you get old? Have you ever seen one of us as an elder in the city?"
Twenty-Seven saw her machete and hunting knives. They were in the corner of the room, leaning against a wall near a ventilation shaft that filtered carbon dioxide out of the station.
"No. We hunt until we die. It is what we were made to do."
Forty-Five was enjoying herself, leering at Twenty-Seven. "And what if I told you that there was another way? What if I said that we could lead the next population of this planet instead of serving the dying few?"
Twenty-Seven noticed two more incineration grenades on Forty-Five's waist. She tried not to be obvious about seeing them.
A gunshot rang out. Twenty-Seven fell to the floor. All around the room the mullos screamed and shouted. The Alpha tried to calm them down, running around the room, pushing his brothers and sisters back.
Forty-Five put her pistol back in the holster and walked past Twenty-Seven to a twitching mullo on the ground. Forty-Five used her machete to hack it at the neck, removing the head. There were a few shouts of discontent from the other mullos. Forty-Five kicked the head and body to the edge of the room where a large group of mullos began to tear at it, greedily, biting off chunks and screaming wildly.
Forty-Five offered a hand to Twenty-Seven, "They're not perfect, but it is a work in progress."
Twenty-Seven stood on her own, watching the mullos devour their own. Forty-Five continued, "Every once and a while the newer ones get a bit zealous and have to be reminded that we are not food. As they age they seem less and less interested in us."
It was Twenty-Seven's turn to sneer, "This is your future? These monsters? I hate Capital City as much as you but this is not the way to-"
Forty-Five stopped smiling and approached, waiving her machete, "What then? You would serve the humans, hunting your own kind until you die? Then another takes your place and they die. Then another! And another!"
The mullos stopped eating their fallen sibling, only bone was left.
Twenty-Seven turned to Forty-Five, "What's your plan?"
Forty-Five sheathed her machete, "Do you know where we are?"
"A photovoltaic rig. A big one."
"Not just any rig. This is the primary power station for the Capital City feed. If this station falls the defenses of Capital City will fall for half a day before auxiliary power can be funneled in."
"You know they've already started rerouting conduits."
"Probably. We still have a few hours left."
The Alliance's reluctance to blow the station made sense now.
"That's the plan? Invasion?"
Forty-Five held up her hand where some of the mullo's blood had dripped onto it from her machete. "What more do we need? The defenses fall and the mullos invade. What could be simpler?"
"What about the innocent people in Capital City? What about the families?"
Forty-Five licked the blood off her palm before answering; she seemed to savor it. "What families? Have you seen families? I go from battle to holding. I have no interaction with any people in the city and you don't either."
"But our briefings-"
"Our briefings tell us what they must to keep us in line. We are tools, sister! What do you really know about the people for whom you fight?"
The mullos were getting antsy again, shifting around the room. Even the Alpha looked hungrier.
Forty-Five did not seem to notice. "Even if you are right and there are children, they are no different than the mullo babies you and I have killed many times before. The question here is not whether we should murder, but whom we should murder. Do we defend those who use us, or fight for those who would serve us?"
Twenty-Seven had heard enough. She stood straight and looked Forty-Five in the eyes, "I stand by my previous assessment. You've gone mad."
"Mad?"
"I believe, as you do, that we should have freedom…"
"Mad!"
"I agree that a revolt is coming…"
"You call me mad?"
"But this is not the way. We can flee. Now. The two of us. With our chips gone the Alliance can't track us. Let's leave the humans and the mullos."
Forty-Five turned away from Twenty-Seven. The Alpha was right behind her, staring at Twenty-Seven.
"You are blind, sister," Forty-Five's voice was heavy with regret and she re-wrapped her hand around the handle of the machete.
It was time to go.
Twenty-Seven lunged toward Forty-Five. Forty-Five must have sensed the attack because she moved to the side, narrowly avoiding the bulk of Twenty-Seven's charge. The mullos leapt forward, closing in on Twenty-Seven.
Forty-Five held out her hands, stopping the mullos as Twenty-Seven landed on the other side of the room on her knees.
Forty-Five leered, "It is you who are mad You can't fight us!"
Twenty-Seven threw the incineration pins at Forty-Five and started running to her knives. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Forty-Five try to jump out of the way as the two grenades exploded in front of her.
The blast was enormous. Waves of liquid fire blossomed out from the center of the room, igniting the air and dousing a great many mullos with heavy flame.
Twenty-Seven grabbed her knives and took off down the hallway to the elevator shaft. She could hear the screams of mullos behind her. She did not, however, hear anything from Forty-Five, who was more than likely in several pieces along the recreation room walls.
The elevator doors on the fourth floor were closed. Twenty-Seven jammed her knife in the center and pried them open. The screams of angry mullos were growing louder. They were coming.
Twenty-Seven pulled herself through the doors, hanging onto the walls of the shaft. She pulled the doors closed as the mullos came into view in the hallway. The doors slammed shut and the mullos began pounding on the other side. Twenty-Seven jammed one of her knives in the door spring to keep them shut and started climbing up the shaft to the surface of the rig.
The blue light from the super-acrylic wall was much darker than before. Though she could still see the remnants of whatever city decayed at the bottom of the ocean, the sunlight from the surface was almost non-existent.
Night had come. She would have to rethink her plan. She had hoped that getting to the surface would stop the mullos, but without the sun to keep them in the rig, she would find no solace above.
Shouts echoed through the shaft. They were inside. Twenty-Seven had to continue.
She pulled herself onto the top floor and ran toward Control, turning the corner to the main hatch. The screams of several angry mullos grew closer, their claws casting a metallic pitter-patter that echoed throughout the rig.
Twenty-Seven pounded the command code into the panel and the hatch began to creep open. She climbed up the ladder while mullos began to pour onto the main floor.
As she pulled herself out of the rig one of the mullos reached out, sinking its claws into her calf. She brought her machete down on the creature's arm, cutting it off below the elbow. The hatch slammed shut and Twenty-Seven used her machete to jam it closed.
She rolled onto her back and took a breath of the nighttime air. The mullos were pounding on the hatch. All Twenty-Seven had left was a single hunting knife. Eventually the beasts would get out. If she stayed here she was going to die.
A steady thumping sound pulled her attention to the sky. She stood to see two more cages being brought in, carried by a command chopper. It was standard
procedure for the third incursion to come as a pair, the assumption being that the first two clones were simply overwhelmed.
This was what Forty-Five and the mullos were planning on. The larger sized helicopter and pair of cages would carry the majority of the mullos straight to Capital City. When her behavior chip detonated the Alliance must've concluded that the second incursion had failed.
They were flying into a trap.
Twenty-Seven stumbled when the rig shifted to the side and the metal lurched under her feet. The entire structure was dipping into the ocean along the side with the elevator shaft. By the time she realized that the super-acrylic must have been shattered, mullos were climbing up, out of the water and onto the top of the rig.
They leapt over the solar panels. The moon glistened off their wet, pale skin and gave them a deep blue incandescence.
Twenty-Seven ran to the other side of the rig, knife in hand. The helicopter dropped the two cages just to the side of the landing pad, hovering above them. As the cage doors dropped open, Twenty-Seven ran past them in time to see two more clones with wide eyes at the oncoming mullo incursion.
They never stood a chance. The mullos leapt upon them, tearing them to shreds without time for a single scream. Twenty-Seven felt a guilty pang of relief since the mullos were distracted from her for a moment.
When she reached the end of the rig she turned back to see them climbing the chains to the main helicopter. They were too fast for the pilot. By the time he disconnected the chains from the cages, the helicopter was overrun. A few gunshots rang out and then the helicopter twisted in the sky, turning onto its side and falling into the ocean. The propellers continued spinning as it sank into the water.
Twenty-Seven watched and she realized that without Forty-Five the mullos' invasion plans were moot. There was no pilot, nor transport to take them to Capital City. In a weird way, Twenty-Seven had already saved the people she reviled.
She looked back to the rig and found herself surrounded by mullos. They stood still, their numbers filling the top of the slowly sinking station. Twenty-Seven held up her knife. If she was going to die she would not die alone.
The mullos in the center moved to the side, allowing the Alpha to make his way to the front of the group. He had burn marks across most of his body from the incineration grenades. The infant mullo Twenty-Seven had seen in the crib was cradled in the Alpha’s arm. Its face was smeared with blood and it seemed content. The rest of the mullos closed the gaps behind the Alpha and all of them stared at her.
She crouched, ready for their attack.
The elder looked into Twenty-Seven's eyes. He looked as though he would eat her himself, but he did not attack. He held out his left hand to the side, pointing toward the ocean. The mullos behind him obeyed. They began to flee the sinking station and leapt into the water. The Alpha remained, staring at her as his pack exited behind him.
The big burned master took a step toward Twenty-Seven. She flinched, raising her knife. He stopped and shook his head. He did not seem angry...
The Alpha was sad.
The last of the mullos dove into the water and the Alpha spoke one last time, pointing at Twenty-Seven. "Family."
Then he dove into the water and was gone.
Twenty-Seven was alone on the broken rig, sinking into the ocean. Capital City would send another incursion soon. They would come with even greater force than before.
Eventually the mullos would try again. Though the war was not over the battle had ended for Twenty-Seven.
For now, it seemed, she was free.
James Ninness is a San Diego native who turned to a life of beatnik after graduating with his degree in English: Creative Writing from Cal State University Long Beach. He spends his mornings with his kids, meandering about the house or swimming in the kiddie pool, often tweeting about nothing in particular. James is a dad, a husband, and a dog lover. He has spent the last few years writing comic books, short stories, and short films. Hang out with James on Twitter, @jamesninness, or connect with him at his website, jamesninness.com
ORIENTATION DAY
Peter Watts
They wouldn't let her into the lab until she'd seen the WHMIS video.
"You're kidding," Janna said. "WHMIS?"
"Liability issues." Gregor (third year of a two-year degree, defending any time now assuming he ever got his ass off the communal couch) offered her a what-you-gonna-do look. "Some tech down in Michigan got his arm ripped off and the family sued. Inadequate training, they said."
"As if you wouldn't know enough to keep clear of a newbie without a two-hour tutorial," Alexey chimed in (six months into his degree, and obviously looking forward to being second-lowest on the totem pole for a change).
"But WHMIS? Hazardous Materials?"
"Animal Ethics wasn't gonna go anywhere near 'em, not with those optics." Gregor shrugged. "You even hint anything that walks upright might be an animal and you've got the antispeciesists pounding at your door faster'n you could hump a hippo."
"You must've seen those idiots in the parking lot," Alexey added.
She nodded. "So we can't call them 'animals' but we can call them hazardous materials?"
"You gotta admit they can be hazardous," Gregor pointed out.
"More to each other than to us," Alexey admitted. "I mean have you seen what happens when you put two of 'em in the same room?"
Janna nodded. "I—"
"Rip each other's throats right out," Gregor answered.
Alexey nodded sagely. "Territorial predators. Absolutely shitty social skills."
"Anyhow." Gregor got down to business. "What does ol' Random have you working on?"
"Please don't say Crucifix glitch." Alexey raised his eyes to heaven. "Everybody and their fucking dog is doing Crucifix glitch."
Janna shook her head. "Alternative splicing in protocadherins. The whole PCDHX thing."
Gregor bolted from the couch. "You're PETA!"
"I am not! I just take their money." And then, to smooth any ruffled feathers: "I actually kind of think they're full of shit."
"Oh?" Gregor settled back down. "Do tell."
"They seem to think you can wipe away all those nasty cannibalistic impulses by just fixing the defect that hooks you on primate protein in the first place. Like putting kibble in front of a cat and expecting him to instantly lose his taste for mice. It's not going to happen."
"I'd say it depends on the cat," Alexey remarked.
"Either way it's boring. I'm more interested in how a broken Y-chromo gene managed to make it over to the X when there's no recombination. If PETA wants to pay me to figure that out, I'm happy to let them."
"Ah. Lured by the mystique of the female vampire." Gregor nodded. "You've come to the right place; we happen to have a female two floors down."
"That's kind of why I'm here," Janna said.
~
The tutorial was a lumpy mix of infotoids everyone knew (The Miracle of De-Extinction! The Promise of Harnessed SuperSavantism!) and clinical arcana that nobody did (recommended AntiEuclidean dosages per kilogram of vampire body mass, corrected for AMR). Gregor and Alexey, evidently lacking anything better to do, sat at Janna's elbow and offered supplemental commentary:
"You ever seen what happens when they don't get their Auntie-U?"
"Whole body goes into tetany the first time they catch sight of a four-panel window pane. Seizures, foaming at the mouth, the whole thing."
"I saw one's face split open one time, right down the middle."
By the end of it, though, she had to agree with them. She didn't feel any more educated on the subject of not-getting-your-arm-ripped-off than she ever had.
They turned in her visitor's ID for a real one. They took her down to Stores for her very own cross, showed her how to use it: it turned from trinket to tire-iron in an instant, its telescoped arms snapping to full extension with a touch of the trigger. They made her practice until she convinced them she wouldn't put her eye out with the thing.
>
"Thirty degrees of visual arc," Gregor told her. "Otherwise it doesn't work. And you gotta hold it perpendicular to their line-of-sight. They don't spaz out unless the horizontal and vertical receptors fire simultaneously."
"What if they close their eyes?"
"Then they're blind," Alexey said, rolling his.
"Yeah, but—I mean, couldn’t they just hear their way around? If they're smart as everyone says, they could echolocate off a fart."
Alexey snorted.
"They could navigate way better than your average blind person, for sure," Gregor admitted.
"Luckily, none of us are blind," Alexey pointed out. "And it's not like crosses are the only trick in the bag anyway."
"What else you got?" Janna wondered.
Gregor updated her access privileges and grinned. "Come see."
~
The sign stenciled semi-officially onto the door said Mission Control. The commentary beneath, hand-scrawled in black Sharpie, asked
Who are the real monsters?
Alexey shook his head in disgust. "Some asshole got past Security last week. Janitorial keeps promising they'll clean it off." He stood aside, gestured Janna toward the ret-reader on the wall: "Try it out. System knows you now."
She did. It did. She blinked away the afterimages as the door unlocked, followed him through.
Her ConTacs crashed the moment she crossed the threshold.
Alexey glanced at the sudden static in her eyes. "Oh, right. Random doesn't like customized worldviews, says she wants us all looking at the same thing when we're on the clock. Flatscreens and smart paint from here on in." One hand fiddled with something that looked a little like a TARDIS keychain; the other brought the wall to life with a tap and a swipe, opened a window into some other part of campus. Gregor stood there, facing the camera. Something else sat beside him, facing away.
"Janna, meet Valerie," Alexey murmured
She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"