Cam – Scion of Ares

With glowing red eyes, the wolfspawn slowly stalked down the darkened corridor, sniffing at the air. “Come out little boy, I know you’re in here. I can smell you.” The creature’s gravelly voice echoed through the abandoned apartment building, it’s six-foot form nearly filling the width of the rubbish-filled corridor. Suddenly his quarry, a teenage boy in ragged clothes, burst out of one the rooms and began running down the corridor. He was clutching his arm, blood trickling from between his fingers. Baring its fangs in a smile, the wolfspawn began running after him, its paws pounding on the floor; the hunt was on.

The boy darted down the corridor, leaping over obstacles and gaps in the floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the wolfspawn was rapidly gaining ground. He appeared to change his mind, instead of continuing to run towards the stairwell, he jumped through a hole in the plasterboard walls into one of the apartments. The wolfspawn followed, making a hole of its own as it ran straight through the thin walls in pursuit of the boy. The boy scrambled across the floor, shielding his eyes from the flying wall fragments. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He yelled desperately.

The wolfspawn didn’t answer and instead paced back and forth in front of the boy, savouring the smell of his blood. Without warning, it launched itself at the boy, its fangs bared and ready to strike. However, the boy quickly rolled out of the way, ducking under the wolfspawn and evading its jaws by a matter of inches. As the wolfspawn landed on the floor, the boy jumped to his feet and ran towards the boarded up windows. He brought both his arms up and leapt through the window, splintering the wooden planks. Sailing out the window, he plummeted towards the alleyway five stories below. The boy reached out and grabbed a telephone cable strung between the apartment building and its nearby neighbour. He grunted in pain as it arrested his fall but the strength of the cable wasn’t strong enough to take his weight and it snapped. Still holding onto it, the boy was swung down against the neighbouring building, slamming into the wall. The impact was hard, and try as he might he couldn’t stifle the yell of pain as he hit his injured arm. Watching from the window, the wolfspawn snarled as the boy let go of the cable, kicked off the wall, and somersaulted through the air before landing crouched on the floor. “You can run boy,” the wolfspawn called out, “but you can’t hide. I can smell your blood from a hundred miles away.” They locked eyes for several seconds, the boy panting heavily.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at running the last couple of years,” he yelled back before bolting down the alley.

Running into the deserted street, the boy jumped onto the bonnet of an abandoned car and used it as a launching point to leap clear over a chain link fence topped with razor wire. Landing on his feet, he quickly disappeared into the darkness of the junk yard beyond.

The wolfspawn howled in delight; this quarry was proving to be a little more elusive than he had first suspected. This was going to be fun. As the last echoes of the howl were lost to the wind, the wolfspawn leapt out of the window, bouncing from wall to wall on its way down to the ground. It ran across the road and used the same trick as the boy, using the abandoned car to leap over the fence. The immense weight of the wolfspawn crushed the car, causing the still unbroken side windows to explode outwards. It failed to clear the fence but the flimsy steel wire was no obstacle to the wolfspawn as it tore through it, buckling the fence as it chased the boy into the junk yard.

The air in the junk yard was a jumble of smells, oil, petrol and diesel, rusting metal, decaying rubber, decomposing body parts. From the smells, the wolfspawn knew that somebody had been busy in this yard, and not just in the scrap metal business. However, the many overlapping smells obscured the boy’s scent; he’d have to track the boy the old-fashioned way, by following his footprints.

Slowly, it began to creep between the mounds of scrap metal, keeping an eye on the piles of rusting cars. Any of them would make a good hiding place for the boy. A clatter of metal on metal echoed through the night, the sound bouncing around the junk yard like pulses of sonar. The wolfspawn could almost see the waves of sound as they swept past, tracking them back to their source and locking on to the boy’s location. It bounded up a pile of scrap, sliding down the far side into a cul-de-sac formed by three overflowing piles of scrap. As it landed, a miniature avalanche of scrap caused by its slide blocked the exit behind it and it looked over at the terrified boy, grinning a fang-filled smile.

The boy looked around, desperately searching for an exit and the wolfspawn watched as a look of terror passed over the boy’s face when he realised that he was trapped. He backed up against the pile of scrap behind him, trying to get as far away from the wolfspawn as possible. “Little boy, scared and all alone in the night,” the wolfspawn taunted as the boy nervously fiddled with an amulet around his neck, “got any last words before I feast on your heart?”

Taking down his hood, the boy looked up at the wolfspawn, smirking slightly. He grasped the amulet firmly, a wolf talon on an old leather string, the fear in his blue eyes gone and replaced by a mischievous twinkle. “Who said I was alone?” There was a burst of white light and a spectral form erupted from the talon, landing in front of the boy. The spectral form coalesced into that of a wolf, smaller than the wolfspawn, but no less impressive, it’s white and brown fur a stark contrast to the wolfspawn’s blood spattered grey. “Say hello to partner, Orin,” the boy said cracking his knuckles. A tattoo in the shape of a twisted four-pointed star on his right shoulder briefly glowed, its blue light shining faintly through the material of his hooded top. The light spread down the veins of his right arm before racing over the rest of his body, fading moments later. “You’ve hunted scions for the last time, spawn breath.”

Snarling, the wolfspawn charged at the pair, he wasn’t going to let some whelp and his mutt get the better of him. It was time to end this game.

—-

“How’s the arm Cam?” Orin asked, walking over to the boy as he sat on a pile of tyres with a small backpack at his feet.

“Meh, I heal quickly enough.” Cam took off his hooded top and inspected the gash on his arm. It had been hurt when he had allowed the wolfspawn to slash him with its claws whilst it chased him. He had done this in an attempt to appear weak and helpless. It had been a calculated ploy, luring the wolfspawn into the ambush; one that Orin had not accepted without argument. Cam could tell that his friend and guardian was still a little mad at him for not listening. The gash wasn’t deep and it was still bleeding. He reached into the bag and pulled a strip of “clean” cloth that he used as a makeshift bandage, wrapping it around the wound. A little bit of blood soaked through but the material stopped the bleeding. The gash would probably leave a scar, but it wouldn’t be his first; he had a few already. With his top off, the scar he had received from a wolfspawn three years ago was clearly visible, slashing across his belly and left side. It was the first time he’d seen a monster and it was a night he’d like to forget, if only the nightmares would let him.

Satisfied that his arm was okay for the moment, he put his top back on, hopped off the tyres and walked over to the corpse of the wolfspawn. The beast hadn’t taken long to defeat, little more than five minutes. Between the two of them, they had managed to do it without sustaining any injuries more serious than a few grazes and bruises.

Taking out a small knife tucked into his sock, he reached down and cut off the long central talon from each of the wolfspawn’s claws. The creature’s eyes had also solidified in its death becoming red crystals. “These should be worth a bit on the market,” Cam said digging them out with the knife, “this city does have a goblin market, right?”

“As far as I know.”

There was a squelching sound from the corpse and it started to sag. It had only been dead for a couple of minutes but it was already starting to dissolve into a black, oil-like ichor. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing left of the wolfspawn except a pool of ichor. Cam knew that too would soon disappear, evaporating in the dawn sun. “Let’s get out of here Orin, I’m beat,” he said, putting the talons and eyes into the backpack.

—-

What a sight they must make, Cam thought as they walked down the street. A scruffy homeless kid with dirty and ripped clothes, a blood soaked makeshift bandage around his upper arm visible through the torn sleeve of his stop, a scar on his face, and a large wolf-like dog following him like a loyal pet. Lucky for them it was past midnight and there was no one around to see them, at least no one who cared that is.

“You need to be more careful,” Orin said cautiously, coming up alongside him.

“What do you mean?” Cam asked innocently, knowing full well what Orin was going to say.

“Using yourself as bait like that, it’s reckless and stupid.” The wolf hopped in front of Cam, forcing him to stop. “The last time you faced a wolfspawn you were almost killed! This time you got lucky.”

“Last time,” Cam snapped, “there were four of them and I was just a kid.”

“You’re still a child Cam, and the only reason you survived before is that your father saved your life.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, I’m fifteen. And I asked you never to talk about that man!” Cam was almost yelling; his face flushed red with anger. He pushed past Orin and continued walking briskly down the street; his shoulders and back tensed.

Orin walked behind him for several minutes before Cam broke the awkward silence. “Sorry for yelling at you like that. You’re my oldest friend Orin; I know you’re only looking out for me.”

“You know, if you had been born in Ancient Greece, you would be considered a man by now,” Orin said, “and you would have been trained from birth in how to use your abilities.”

“Yeah,” Cam said smiling, “but the nearest I’ve been to Ancient Greece is Athens in Ohio. I guess I’ll just have to make do with what I learned in Ms McKenna’s seventh grade history lessons and watching way too many Jackie Chan movies as a kid.”

Orin laughed, which was a disturbing sight to those not used to the large wolf spirit. “I suppose that would explain your terrible form and lack of technique.”

“Did you just insult the fists?” Cam asked in mock indignation. “You do not insult the fists.”

Eventually, after nearly an hour of walking, they arrived at a sleazy motel. The sort of motel frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers and didn’t think twice about renting a room to an unaccompanied fifteen-year-old boy who paid in cash. He was sure the manager thought that he was some runaway kid or gang member and if wasn’t already involved in business of its two main group of clients, he soon would be. It was a dangerous place to stay, marginally safer than sleeping on the street, but only just. On his first night, he’d been accosted by a junkie attempting to steal what little money he had, probably trying to get his next fix. All that the man got of it though was a broken nose and a few bruises. Not long afterwards, he had been approached been a group of men decked out in bling and carrying poorly concealed handguns; their get up screamed gang members. They’d offered him a job, saying they could use a “scrappy little punk” like him. Cam had refused, politely but firmly; there was no way he was going to get involved with the drugs trade; or the sex trade for that matter, they had been disturbingly vague on what they wanted him for. He hoped they had gotten the message; he didn’t want any trouble from them.

With Orin close behind, Cam walked across the parking lot towards their room. The lot wasn’t deserted, even at this time of night; two men sat on the bonnet of a car, watching Cam closely. He kept his head down, watching the two men out of the corner of his eye. They were probably just lookouts for the gang that used the motel as a drug den and whorehouse, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Cam had been on the run for three years, hunted and tracked by monsters and individuals who wanted to kill him for what he was or wanted to use him for that same reason. He hadn’t survived this long by being complacent.

Cam didn’t relax until he was safely in his room; the door closed and jammed shut with a baseball bat. “I’m telling you Orin, if it weren’t for the fact that this is the only place we can stay without attracting too much attention, I’d seriously consider finding somewhere else.”

“Pity,” a voice said from the darkness, “this place has character.”

Cam span round, slapping the light switch and dropping into a combat crouch. Why hadn’t Orin detected someone was in the room? His heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through his system. Then, he saw who the intruder was.

Sitting in a chair, with a bottle of beer in his hand, was a gruff middle-aged man in a leather jacket. Leaning against a wall shotgun and massive sword, its blade at least two meters hilt to tip. Cam stood up and fixed the man with a smouldering glare. “Ares, what the hell do you want?”

The Greek god of war sighed. “Just once, would it kill you to call me dad?”

BetaForce – EchoCell 07

GridTime 2508752267 (12:37 July 7th, 2049)
Orbital Sixteen Communications Interconnect

The Presence looked down at the planet below through the satellite’s cameras, watching the patterns in the clouds before returning to work and sending it’s consciousness down the uplink towards the networks of the North American Zone. The Grid was busy at this time of day, a blizzard of blue lights streaking across the inky blackness, bouncing from one relay to the next until they reached their destination. Individual communication packets containing audio, video and computer data making up the cybernetic nervous system of the ECM.

Concentrating lightly, the Presence zeroed in a stream of messages passing back and forth between two users. A quick invasion into the user profiles revealed their identities as a pair of college students complaining about the policies of the government. The Presence smiled it reported the conversation to the local UniCop monitoring station. It was the fourth time the male user had had one of his conversations reported. Although the Unity had taken no action against him, they had arrested and imprisoned the other party each time on the Presence’s recommendation. The Presence idly wondered at one point the male user’s friends would begin to suspect, incorrectly, that he was an informer.

As the Presence hopped from system to system, it passed through the central dispatch computer for one of the local Sector PD’s. In a split second, it scanned the current service records of a squad of Sector Cops that had been involved in a disastrous UniCop snatch and grab operation a month earlier. Although nothing suspicious turned up, it decided that a round of random “interrogations” would do wonders for local UniCop morale.

A few seconds after entering the ECM grid, it had reached its target location. Sector 7, known before the Unification War as Boston. A group of so called “freedom fighters” was suspected to be operating in the area and local law enforcement had been characteristically lax in investigating the area. The only intelligence it had on the group was that it referred to itself as “Kilo Cell” and was part of the terrorist organisation BetaForce. The group had been a thorn in the Unity’s side for a number of years, most recently it was suspected that they were responsible for the theft of weapons and equipment from a Unity supply depot. They had become bold with the repeated successes, perhaps they had also become sloppy.

It gathered its thoughts and focused its energy in preparation for what it needed to do. The Presence opened itself up, flowing across the local network and invading the communication relays throughout the sector. Within minutes it had access to every communications signal sent within and through the sector. It scanned every message, and packet of computer data, looking for keywords and suspicious phrases. From inside the system it did not need to stop to accommodate the physical needs of a human body, it could remain in position for weeks at a time if necessary. Thankfully it did not come to that.

After an hour it detected a sloppily encrypted communique which when decoded revealed itself to be a message between two members of the target group. From there it infiltrated their computers and gained access to their messaging programs. They had been smart enough to keep no suspect addresses in their address books and had deleted all messages once read. However, they hadn’t erased the internal transceiver logs of their cell phones. When all the data was cross-referenced with information it gained from other sources, the Presence identified all the members and had identified their current locations. It dutifully noted the UniCops and an assault team was dispatched. Moving on to its next assignment, it was unaware that it had triggered a series of alarms which alerted the terrorists to its presence.

14:58 July 7th, 2049
Echo Cell Bunker, 200m below Sector 23

Tommy stretched as he entered the common room, scratching the back of his head. Toby was sitting at a desk on the far side of the room, his brow furrowed in concentration. Toby had been surprised when Talbot had handed him a fat workbook two weeks ago. “Just because you’re a wanted terrorist,” Talbot had told him, “it’s no reason to skip on your education.” He’d complained bitterly of course but had eventually relented. Jared was sitting on the couch, munching on a bowl of cornflakes while watching TV. Sarah, Talbot and Kai were nowhere to be seen.

After grabbing coke from the fridge, he plopped down on the sofa next to Jared.

“Hey sleepy,” Jared said in greeting, “you’re just in time for the next episode of Jake Danger.” Tommy grunted in response.

“Meh, the comic’s are better,” piped in Toby.

“Oh come on, the comic’s are nothing more than a cash-in like the computer games,” retorted Jared, “name one thing the comics have over the show.”

“The comic’s aren’t laced with subliminal messages,” said Tommy.

Jared’s mouth opened as he tried to formulate a response but he gave up as the opening credits started. He turned back to the screen, pointedly ignoring the sniggers from the two boys.

—-

Four green bubbles of energy floated above the console in the comm centre, contained inside each one was fluttering spark of white energy. Kai sat at the comm board with a dog eared and hand written journal on his lap, his face a mask of focused concentration as he muttered “kiryokuousei zaichuu no kouriki mewomukeru to houshutsu” repeatedly under his breath. When he mispronounced the final word in the phrase, the bubbles suddenly popped and the energy dissipated.

“Dammit dad, why Japanese, why couldn’t you have written your notes in a normal language like English?” Kai complained as he looked down at the book and tried to decode his father’s handwriting. He was about to try again when the comm-board started beeping alerting him to an incoming message.

“Bravo Foxtrot Echo, this is November Six Three Six incoming.”

“Er roger November Six Three Six, this is Bravo Foxtrot Echo receiving. Go ahead,” Kai responded into the headset.

“November Six Three Six on priority mission from Central Command Authority. Request bunker access and security lockdown. Authorisation code transmitting.”

As Kai checked the authorisation code against the most recent security, he comm’d Talbot. The request from November 636 was unusual and the invocation of Central Command Authority meant that something major was going down and that normally meant trouble.

“Authorisation code verified November Six Three Six, clear for access. Come on in, door’s open and the welcome mat’s out.”

—-

By the time the transport craft had arrived in the hanger, Talbot was already waiting for them. As its doors opened and the occupants stepped out, Talbot breathed in sharply. “Christ, not him,” he thought to himself as he eyed the leader of the group. The leader was an African-American male, mid 30’s and around 2 meters in height. He had blue eyes and short cropped black hair and he was wearing green combat trousers, black boots and a light blue khaki shirt. The man was armed with a pistol in a holster strapped to his thigh. Behind him stood two men in dark grey combat armour carrying assault rifles. Apart from their different faces, there were identical in hair and posture.

Talbot folded his arms as they approached, there was a tense moment when the leader held out his hand which Talbot refused to shake. “Grabowski,” he began, “knowing you, this isn’t a social visit.”

“I wish I was here under better circumstances, “Grabowski said grimly, although his eyes twinkled with amusement, “but I’m afraid we have a serious situation.”

“This better be good.”

“Is your team assembled?”

“They’re in the briefing room, this way.”

—-

“So Kai,” Sarah said as he entered the briefing room, “what’s going on?”

“Beat’s me. Some big shot from Central’s paying us a visit.” Kai sat down and Jared passed him a bowl of peanuts.

“Lucky us, the brass are gracing us with their presence,” Jared said sarcastically prompting laughter from the rest of the team. Toby’s and Tommy’s laughter was cut short when both boys grimaced in pain and began to rub the sides of their heads. Before anyone could say anything, the door opened and Talbot walked in leading the three men of November 636. When Tommy saw Grabowski, his eyes narrowed and his face hardened with his shoulders tensed. Grabowski merely smiled in return.

After being introduced, Grabowski began to address the team. “Over the last couple of months, a number of BetaForce operations and personnel have been compromised by a security leak. Myself and the rest of my team have been tasked with tracking down this leak and plugging it.” As he spoke, the two armed guards that had come with him surreptitiously disengaged the safety’s on their weapons. “We suspected that our communication encryptions had been broken or that someone was invading our computer systems so we set up a sting. We lulled the culprit into thinking that one of our cells, Kilo Cell, had been a little slack in the information security department.” The members of Echo Cell looked at each other slightly confused, each wondering just where this was going. Grabowski began to walk around the table as he continued, the two armed guards following discreetly behind. No one seemed to notice when they stopped behind Tommy. “When the hacker paid a visit we hoped to track him or her back to his terminal. Imagine our surprise when the tech’s told us that it wasn’t possible to trace the hacker as there didn’t seem to by any connection to an outside terminal during the invasion. Instead what we found was a curious electronic signature. One which is unique to one Thomas Preston.” As soon as Tommy’s name was mentioned, and before anyone could react, one of the guards slammed Tommy’s head on to the desk and started to cuff his hands behind his back. The other guard pointed his rifle at the back of the boy’s head.

BetaForce – EchoCell 06

11:30 March 12th, 2040
Somewhere in North Africa

As the boy came round the bend, the two men sitting on the boulder looked up. The boy was small, probably no more than seven years old, and dressed in dark grey shorts and a sleeveless black vest. A black peaked cap was also worn in a futile attempt to keep the burning north African sun off his neck which, like his arms, was already red raw with sunburn. Even through the heat-haze they could see the sweat pouring off him as he staggered forward trying to carry the oversized pack on his back.

Both men were dressed in light coloured, loose fitting clothing unlike the cadets they oversaw. They each carried a combat knife and sidearm as well as a police-style baton. The taller man looked at his watch. “He’s five minutes behind,” he said to his shorter companion in an English accent.

“We’ll have to do something about that.” His companion stated in a French accent as he sharpened his knife.

The boy glanced nervously at the two instructors without lifting his head as he trudged past them. He knew he was in trouble, the rest of the squad had left him behind and he’d lost sight of them a half a kilometre back. He had got about 5 meters beyond them when the Englishmen ordered him to halt.

“What’s you’re name cadet?”

“Er, Two-seventeen gamma. Sir.” He answered nervously, standing to attention despite the crushing ache in his back caused by the pack.

“217 Gamma, do you have any explanation as to why you have yet again fallen behind?” The Frenchman questioned as he came up behind the boy. The boy knew better than to answer such a question.

“Perhaps he’s just lazy,” the Englishman said conversationally, “look at that fat. He could do with loosing a few kilos.” He continued prodding the boy’s chest which was conspicuously lacking anything even close to puppy fat. “Note that down, meal privileges revoked for the day.” The boy silently groaned when he heard that, he hadn’t eaten for nearly two days now.

“There’s still another 5 klicks left on the run, do you think that you are going to make it if you continue in this fashion? … Well, answer boy.” The Frenchmen barked at him.

“N-no sir.”

“If we let him continue, he’ll probably end up dead … He wouldn’t be our problem any more.” The Englishman said as he gulped down some water from a canteen.

“True,” the Frenchman began as he reached for the water, “it would bring the squads overall performance rating up.” He looked at the boy as if appraising a pack animal with a broken leg. “However you heard the techs. This boy is special and we should be careful that we don’t overwork him.” The Frenchman said, putting a mocking emphasis on the word special.

“I guess we can’t have him dying from exhaustion or heat-stroke then.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “We should take him back to base in the Jeep,” he said nodding at the vehicle parked behind the rocks.

“I could do with a beer,” the Frenchman agreed, “the boy looks like he could do with a drink.”

The Englishman held out the canteen to the boy, “Drop that pack and take a drink before you drop yourself.”

The boy paused, uncertain how to proceed. The Unity instructors were not known for any sort of compassion or kindness and he was sure that this was some sort of trick. However, disobeying an order always resulted in harsh punishment. He unbuckled the backpack and carefully reached out for the canteen. As his fingers neared it, the Englishman reached forwards and grabbed his wrist. “A thought occurs,” be began, “if we take you back to camp now, that would just be rewarding you for failing to complete the run.”

“He should be punished first.” The Frenchman agreed and the young could sense the the man’s anticipation in his voice.

The Englishman pushed him roughly down onto the dirt. “Hold him down will you.” He said as he pulled out his knife. The Frenchman grabbed his arms and forced back down on the ground. He pushed down with all his weight on the boys arms, immobilising them. The Englishmen knelt on the boy’s legs and between the two of them, he couldn’t move. “Now you’re file says that you have some limited regeneration,” he said holding the knife in front of the boy’s eyes, the sun glinting of the metal blade. “Even so, I can guarantee that this will hurt and it will teach you to not fall behind in the future.”

He brought the knife to just below the boy’s left eye and began to slowly cut across the face, crossing the bridge of the nose. White hot pain flooded his senses as the blade cut deep into the skin and flesh. His screams echoed across the vacant desert.

—-

09:15 July 7th, 2049
Echo Cell Comm Centre, 200m Below Sector 23

Tommy woke with a start as someone shook his shoulder, almost falling off his chair. Kai stood beside him crunching on an apple with a concerned look on his face.

“Tommy man, you all right? You were nearly screaming in your sleep.”

“It was nothing,” Tommy muttered, “just a bad dream.” The nightmare was fresh enough in his mind that he could still feel the desert heat, the dirt under his back and the pain from that day nine years ago. His hand went to his face, fingers tracing across the scar that stretched across his face. Despite his regeneration, the wound had never properly healed and was still visible all these years later.

Kai pulled a chair over and sat next to him. “Seriously, you look exhausted. You’ve been on comm watch for over 12 hours, you need to take a break.”

“I would but no one else knows how to monitor the board properly.” Tommy shifted in his seat, rubbing his neck and yawning.

“We’ll manage, do I have to pull rank on you.”

Tommy looked at Kai’s stern look. For a few seconds neither of them said anything then Kai’s frown crumbled and Tommy laughed and pushed his chair back from the console. “Ok, I get the message. Anyway, technically we don’t have ranks but I do have seniority on you.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell,” Kai called out as Tommy left the comm centre, “when I let some punk ass hacker outrank me.” Tommy’s tired laughter could be heard echoing in the corridor outside. He turned back to the comm console and eyed the Great Wall of Pepsi along the top of the monitors. “There’s enough caffeine and sugar here to fuel the Tank for a week, where does he put it all.” Carefully he placed the dozen or so cans in the recycling bin at the back of the room.

—-

As Toby sat on his bed, fastening the laces on his shoes, Tommy walked in and flopped onto his bed on the other side of the room.

“Jeez,” Toby began yawning, “you been up all night?”

Tommy just yawned in response. He pulled off his top and kicked of his shoes and began to climb into bed. The younger boy got up and headed to the door, summoned by the smell of bacon and eggs wafting in from the common room outside. He turned and looked back at Tommy.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where’d you get that tattoo on your shoulder?”

Tommy looked up and pulled the sleeve of his t-shirt back down covering it. “Don’t remember,” he rolled over, his back to Toby and pulled the blanket around him. “Do me a favour will you? Turn off the lights on the way out.” Toby recognised a “drop the subject” when he heard it and left Tommy alone in the room. Tommy sighed and closed his eyes, dropping into a restless sleep.

BetaForce – EchoCell 05

16:48 June 19th, 2049
Hudson Arco Complex, Sector 23

“GET AWAY FROM MY LITTLE SISTER!”

Toby leapt forward and grabbed Travis around the waist and right shoulder. He lifted the shocked UniCop as if he was made of nothing more than paper. With a scream of rage Toby threw Travis out of the back of the van and over the heads of Sarah and Tommy. Travis sailed through the air for nearly 12 meters before smashing into a concrete pillar and landing on the roof of a nearby skycar. The roof of the car buckled shattering the windscreen and triggering its alarm.

Tommy had to duck as Toby bounded out of the van almost like an animal, landing on all fours. He watched the boy race after the UniCop dumbfounded. When they had sparred before, Toby had not moved as fast as that, nor had he seemed that strong. Sarah climbed into the back of the van, pulling out a first aid kit.

“Three,” she called out to Tommy, “go after the kid and stop him from doing anything stupid. I’ll take care of the family.” He nodded and turned to follow Toby.

With a grunt, Travis pulled the combat knife from his shoulder and recognised it as the one he had lost earlier that day. At least now he knew where it had gone. He looked up and saw the crazed young mutant charging towards him, pure rage visible in his eyes. Travis quickly sprang to his feet and into a combat crouch, knife held out before him. As Toby got in close he lashed out to strike Travis’s head. The UniCop ducked under the blow, barely, and grabbed Toby’s arm. Using the mutants own momentum he tossed him over his shoulder sending him sprawling to the floor. Travis span round and slashed at the boy with the knife as he got up. The knife sliced across Toby’s chest leaving a ragged cut in his sweatshirt. A spurt of blood, cast off from the knife, splashed across the ground and the boy clutched his chest.

A spray of gun fire narrowly missed Kai as he dived across the gap between two skycars to join Talbot. The remaining UniCop in the rear escort was proving to be a tough opponent. “We need to end to this,” Talbot spoke as he peeked over the top of the skycar using a snapped off wing mirror, “cover me.” Slapping a fresh magazine into his rifle, he passed the weapon to Kai. “This should do the trick,” he muttered as he pulled a grenade from a strap. A sharp pain suddenly struck his head and he inhaled sharply between his teeth.

“What’s wrong?” Kai asked worriedly.

“Nothing,” he answered rubbing his temple, “just a headache.”

It was no ordinary pain but an empathic flash. Talbot usually kept his telepathic and empathic abilities in a dormant state. Most people constantly broadcast their surface thoughts and unless he focused his control, when his abilities were active it was akin to having a thousand rock concerts taking place simultaneously in his head. However, occasionally a powerful empathic flash would break through his mental defences. That was what was happening now. He could sense a powerful, almost feral rage. Like an enraged animal. Talbot looked round the side of the skycar just in time to see a UniCop slash at Toby with a combat knife.

As Travis prepared to slash the boy again, Toby growled dropped into a one handed hand stand. His left leg lashing out and striking the combat knife sending it spinning and clattering to the ground. Travis drew his sidearm only to have kicked out of his hands by Toby’s right foot as the boy flipped upright. Toby now had his back to Travis but if the UniCop thought that gave him an advantage he was mistaken. The boy thrust his right elbow into Travis’s armoured chest and then span round to deliver a vicious follow up punch with his left fist to the same location. The armoured plate buckled and cracked under the force of the blow. Travis coughed and blood splattered Toby’s face.

“Shit,” Talbot thought as he watched the fight across the garage, “he’s gonna kill him.” He signalled Kai, and leapt out from behind the skycar. Kai opened up with the assault rifle, spraying the cab of the escort. The UniCop inside ducked down as the bullets riddled the windscreen. Talbot charged towards the vehicle, readying the grenade. At the last second he pulled the pin and tossed it through the side window throwing himself to the floor in preparation for the blast. The grenade bounced of the helmet of the UniCop before landing between his feet. He had just enough time to utter a resigned curse before it detonated.

In the back of the prisoner transport Sarah had begun to treat the gunshot wound. The mother was clutching the daughter, as if afraid to let go. “Who … What…” stammered the father.

“Hold still Mr Smith, I need to bandage this before you loose to much blood.” Sarah said as she searched for the exit wound. “And before you ask, you’re safe with us. We’re here to get you to safety.”

“Was that…”

“Your son? Yes.”

The mother looked up hopefully. “Toby? but they told us he was dead.”

“Don’t worry, he’s very much alive and my team mate is taking care of him.” Sarah said as she found the exit wound and began to bandage. “I hope,” she added silently under her breath.”

Travis staggered back, winded by the blow to his chest with his hands held out in surrender. The boy grabbed hold of his head and screamed in a guttural voice, “This is for shooting me,” into his face as he head butted him. The UniCop’s nose crumpled in a spray of blood and he collapsed to his knees. “This is for trying to stab me in the alley.” He smashed his fists into Travis’s face sending him to the floor. “This is for hurting my family.” A savage kick to the groin caused Travis to groan meekly, pleading for mercy. Toby sat on his chest, repeatedly punching him in the face. “And this is for my sister.” He clenched both his fists together above his head and prepared to smash them down on Travis’s face. The semi concious UniCop lay beneath him unable to resist.

Tommy charged into Toby, body tackling him off the UniCop. The two boys slid across the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs. Toby landed face down next to the discarded combat knife. As he rose to a crouch, his back to Tommy, he grasped the knife. Before Tommy could call out, Toby span round and leapt through the air. He landed on Tommy, forcing the older boy to the floor as he sat on his chest, the combat knife to Tommy’s throat. Tommy looked at Toby’s face, he almost couldn’t recognise the boy. Toby was snarling through gritted teeth that almost had fangs and Tommy was sure that his eyes used to be blue, not orange. His entire body seemed to have altered as well, he felt heavier and definitely looked more muscular. After a few seconds, Toby’s eyes seemed to refocus and see for the first time what he was doing. He glanced at the knife he was holding and his eyes widened in shock. Dropping the knife, he scrambled off Tommy’s chest and fell back against a concrete pillar. Toby looked at his hands which were covered with blood and down at his blood soaked sweatshirt. Tommy looked at him carefully and was relieved to see that he seemed to be back to the blue-eyed, freckle faced kid he had met in the briefing room.

“Jeez, I’m sorry, I … I … God what was I doing?” Toby struggled to apologise as Tommy got up and walked over. Tommy held out his hand to Toby.

“Well, er, you kinda lost it.” Tommy answered as he helped him up. Toby glanced warily over towards the UniCop and gulped.

“Did I … is he … you know, dead?” He asked quietly.

Tommy walked over and checked the body. “No, the bastard is still very much alive.” Toby came up behind him and looked down at the UniCop. Tommy stood up and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Look, go and see to your folks. I’ll take care of this guy.” Toby sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve before turning and running over to the prisoner transport.

As Tommy watched him climb into the back of the transport only to be engulfed by his parents, he heard a noise behind him.

“Thank you.” Travis barely managed to whisper. Tommy knelt down and looked at the man’s face. It was a mass of bruises, one eye swollen shut, his noise broken and his skin covered in blood.

“Don’t thank me,” he began to whisper to Travis, “I didn’t do it for you. I could quite happily have let him do it. He would have smashed down and with his strength he would’ve crushed your skull, splattering your brains all over this floor. Given what I just saw, he might’ve even enjoyed it too. But here’s what makes him different from you and me. Later, when he calmed down. He would have regretted it, he would’ve felt guilty about. It’d probably destroy him.” Travis opened his mouth to speak but Tommy clamped his hand over his mouth cutting him off. “You call people like me terrorists, monsters even. You don’t see us fucking each other over because of a few differences in DNA. How many people have you sent off to their deaths? How many of them were kids, and how many of them even knew why they were being executed?” He paused and looked around. The others were by the prisoner transport helping Toby’s family into the Tank. None of them were paying him any attention. “If I was someone else, I’d just leave you here for the medtechs. But unfortunately for you,” with his free hand he rolled up his right sleeve revealing a tattoo consisting of the number “217” with the word “Gamma” underneath. When Travis saw it, his eyes widened in fear and he tied to call out. His cries muffled by Tommy’s Hand “I’m just following the training you people gave me.” He shifted his grip to cover Travis’s nose and held on tight as Travis tried in vain to twist out from under his grip. The struggling became weaker as Travis suffocated and eventually they stopped altogether. He got up, took one last look at the body and joined the others.

BetaForce – EchoCell 04

16:45 June 19th, 2049
Hudson Arco Complex, Sector 23

“We’re approaching the rendezvous point, you ready Sarah?” Jared called over his shoulder as he swooped the Tank down towards the roof of the Westgate Arcology.

Sarah stood at the Tank’s side door, clipping on a safety harness. “Just about,” she said into the headset microphone. She slapped the release button and the door slid open, the wind buffeting the interior the craft. On the rapidly approaching roof she could just make out a figure in dark grey camo’s similar to hers, hunched by a graffiti strewn ventilation grill. It was Kai, waiting for them at the usual rendezvous point. Sarah focused on the figure and held the microphone to her mouth. “I’ve got visual, keep her steady Jared. I don’t want Kai materialising upside down again.” As the Tank streaked over Kai she held out her hand and pointed at him. He was enveloped in a white light and vanished only to reappear at the back of the Tank’s cabin. She closed the door while Talbot gave Jared the go ahead to continue on to the Hudson Arco Complex.

—-

Tommy’s digital form coalesced next to a chandelier-like structure of blue light. It represented one of the many cell towers in quadrant three that served the residents of the Hudson Arco Complex. In the distance, he could see the glow of the rest clearly against the inky blackness. Flashes of blue light connected them while others raced out into the ether. Each mote of light represented a communication packet or computer instruction. Tommy was never sure whether this was what communication networks really looked like from the inside or whether this was simply how his mind decided to interpret the sensory information he received while in digital form. Either way, he thought it was beautiful, a universe of stars and fireworks that only he could perceive.

He watched the pattern of lights inside the structure for a few seconds, studying the flow of data through the cell tower’s system. Then, carefully, he reached between the threads of light and grasped the core of the system’s programming. Squeezing hard, he restricted and blocked the flow of data through the core, overwhelming its programming and security software. Almost as if he were throttling the life out of it. The light within spluttered and died leaving only a few flickering embers.

Now for the tricky part. Tommy reached within his pocket and pulled out a glowing red spark. He gently placed the spark on the now dark core and pressed down on it, pushing it deep into the system. Finally he leaned forwards and breathed gently on it. Slowly, a red glow spread throughout the core and into the matrix of data conduits around it. Soon he was standing in front of a red version of the blue structure that had been present before. He shielded his eyes in preparation for the next move. With a mental command, he instructed the cell tower to transmit the new system software to the other cell towers in quadrant three. It complied instantly and several jagged bolts of red lightning lashed out and struck the other towers which soon took on the same red hue. Once all the towers were infected, instead of relaying the motes of light they began to repeatedly emit a bright red flash that swept outwards extinguishing all the other lights. “That should hold for a couple of hours,” he thought to himself. His work done, Tommy closed his eyes and shifted back to the real world.

—-

Kai buckled himself and looked around the cabin. “Isn’t the new kid coming along?”

Talbot loaded a clip into an assault rifle before responding. “No, he’s staying behind.”

Kai looked surprised at this. “Huh? If I was him no force on Earth could stop…” he stopped mid sentence and looked at Talbot as he suddenly realised the situation. “Jesus Talbot, you didn’t tell him did you? You didn’t tell him who the targets were.”

“I felt it best that for the time being that he not know. It’d only worry him unduly.”

“The kid has a right to know that …” Kai began before he was interrupted by Talbot.

“The last thing I need is an emotionally unstable teenager panicking and screwing this mission up.”

Tommy reappeared back in his seat. “All the cell towers in quadrant three are now emitting a broad spectrum jamming field which should render all communication devices in the area unusable. It should also play havoc with sat scan as well.”

Talbot nodded at Tommy before turning back to Kai, his voice slightly softer. “Besides, he still needs to process what’s already happened to him. At the end of the day, BetaForce does not put minors in combat situations unless we are sure they can handle it.” He glanced at Tommy who was busy checking his equipment before continuing. “Unlike the Unity, we don’t like training children to be soldiers.”

“ETA 30 seconds,” stated Jared from the cockpit as they banked left and descended until they were flying down an artificial canyon formed by skyscrapers. Their target, the massive Hudson Arco Complex stood directly ahead. Its five arcology towers standing tall, their upper stories hidden by the low cloud.

—-

Travis was whistling when he shoved the last of the prisoners, a little girl, into the van. The operation had gone off without a hitch. Although the father had managed to get a lucky hit in before he was stunned. For his troubles he had earned a nasty head wound and a concussion. Travis had particularly enjoyed administering the post stun beating.

The squad’s three vehicles, a prisoner transport van and two escort vehicles were parked in the sky garage on the 50th floor of the tower, a quarter of the way up. Surrounding the convoy was a detachment of police officers from the local Sector PD. None of them looked happy to be there as there was little love lost between the two forces. The chronically underfunded Sector PD are responsible for law enforcement, keeping the peace and providing a public service. On the other hand the UniCops solely concerned themselves with enforcing the authority of the Unity, frequently breaking the law themselves in the pursuit of their duty. Something which Sector PD can do nothing about and causes much resentment towards the UniCops on the part of Sector PD officers.

Travis and the other UniCops ignored the police officers as they congratulated themselves. Suddenly, a squeal of static caused UniCop and sector cop alike to clutch their earpieces. The commander of the UniCops tried in vain to get in touch with central but received nothing but static in response. “Let’s pack up and move out boys. Comms are down which probably means trouble’s coming.” The commander got into the lead escort vehicle with one of the UniCops, two others into the rear escort, while Travis rode in back of the prisoner van with the remaining two UniCops in the front.

As Sector PD began to quietly disperse the crowd of onlookers, heavy metal grates began to lower across the vehicle access ways preventing exit to the outside. The UniCop from the lead escort vehicle hopped out and jogged over to a control box beside the entrance in front of the convoy. After inspecting the panel inside he turned and called out to the commander. “It’s no good sir, the manual override has been overridden. Someone has taken control of the system and locked us out.”

The commander’s response was drowned out as the Tank rose up behind UniCop at the grate, its autocannon spraying bullets through the grate and tearing into the UniCop’s body. The bullets continued onwards, ricocheting off the armour of the lead escort vehicle causing the UniCop commander to duck. Using the gun fire as a cover, Sarah teleported Kai and Talbot behind some skycars to the side of the prisoner van and the rear escort. Talbot disengaged the safety on his assault rifle, selected burst fire mode and turned to Kai. Kai nodded, confirming he was ready and both of them simultaneously popped out from behind cover and took aim.

Drawing his hands back as if getting ready to pitch a baseball, Kai touched the seal he had drawn on his hands with a marker pen and uttered a word in a long forgotten language. The word activated the seal’s magic and a ball of electricity formed which with a grunt he hurled forwards at the UniCop in the passenger side of the prisoner transport. A bolt of lightning arced between him and his target which took the full brunt of the strike. The UniCop howled in pain as several million volts of electricity coursed through his nervous system. Talbot ducked as gun fire from the UniCops in the rear escort vehicle peppered the skycar he was crouching behind.

As the Tank’s bullets sprayed the lead escort vehicle, shattering the front windscreen, the commander sheltered in the foot well. Cursing his bad luck, he clambered over to the passenger side where the weapons console was located. He armed a missile and launched it at the enemy craft ahead of him. The missile leapt out of the launcher and streaked across the garage towards the Tank on the far side of the grate. Inside the Tank, alarms screamed their warning as Jared swore as he saw the incoming missile. “Hang on Sarah,” he yelled as he threw the Tank into a deep spiralling dive. The missile tore through the security grate leaving a gaping hole and sending jagged pieces of metal tumbling to the ground some 180 meters below.

Sarah unbuckled her harness and opened the side door. “The other’s might need me!” With that she leapt out of the door and into the air. As she fell silvery ethereal wings, glowing with a soft light, formed behind her.

As Jared watched her soar back up to the garage level, he sighed. “I hate it when she does that … but boy does she look good when she does.”

—-

By the emergency stairwells, the last of the civilians were being evacuated by the sector police officers. One of the officers turned at looked back towards the combat.

“Sarge, shouldn’t we go back and help?”

“No,” the sergeant in charge of the detachment responded as he pulled the young recruit into the stairwell, “let the Uni’s take care of themselves.”

—-

Seeing the missile tear the security gate apart, the commander sat up and leant out the side window. Looking back towards the other vehicles he surveyed the scene. The sound of static attracted his attention and he turned back round. He was shocked to see a youth in grey camo’s sitting in the passenger seat. Tommy slammed his left elbow into the commanders chest causing him to double over. He followed this off with a savage blow to the side of the head with his right fist which was wearing a knuckle duster. The commander fell forward unconscious.

Meanwhile the other two vehicles had fired up their thrusters and begun to hover. The rear escort vehicle rotated on the spot to bring its weapons in line with Kai and Talbot. The pilot of the prisoner van, after seeing his partner literally cooked alive, was panicking and moving the van around the front escort towards the opening.

Laser target designators painted Kai and Talbot as the escort vehicle brought its weapon systems online. “Tommy, pulse the garage NOW!” screamed Kai as he saw Tommy jump out of the lead escort.

Tommy closed his eyes and focused his concentration. With a howl, he flooded the control systems of the three UniCop vehicles with enough electromagnetic energy to fry their circuits. Tommy collapsed to the floor panting, covered in sweat and bleeding slighty from the nose. Generating an EMP was incredibly painful and consequently he didn’t do it very often, but when he did the effects on the enemy could be catastrophic.

—-

The anti-aircraft missile streaked after the Tank as Jared threw the vehicle through a series of reckless evasive manoeuvres. He nearly collided with a hover bike almost knocking its young rider off. Concerned for the safety of other motorists, he pulled the Tank away from the traffic lanes and up into the sky. The missile was getting closer and the digital range counter was rapidly approaching zero when he spotted the break he had been looking for. With the lock on warning tone nearly a continuous screech he headed for the cluster of communications antennas on top of one of the Hudson arcology towers. Jared jinked and threaded the Tank between the antennas clipping one or two on the way. The missile however couldn’t keep up and smashed into one of the relays and exploded in a massive ball of flame.

“Whew,” Jared smirked, “that was close.” As he brought the Tank around his eyes widened in realisation. “Wait, wasn’t that…”

—-

The engines on the UniCop vehicles spluttered and cut out as their control systems died. With a shower of sparks the prisoner transport fell to the garage floor and scraped to a halt and the rear escort fell unceremoniously to the floor with a bone jarring crunch.

Talbot exchanged fire with one of the UniCops in the escort vehicle, rounds spraying in both directions. Kai reached into one of the pockets on his tactical vest. He pulled out a white golf ball that had a series of runes drawn on it in black ink. From another pocket he pulled out a slingshot. Placing the ball delicately in the slingshot’s pocket he took a deep breath and in one fluid motion, popped up from behind the skycar, fired the projectile at the escort vehicle and ducked back down again.

As the ball left the slingshot it became enveloped in a veil of green energy leaving a trail of sparks behind it as it flew through the air, its runes clearly visible burning with a fierce green light. On impact the ball erupted into a green explosion which left retina burns in the eyes of anyone looking directly at it. One of the UniCops, the driver, howled and clutched his eyes. Dropping his weapon on the outside of the vehicle.

Talbot turned and looked at Kai who was grinning and loading another ball. “Does your cousin know you’re borrowing his slingshot?” Kai just laughed and prepared to fire again. “And are those MY golf balls your enchanting?”

Sarah landed at the hole in the grate and dismissed her wings. She ran past the escort vehicle towards the back of the prisoner transport. When she got there she found Tommy repeatedly pounding on the door. “Door’s locked from the inside,” he explained frustratedly, “and I already fried the frigging electronic lock!”

“Echo One should have some C4,” Sarah suggested using Talbot’s codename now that they were on mission, “we could blow the door lock.”

“No good,” Tommy began, “the Aerodyne AV5 Prisoner Transport Craft used by the Unity has a titanium-carbon fibre pseudo-alloy fuselage. A charge powerful enough to pierce its armour will SARAH BEHIND YOU!”

Sarah span round as Tommy called out his warning to see a UniCop standing behind her pointing a gun at point-blank range at her head. Tommy cursed, how could he have forgotten about the prisoner transports driver, as he tried to pull Sarah out of the line of fire.

Before any of them could react a hover bike flew in through the hole in the grate and round the side of the lead escort and prisoner transport. A helmet held outstretched smashed into the head of the UniCop as the bike shot past the three of them at maximum speed. There was a loud crack and the UniCop collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. The young rider of the bike jumped off the vehicle and ran over to Sarah and Tommy.

The two of them were a little stunned by what had just happened. Tommy was the first to snap to when he recognised the person running towards them. “Toby, what the hell are you doing here?” The younger boy didn’t answer, he just glared at Tommy.

Inside the back of the van, officer Travis was now getting very worried indeed. First comms had gone down leaving him unable to contact any of his fellow UniCops, then gunfire and explosions had erupted outside. The lights in he back had died at the same time as the engines and the inside of the van was only lit by his helmet light. Then someone had started pounding on the doors. Taking advantage of the distraction the father, still with his hands bound behind his back, shoulder barged Travis. The man merely bounced off Travis’s armour. Travis punched the man in the chest, drew his sidearm and shot the man in the leg. He went down, hissing in pain through gritted teeth.

Travis grabbed the little girl by her hair and lifted her off the floor. She screamed as she dangled and her mother moved to get up. “One more move and I cut the brats head off!” He threatened, putting a knife to her throat. A terrific wrenching sound made him turn as the armoured doors of the van were torn of their hinges and thrown across the garage smashing into a pillar. Before Travis could act a combat knife, standard UniCop issue, hurled into his right shoulder burying itself up to its hilt. He dropped the little girl, who scrambled back to her parents, and his own knife as he clutched at the wound. His attacker, whom he recognised as the young mutant that had escaped him earlier that day, climbed into the back of the van. Blood was dripping from cuts on Toby’s palms where he had torn at the metal and his entire body shook with rage

“GET AWAY FROM MY LITTLE SISTER!”

BetaForce – EchoCell 03

16:30 June 19th, 2049
Westgate Arcology, Sector 23

The door to the 65th floor apartment flew open as a pint sized, dark haired ball of energy shot in the direction of the living room. Shoes and coat dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. A few seconds later, an older boy entered carrying bags of groceries blocking his view and he stumbled forward dropping the bags. A quick wave of his hand and the bags halted in mid fall. “Lee, how many times have I told you about those damn shoes!” he yelled half-heartedly. “Hey Kai, what’s for dinner?” was the response he got.

Kai had a slight but not scrawny build, with dark skin. Darker than his cousin’s. He was clean shaven but with scruffy murky blond hair. His unkempt, almost uncontrollable hair, was kept back by a red bandanna style headband. The long baggy blue jeans trailed on the floor and he wore a white short sleeved t-shirt underneath a black basketball vest. Tattooed on his forearms was the kanji symbol for courage and as he shrugged his backpack to the floor, the metal karabiners attached to it clinked noisily.

Picking up the groceries from mid air, he back kicked the door close. “I swear that boy is going to kill me one of these days,” he muttered as he dodged the skateboard and bike lying on the floor in the middle of the entryway. “And you better get this lot cleaned up before your dad gets home.”

As he entered the apartment proper, a feminine electronic voice made itself known. “Welcome back Kai. You have five new messages one of which is from Kiba. You also asked me to remind you to complete the college application form by Monday the 21st of this month.”

“Play uncle’s message.”

“Message received today at fourteen oh nine. Message begins.”

“Kai, I’ve got to work late again tonight. There’s a couple of frozen pizza’s in the freezer for you and Lee. Make sure Lee does his homework and gets to bed by nine if I’m not back before then. See you tonight.”

“Message ends. Do you wish to review the other four messages?”

“No, I’ll listen to them later.”

The lights came in in the kitchen as he entered, the motion sensor registering his presence. He dropped the groceries on the metal counter and reached for the freezer door. An electronic post-it note on the freezer’s smart display caught his attention. “Oven’s bust. Money on the counter for take out.” Uncle Kiba must have forgot about that when he left the message earlier. Ignoring it, he pulled a large pepperoni out out of the freezer. “Oi, sprocket, pepperoni ok with you?” he yelled in the direction of his cousin in the living room. Over the din of the latest episode of Jake Danger: Mutant Hunter he got a vague affirmative response.

After unwrapping the pizza, he placed it on a baking tray and pulled out a silver permanent marker. As he etched a series of glyphs on the black surface of the tray he called out to Lee. “Anything happen in school today?”

“Nah, not much ‘cept a bunch a Uni’s running around.”

The glyphs faded from sight as he reached for the emergency flash light in the cupboard above the counter. “UniCops? What did they want?”

“Miss Anderson said that it was just a routine visit checking up on security but she was lying.”

“How do you know she was lying?” As he listened to his cousin’s answer, he checked the battery in the flash light. Satisfied that there was enough juice, he bit the end of his finger and traced a complex diagram on the lens in his own blood.

“She always scratches her nose and fiddles with her glasses every time she tells us something she knows isn’t true. Like the time she taught us about the bioterror attack on Africa and the quarantine afterwards. ’sides Billy said they were after some 9th grader who jumped the school fence and ran off.”

Kai held the torch over the frozen pizza and turned it on. As the light passed through the blood diagram, it was converted into heat and magnified several times. The now invisible silver glyphs on the baking tray acted as a temporal compression circle increasing the speed of time on the tray and its contents. The effect was to turn the flash light and the baking tray into a jury-rigged microwave. After a couple of minutes, he had to swap the hand holding heavy flash light. He may be able to violate the fundamental laws of the universe but he couldn’t do anything about stopping his arm from getting tired.

As the pizza quickly cooked, he thought on what his cousin had told him. That 9th grader was probably the one his team had tried to get to ahead of the cops. From what Lee had said, it sounded like they had cut it pretty close. He asked the apartment’s computer to show him the text of the other four messages on the freezer’s smart display. As he expected, the last one was a coded message from Virus, Tommy’s online handle. “Package received intact, little wear and tear but nothing serious.” Relieved he went back to quizzing Lee on the rest of his day.

Five minutes later the pizza was cooked, and after letting stand for a minute to cool he took it into the living room with a couple of plates. Jake Danger was leading a squad of valiant Unity Soldiers against a mutant stronghold, gunning down the evil terrorists with his twin Pacifier assault rifles. “How can you watch this shit?” Kai mumbled between mouthfuls of pizza.

—-

Toby had been left alone with Talbot in his office. “So, history lesson 101,” Talbot began as he walked over to the fridge in the corner, “a long time ago in a galaxy far away there was a super team called Alpha Force.” He opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer and tossed one at Toby who was now sitting down at the table.

“You do realise I’m only 14 right?” He asked the older man as he held the beer.

“Oh please, you’re a 14 year old teenage boy living in the big city. I’m sure you know of at least four stores that don’t ask for ID when buying a six pack of Bud. Besides, after what you’ve been through today you deserve something a little stronger than fizzy pop.” Talbot took a swig from his bottle as he sat down.

“Now where was I … ah, Alpha Force. Before the Unification War, Unifer’s victory and the rise of the Unity, Alpha Force were the worlds greatest team of superheroes. Along with the EU’s EuroForce, the UN’s Overwatch, and independent teams like Legion and the Army of Light, they kept the world safe from supervillains and global disasters. They were good at their jobs too.” Talbot paused for a second, with a distant expression as if remembering something. “A little too good perhaps. You see whenever some major league bad guy showed up, the hero teams would take them down. When some tin-pot dictatorship started ethnic cleansing or invaded a neighbouring country, by the time the international community had decided on the wording of their statement of condemnation, the heroes had already gone and sorted it out. Even on a local level, the indie heroes helped keep crime levels down.” As Talbot got up and began pacing, Toby began to suspect that this was a common rant of his.

“When Unifer took out Alpha Force with a single shot and shut down the world’s infrastructure, his minions were taking out the other teams as well. With our protectors gone, everything started to fall apart and we realised how dependent we were on them. You see, we’d gotten complacent and started relying on them. By the time Unifer made his play in Washington the world didn’t really know how to deal with a crisis on that scale any more. Some tried to fight, to resist Unifer’s new regime. But for most, survival was the priority. After the pulse, supplies in the cites ran out pretty quickly. There was looting and rioting everywhere, what was left of the government folded within a couple weeks. Then came the collapse of the biosphere in the central states. The Unity blamed it on biological and chemical attacks by terrorists and massive climatic upheavals. With the grain belt gone, people began to starve. So called relief efforts were confined to the coastal cities where the Unity had total control and as the centre of the continent became uninhabitable that’s where everyone fled. A similar thing happened to Africa. They had a quite successful resistance going until Unifer just got tired and ordered the entire continent dusted with bioweapons wiping out the entire population. Sure it was blamed on a terrorist’s bioattack gone horribly wrong but nobody back then bought it. The message was clear, fuck with the Unity and they gang bang back.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Toby asked a little confuse as to where Talbot was going. Talbot sat back down and looked at Toby.

“To make you understand what it is that we face. After Africa everybody was terrified at what the Unity would do if people tried to rebel. Now, after 30 years of propaganda filled with subliminal programming and chemicals like G26 Paxilon-Hydrochlorate in the food and water, people don’t want to rebel.”

“Can you blame them? Pollution levels in the ECM are less than 10% of New York’s before Unification. The ECM has a population of 200 million compared to New York’s 10 which makes that reduction all the more impressive. Thanks to synthetic food stuffs and urban AgroTowers, famine has all but been abolished and climate modification technology has repaired most of the damage done by the polynational era. The planet’s not been in better shape in the last hundred years!”

—-

“Unit Delta Six, sat scan confirms that the targets are still located in their apartment.”

Officer Travis rubbed his nose as his commander talked with central. His nose had only recently been healed by the med techs after the run in with a mutant earlier in the day. A run in that had cost the life of his elder partner. He was itching for some “occupational therapy” as his instructor had once put it.

“Be careful men,” the squad commander advised, “as far as we know our targets do not possess any metahuman abilities but take no chances.” With a flick of his finger, the commander ordered the six man squad of UniCops to move out and they began to approach the target’s apartment. As they positioned themselves around the door, he signalled one of his men stationed at the building security centre to override the locking mechanism and grant them access. He held his hand up, fingers outstretched and began a silent countdown.

—-

“Are you seriously going to try and defend a government that tried to have you gunned down on the street less than three hours ago? … Thought not. The fact is that all that ‘progress’ was done with a gun to our heads.” Talbot sighed. “But in a way you’re right. Over half the population believe the lie. Most of the rest know they’re being lied to and either don’t believe anything can be done about it or think returning to the chaos of the Unification War is not an option. Only a tiny minority can see that there is something terribly wrong with the world and have the courage to do anything about it. Someone once said, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, envinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and provide new guards for their future security.”

“And in English?”

“When there’s something wrong, those with the ability to do something about it have the responsibility to act.”

Toby looked down at the table and took a deep gulp from the beer bottle in front of him. “Let’s cut the crap, the only reason you’re telling me any of this is you want me to sign up with your little rebellion.” He stood up, leaning forward with both hands planted firmly on the table glaring at Talbot. “Thanks for saving my ass and everything, but what help could I be? I’m still in school for chrissakes! ”

Talbot looked at him for a second, the silence hanging between them. Then, in one swift motion, he reached behind him and pulled out a handgun aiming at Toby’s forehead. The end of the muzzle just a few centimetres from his face. “Despite the fact that you’re still just a kid you are the strongest person on this base, not to mention the fastest and most agile. If I pulled this trigger you’d be back up and in my face within 15 seconds max.” Putting the gun on the table he continued. “Plus you didn’t even flinch when a near stranger pointed a gun straight at your face. You’ve got the guts and the ability and I know you’re not stupid.”

Toby sat back down, let out the breath he’d been subconsciously holding and took an even bigger gulp from the bottle. “Interesting recruitment technique you get there,” he paused while he tried to think, “say I wanted in. What would …”

He was interrupted when a wall mounted phone started to ring. “Hold that thought,” Talbot said holding up a finger as he walked over and picked up the handset. “This is Talbot, go ahead.” Toby couldn’t hear who was on the other end but from Talbot’s expression it wasn’t good news. Talbot looked at Toby, his face was grim. After a couple of minutes he hung up and pulled out a hand held communicator. “Just got a message from Spectre, we need to intercept a UniCop snatch squad ASAP. Everyone to the hanger bay on the double. Tommy, do your thing and get Kai down here.” He turned to Toby as started to leave. “Looks like we’ll have to continue this conversation later.”

As he got to the door, Toby stood up and caught up with him. “Look, if you need a hand I could…”

Before he could finish, Talbot turned around and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe next time Toby. This time I really need you to stay here until we get back.” With that he turned and began running down the corridor towards the hanger.

Toby watched him leave, a little angry. “So much for having the ability.”

—-

Mercifully, Kai’s mobile rang giving him a convenient excuse to slip out and not endure any more of Jake Danger: Mutant Hunter. He went to his bedroom in order to not disturb his cousin and also to ensure that the conversation was not overheard.

“S’up Tommy … Ok, see you as soon as I can.” As he ended the call he heard the front door open.

—-

On zero, Travis opened the door and quietly entered the apartment. He was taking point partly because of the screw up that happened when he and his partner and been sent to apprehend an unregistered mutant at the local school earlier that day. Travis had also volunteered for this operation and had asked to to take point. He had a score to settle.

Advancing into the apartment, he could hear the sounds of the TV in the living room. Raising his stunner, he took aim at the small figure silhouetted by the screen.

–

Kai stepped out into the hallway just as his uncle Kiba walked in the door. His cousin ran out of the living room and into his fathers waiting arms. Kai waited a second as his uncle said hello to his son before interrupting. After saying hello himself, he got down to business.

“Stacy just called,” Lee wrinkled his nose and made puking sounds as he heard what he assumed was the name of Kai’s girlfriend, “her computer’s down again and she needs my help.” His uncle on the other hand recognised the code phrase and simply nodded.

“Don’t be out too late, I need some help with the shop’s inventory tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” Kai responded before closing the front door behind him. He hurried down the corridor towards the emergency stair. The door on this level had thankfully had its alarm disabled by an enterprising young mutant with technopathic powers, as had the security cameras on either side. Making sure that nobody was watching he quickly opened the door and slipped through.

The lights were flickering in the stairwell, more off than on, and the air smelt stale. Using the flash light on his mobile he located a patch of graffiti on the wall. A stylised leopard with tiny Japanese characters in place of spots. Kai placed the fingers of both hands very carefully on a set of specific spots and uttered the word “Kendra”. A split second later he was sucked into the wall.

—-

Jared sat behind the controls of The Tank, the teams primary vehicle. It resembled the bastard love child of an APC and and stubby winged aircraft with two swivel mounted thrusters mounted on each side of its lifting body fuselage. Small folding wings, insufficient to provide any lift, acted as stabilizers as did a pair of vertical fins at the rear. The ten meter long body was covered in dark grey armour plates, hexagon in shape. The plates themselves were in turn coated in chameleon paint providing reduced visibility and limited stealth capabilities. Two pods on the roof contained micromissiles and a large autocannon mounted beneath the cockpit completed its armaments. As the craft completed its boot up sequence, he quickly pulled on a set of charcoal grey camouflaged fatigues. Behind him Sarah was pulling a set of her own from a storage locker.

A console flickered and Tommy appeared in his seat in a burst of static, already in uniform. Seconds later Talbot bounded up the rear loading ramp, hitting the close button as he passed it. “Kai’s on his way, he’ll be here as soon as he can,” he reported as Talbot passed him.

“Good,” Talbot responded as he sat down and fastened his safety harness, “I need you to go the Hudson Arcoplex in quadrant 3 and see if you can shut down comms in that area.”

“You got it boss.” Without bothering to unbuckle, he shifted to digital form and and vanished.

“Jared, let’s get this hunk of metal on the road so to speak, as soon as we’re airborne I’ll fill you too in on our target’s.”

—-

All by himself, Toby began to pace up and down the briefing room. Talbot had made this big speech about responsibility and making a stand, had tried to persuade him to join up. However, the moment he offered his help he was back to being treated like a kid. Balling his fists, he finished off the beer and started down the corridor that Talbot had ran down. He got to the hanger bay just in time to see the dust left behind as a large vehicle accelerated up the exit ramp.

Looking around he saw that the hanger bay contained several vehicles. A couple of generic commercial vehicles, two ground cars, a long range cargo plane and even a familiar looking two trailer cargo drone complete with blood stains on the front grill. Nestled between these, Toby saw exactly what he was looking for, a hover cycle complete. The keys were even in the ignition. Without a moments hesitation he leapt aboard, gunned the engine, and roared off.

BetaForce – EchoCell 02

16:22 June 19th, 2049
200m below Sector 23

Toby woke with a pounding headache and a ringing in his ears. Cracking open an eye and groaning slightly, he looked around. He was lying in a bed surrounded by beeping equipment, and judging by the vague antiseptic smell, it was in some sort of hospital room. Along with from the bed he was lying in and the medical equipment, the room contained two other unoccupied beds and several computer displays which were currently turned off. A clock mounted on the wall opposite the bed indicated that he had been unconscious for over three hours. As he propped himself up on his elbows, he tried to recall what he was doing in hospital. Had he been in some sort of accident? Looking at himself, he didn’t seem to be injured, although he did notice that under the blanket he was stark naked.

As he tried to process what was going on, he began to remember the last few hours in flashes. Fragments of memory barely connected to one another. The UniCops at school. Vaulting over a four-meter barbed wire fence. Being chased through the streets. Being shot in the leg. Surviving a broken neck and crushed skull. The cop with the knife. Being stunned and paralysed. A cargo drone swerving off the road. The wet crunch as it hit the cop. The red smear being left behind then a flash of blinding white light.

Toby was now sitting bolt upright in near panic, his mind racing from one worst case scenario to the next. One of the two doors into the room opened and a young woman, no older than twenty backed into the room carrying something. She was wearing black jeans, black trainers and a loose-fitting white shirt. Her long blond hair was tied back into a ponytail. As she turned, Toby could see that she was wearing a silver chain around her neck and was carrying a digital clipboard with two cans of cola balanced on it in one hand and two shrink-wrapped sandwiches in the other. Whoever she was, she certainly didn’t fit the picture of the stereotypical UniCop.

Seeing that he was awake, the woman smiled and tossed one of the sandwiches over to him. “Thought you might be hungry. Didn’t know what you might like but cheese seemed the safest choice.” She followed up the sandwich with the cola can. “And you can never have too much liquid sugar in your system.”

“Er,” Toby began, “no offence, but who the hell are you, where the hell am I, and what the fuck happened to my clothes!”

She laughed as she pulled up a chair and began to munch on her sandwich. “Ok, in that order, my names Sarah and I’m the one who brought you here. You’re in a safe place where the Unity can’t find you and you’re clothes are in a plastic bag under the bed. You were soaking wet after that dumpster dive of yours. They were filthy and you’d have probably caught pneumonia or worse if we’d left them on you so I had them dried out.”

Toby sat back, only partially satisfied by Sarah’s answer. “Safe? One minute I’m being chased by Uni’s who want to kill for some reason, there’s a flash of light and then there’s a guy standing over me with a tranq gun. Before I can do anything he shoots me and then I wake up naked in a hospital bad. Lady, you got a funny idea of safe.”

“Sorry about that,” Sarah said apologetically, “we didn’t know the full extent of your abilities and Talbot didn’t want you panicking; you could’ve done serious damage to the base and yourself.”

“Huh?” Toby said, his forehead furrowed in confusion, “what do you mean abilities? And what am I doing here?”

Sarah looked at him carefully for a few seconds, then her eyes widened in realisation. “He doesn’t know,” she thought to himself, “he has no idea.”

The way she was looking at him unnerved Toby. “What?”

“When you arrived at school this morning, your attendance was registered by scanning your ID implant as you entered the classroom.”

“So?”

She went to explain how the implants that every citizen of the Unity received shortly after their birth had a hidden function. They had the ability to test the blood of the host and look for certain genetic markers. They weren’t capable of a full DNA scan; all they were capable of was detecting the presence of active mutant genes. One in four people are born in dormant mutant genes, another fact that few people were aware of, and only in tiny majority were they ever activated. She paused and studied Toby’s confused expression. At first Sarah thought he didn’t get what she was trying to tell him, but she slowly began to realise that wasn’t it. Toby knew, or at least he suspected, the boy just didn’t want to admit it, especially to himself.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” she said, deciding to come straight to the point, “at eight fifteen this morning, as you entered your classroom, your implant was instructed to perform a routine genetic scan. Later that morning, the results were sent back to the Unity reporting that active mutant genes had been detected and a two man UniCop snatch squad was sent to arrest you.”

“I’m a … a mutant?” Toby asked, whispering and looking down at his hands, “but I can’t be.”

“Trust me; removing the implant from someone who regenerates as fast as you is not easy. As soon as I made an incision, you healed it back up.” Toby’s eyes widened as what she was telling him started to sink in. “It was a real hack job, I had to get someone to hold the hole open with their hands while I cut the implant out from under your heart.”

“You cut me open!” he shouted, staring at her in indignant shock.

“Of course,” Sarah said shrugging. “We put a fake implant in to replace the one we took out. You can’t reprogram the ones the Unity put in, but the one that’s in there now can be reprogrammed with a new ID with the right tools.”

Toby looked down again, his hand running across his bare chest where there no sign of a surgical scar. Deep down, as much as he might want to deny it, he knew that it was true. The fast healing cuts, leaping on to that cargo drone, recovering from a broken neck and a crushed skull, all of it made sense if he was a mutant; no normal human being could have done those things. “I feel sick,” he said quietly, looking pale.

Sarah consulted the display next to the bed and tapped a few things on the clipboard. “That’s a normal side-effect of the drugs. It should pass in an hour or two. We didn’t want you to wake up mid-op. THAT would have been messy.” She laughed at the last bit. Toby just grimaced meekly.

He sat in silence looking down, not even touching the unopened sandwich. Sarah got up and threw her empty wrapper in the trash before turning back to the boy. “Look kid, get dressed. Talbot, that big mean man who tranqed you, wants to talk to you and he can probably explain things better than I can. I’ll be waiting outside when you’re done.” She left him alone in the room, closing the door behind her.

His head was swimming with a thousand unasked and unanswered questions. Reaching under the bed, he pulled out the plastic bag containing his clothes. The dirty marks from the stagnant water were gone but there was still a slight discolouration around the bullet holes in his shorts, dried remnants of blood. At least they were dry. Still feeling a little numb, he pulled on the knee-length grey shorts and his red hooded top.

As he stood up, a sudden wave of nausea flooded over him. Looking around frantically, he saw the other door in the room was marked toilet. Clutching his mouth, he leapt over the bed and sprinted across the room. He threw the door open and just made it to the sink in time before he could no longer hold the contents of his stomach down, vomiting up his lunch. After a few heaves his stomach was empty and he gulped down some water from the sink tap to get rid of the acrid taste. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he looked in the mirror. His face was pale and his eyes puffy and red.

It was at that point that everything that he had been suppressing and avoided thinking about since all this had started finally came crashing down on to him. Toby Smith was a mutant and an enemy of the state; a freak and a traitor. The Unity would be looking for him now, and if they found him, they would probably kill him. He could never go home, that would be the first place they would look for. As far as his family was concerned, he might as well be dead. Knowing the Unity, they had probably already told his family that he’d been executed and his body incinerated in the city’s waste incinerator. His life, as he had known it, was over. His legs buckled at the knees and the tears that he could no longer contain finally burst free; he lay on the floor sobbing.

Sarah stood outside the door listening to the boy crying. “Poor kid,” she thought, “it’s not every day that you learn the authorities want you dead.” Thinking back, she remembered when the Unity had come for her five years ago. She hadn’t been much older than him and she’d cried for days, prepared to give anything to see her friends or her parents again.

After a few minutes, he seemed to calm down and he opened the door, joining her in the corridor. He’d cleaned himself up but he still seemed a little delicate. Sarah knew better than to push him about what had happened after she’d left him alone.

Sarah started walking down the corridor, Toby following silently behind. He glanced curiously at the walls as they walked. Unlike the clean and white walls of the infirmary, the walls out here were dirty and grey. The cracked concrete looked old and in places, faded and illegible markings were still visible on the wall. “Just where are we?”

“In a bunker 200 meters below ground,” said Sarah. “Apparently, this place was some sort of bomb shelter during the Cold War or something.”

“What’s the Cold War?”

“It was this big war between two countries. It happened before the Unification War but there was no actual fighting.”

“Hmph, don’t sound like much of a war,” Toby mumbled.

They passed several doors marked unsafe “Unsafe: Do Not Enter”. One corridor branching off from the one they were walking down was barred with wire mesh, beyond which Toby could see the rubble of a collapsed ceiling. The general state of repair didn’t exactly fill Toby with confidence about the bunkers structural stability.

Eventually, after a climbing flight of stairs, they emerged into a large and well lit room. The room was dominated by a large table in its centre surrounded by several chairs. At one end, a large video screen was mounted on the wall. It was currently showing what Toby assumed to be a dozen feeds from security cameras. Disks and data chips were scattered over the table. They were also not alone, two other people in the room waiting for them.

Sitting at the table was a boy not much older than Toby wearing ratty blue jeans, a white long sleeved t-shirt and an orange sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves. A deep scar crossed the brow of his nose, spanning the full width of his face just under his eyes. He was glaring at Toby for some reason, hostility in his eyes.

From across the room, a young Hispanic man waved and walked over. He looked to be about twenty and his long dark-red hair was held out of his face by a headband. Unlike Sarah and the boy at the table, he was dressed in a more militant style; wearing combat pants with an urban camouflage pattern, black trainers, a grey shirt and a tan coloured military style utility vest over the top. Tribal style sleeve tattoos covered his arms and he had a single gold earring in his left ear.

Sarah smiled and greeted him with a brief hug before turning back to Toby and introducing him. “Toby, this is Jared. He’s what you might call our wheelman.” Jared smiled and grasped Toby’s hand. “He’s also our resident mechanical genius. Pretty much keeps everything here running.”

“If it’s got wings, I can fly it. If it has wheels, I can drive. If it ‘aint got neither I can still make it break the speed limit and evade the cops.” Jared boasted with a slight grin. “I saw how you handled that UniCop in the alleyway. Pretty cool. You ever play baseball? You’ve got a great pitching arm kid, nailed that cop right in the face with that rock.”

“Not really, I’m more into combat hockey,” Toby replied, still a little bewildered.

“Great, another one. Does no one on the East Coast play baseball anymore?”

While Jared and Toby talked, the boy at the table pushed his chair back and moved over to the group. As he approached, Sarah rolled her eyes. “And this charming young man is…”

“So this is the little runt whose arse we saved?” the boy interrupted looking Toby right in the eye, an obvious challenge. To Toby’s surprise, he had a British accent.

“As I was saying, this is Tommy and…” Sarah attempted to continue.

“What’s your problem huh?” Toby countered, squaring up to Tommy. The two boys now stood only a few inches apart.

“I can’t believe we risked our lives for this … this runt.” Tommy spat dismissively. “I mean he’s nothing more than some brainwashed arco-brat; force fed that subliminal shit they shovel out in the schools.”

“Hey, maybe you should leave him…”Jared began, although there was little chance he would finish the sentence before one of the two boys cut him off.

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.” Toby turned and started to walk away.

Tommy laughed before continuing in a fake American accent. “Yeah, why don’t go home and cry to mommy?”

Toby stopped in his tracks; his shoulders hunched and his fists balled. He turned and faced the Tommy, his face flushed red. “What did you say?” He said slowly and deliberately.

“You heard me, why don’t you just curl up on the floor again and cry.” He punctuated his statement with a sharp shove to Toby’s shoulder.

Jared looked at Sarah and mouthed “here we go” before looking over at the man that had quietly entered the room at the start of the argument. The man appeared to be in his late twenties with short brown hair and brown stubble on his chin. He wore dark grey cargo pants, black combat boots and an open dark grey khaki jacket. On the right shoulder was a patch of the old US flag. Underneath the jacket was a simple white t-shirt. Leaning against the wall, he was watching the confrontation with bemused interest.

“Touch me again,” Toby said calmly but with a hint of menace “and you’ll be sorry.”

Tommy tried to shove him in the shoulder again but Toby batted the hand away. “Ooh, tough guy.”

“Back off scar face.” The instant Toby uttered those words he regretted them. Tommy’s face flashed red with anger and he lashed, aiming a punch to at Toby’s face. The younger boy instantly caught Tommy’s fist in a blur of motion. With his free hand he shoved Tommy in the chest, forcing him back a meter. Without hesitation, Tommy leapt forward kicking out at Toby’s left side. Toby span to the side, avoiding the blow, using the momentum to respond with a spin kick of his own. Tommy, the more experienced fighter, stopped the spin dead by grabbing on to Toby’s foot with both hands. He lost his grip when Toby jumped back, landing in a crouch. Tommy adopted a martial arts stance as Toby charged forward.

As the two boys fought Sarah and Jared moved over to the man. “So Talbot,” Sarah began, “can those two actually hurt each other?”

Talbot shrugged, “Short answer no. Long answer yes but not permanently.”

“Where’s Kai?” asked Jared.

“He’s out getting supplies. It’s handy being the only one not wanted by the government for being a terrorist.”

Toby and Tommy exchanged a flurry of punches and kicks; both seemed evenly matched. Tommy seemed to rely on pure hitting power whereas Toby was the more agile of the two. After a few minutes, both boys were sporting rapidly fading bruises but surprisingly few blows had connected.

Talbot stepped away from the wall, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. “Ok you two, that’s enough. Break it up.” Instantly, Tommy somersaulted back from the fight, obviously showing off. His entire demeanour changed, all trace of hostility vanished and He held his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Easy there mate, just testing ya,” he managed between breaths. Unlike Toby, Tommy was still trying to catch his breath. “Haven’t had a work out like that in a long while.” Toby, a little confused, looked at the other boy who was now grinning. “Sorry about that whole cry baby thing, no hard feelings right?” He took a step forward holding his hand out.

Toby, still a little wary, stepped forward and took the hand. “If you can forget about scar face thing then I guess we can call it even.”

“Sure. Looks like I’ve finally found someone in this group worth sparring with. Now, if I’m not mistaken,” he continued while flicking a look at Talbot, “I’m about to be told to go and clean the hydroponic waste vats.” In response, Talbot just raised an eyebrow in an unspoken order. Without complaint, he made his way to the door. As he backed out, he turned to Toby and raised his hand in mock salute.

“Oh yeah, welcome to BetaForce.”

BetaForce – EchoCell 01

12:45 June 19th, 2049
North American Zone, East Coast Metroplex, Sector 23 (Old NYC)

A bullet ricocheted off the road sign just centimetres from the boy’s head. Biting down a curse he jumped over the footbridge’s safety barrier and onto the hard shoulder of the road below. “Bullets,” he thought, “they’re shooting ACTUAL bullets at me!” Darting between the slow moving traffic, he glanced behind him as the armoured thugs of the Unity’s enforcement division reached the side of the road. The first shot had probably been a warning shot, probably. The next one though would definitely be aimed at his head, as would the next 20 or 30 in the burst; UniCops were not known for subtlety or conserving ammunition.

The day had started pretty normal all things considered. Waking up at seven, washed and changed by half seven, at school by eight fifteen ready to begin another day of indoctrination and training. He had never stood out at school, keeping his head down and avoiding trouble; the standard survival tactic for anyone growing up under the Unity’s watchful gaze. During lunch break, a pair of UniCops had turned up at his school. Now Toby Smith, or Tobs to his friends, had never done anything to even warrant the attention of Sector PD, let alone Unity’s very own “secret police.” When one of his friends ran up to him on the playground and told him that the UniCops were looking for him, he knew that he was in serious trouble. Everyone knew that if the UniCops came looking you got lost; anyone they took in “for questioning” was usually never seen again. That’s Toby had vaulted over the school fence and ran. That’s when they had begun chasing him. Overall, the day was turning out pretty lousy.

Down here, at street level, the congested traffic and crowded buildings might give him an advantage. Ground vehicles would be hard pressed to make it through the traffic and flyers would be unable to manoeuvre between the towering skyscrapers and arcologies. After the Unification War, the Unity had rebuilt the devastated Manhattan Island in order to house the refugees from the continent’s interior, fleeing the ecological devastation being inflicted on the former US heartlands. It had meant to be a showcase for the new regime but like most things the Unity promised, the reality was different from the newscasts. Forty years after the original was destroyed, Manhattan Island was once again a towering collection of buildings cramped together on a small and overcrowded island.

All that stood between Toby and relative safety was the drone lane. A section of road reserved for the sole use of automated cargo drones. Huge articulated lorries, often three or four trailers long, and travelling at up to 100 kph. Controlled entirely by computers and using satellite navigation, they stopped for nothing, even if a pedestrian was in their path. Only the largest corporations could afford to operate the behemoths, and even then, licenses were only granted to those corps that were on good terms with the Unity. Taking a deep breath, Toby launched himself in to a gap between a pair of Allied Technologies trucks. Legs pumping furiously, he was halfway across when he realised he was not going to make it.

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl and in crystal clarity he could make out every detail of the truck’s grill rushing towards him at bone crunching speed. Instead of leaping out of the way in a futile attempt to get clear, he boy jumped up. His left foot planted itself firmly on the front of the bonnet, thrusting downwards and propelling him up and over the front cab, onto the trailer behind and landing on all fours. Toby looked at his hands in amazement as he crouched on the roof, scarcely believing what he had just done. He’d always been athletic at school but jumping over the cab of a truck moving nearly a hundred kilometres per hour to land safely on the trailer behind was practically impossible. He was still trying to process the thought when a spray of bullets caught him directly in the leg. Losing his footing, he slipped off the side of the fast moving truck and sailed through the air. His head connected with the concrete wall of a building with a snap of breaking bone and his limp body rebounded into a side alley. It landed in a dumpster, half filled with stagnant water and trash, quickly sinking below the murky surface as the dumpster’s lid slammed down, nudged with the force of the body’s fall in to the dumpster.

“Did you see that shot?” One of the UniCops asked as they forced their way across the road stopping traffic, “sent that punk flying.”

“Our orders were to take the kid in alive, dipshit. Not in a body bag,” his older partner retorted, obviously not impressed by the rookie’s over-enthusiasm.

“The brat resisted arrest; you know what these muties are like.”

His partner did not respond, he had already reached the pavement near where they had seen the body hit the wall. There was no sign of the kid, not even a blood splatter or trail to follow. He pressed a stud on the collar of his helmet, activated the built-in communicator. “Central, unit 219 reporting; we’ve lost track of the target.”

“Unit 219, sat scan reports that his ID implant is still transmitting in your vicinity.” The operator on the other end said after a few seconds. “We put it within 50 meters of your current location. Can’t narrow it down any further, we’ve got some interference from the buildings.”

“Received Central,” he responded with a sigh. “You check that way, I’ll go this way. Stay in radio contact and for chrissakes, use your damn blaster. We need him alive.” As his partner stalked off, he muttered “damn rookie” under his breath.

Back in the alleyway, a head bobbed up out of the water gasping for breath. Toby lifted the lit and pulled himself out of the dumpster, sitting slumped against it on the floor. Gingerly, he felt his forehead, where only moments before the bones of his skull had been crushed inwards, and let out a shudder. “Ok, that was new.” Things like that had been happening recently. Cuts healing faster than they should, not being burned when touching a hot pan. But nothing like getting his neck broken and his skull crushed in yet still being able to walk away from it just a few minutes later.

“Hey you!” Zap! A blue bolt of energy struck the ground at his feet. “Freeze!” One of the cops, the rookie, stood at the entrance to the alley with his hand blaster drawn. Toby was beginning to suspect that he could take a bullet but he wasn’t so sure about the stunning energy of a blaster and he had no intention of finding out. As the cop began to advance, Toby reached for the nearest object, a lump of stone, and hurled it at the cop’s helmet. The stone shot through the air and smashed into the visor which shattered with the impact. Screaming in pain, and clutching his now broken nose, the cop looked at the boy with murderous intent in his eyes.

“You little shit, I’m gonna enjoy making you pay for that!” He howled as he drew a combat knife and charged at the boy. The two grappled in the mud, the knife at the boy’s throat. Momentarily stunned by the ferocity of the attack, Toby locked eyes with the cop as he tried to hold him back.

The look in someone’s eyes that wants nothing more than you to be dead is a cold thing, something that can chill you to the bone the first time you see it. This was it; this was where he was going to die. Alone, sopping wet in a filthy alley; murdered by a psychotic cop at age fourteen. It was at that point that Toby snapped. “Fuck that,” he thought, “I am not going to let it end like this.” With a howl of rage, he hurled cop against the wall as if he was nothing more than a rag doll. The cop struck the wall hard and fell to the floor, dazed, dropping the knife.

As the cop groaned, Toby stood up and grabbed the knife, holding it awkwardly. Logically, he knew that his only chance to escape was to make sure that the cop couldn’t follow him. However, for a fourteen-year-old boy, even one in his situation, that was an option that was difficult for him to choose. Pausing for only a few seconds, he tucked the combat knife into the back of his pants under his sweatshirt and ran. The guns he left behind because he knew they could be tracked and they most likely could only be fired by their authorised owner anyway.

A figure in combat fatigues watched the fleeing boy through a pair of old binoculars from a nearby fire escape. “Echo Four to Echo Two, target is heading your way.” He said into a headset microphone. “He’s going to run into some trouble before then. Is your distraction ready?”

Toby ran out into the next street and raced down the pavement trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the cop. As he turned the corner, he glanced behind him to make sure the cop wasn’t following him and ran headlong into the cop’s partner. The boy was knocked to the floor by a vicious punch to the head. “That’s enough running for you kid,” the cop muttered as he shot Toby with the blaster. Toby screamed as the electrical energy coursed through his system, paralysing his muscles.

“Toby Smith, citizen ID 7115202 dash beta, you are charged with violation of the genetic security act,” the cop began as he drew out a set of manacles. “You will be taken into custody where your mutations will be analysed. Once your abilities have been catalogued, you will be terminated.” He crouched down to look the boy in the eye, his tone softening slightly. “I’m sorry; your file says you’re a good kid. Maybe if you hadn’t ran you could have been recruited, but the law says runners get executed. Them’s the breaks unfortunately.”

The cop was reaching down to cuff Toby’s hands behind his back when the blast of a horn caused him to turn around just in time to see a cargo drone swerve from its assigned lane, through the safety barrier and onto the pavement. Toby, still paralysed, was unable to move as the hulk bore down upon them and he could only watch as the cop leapt to safety, leaving him in the path of the runaway behemoth. At the last moment however, the truck swerved to the side following the cop. With a sickening crunch, it ran headlong into him, leaving behind a bloody smear on the pavement. With another blast of its horn, the drone crashed back through the barrier and rejoined the flow of traffic as if nothing had happened.

He was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when he was enveloped by a white glow. A fraction of a second later he vanished leaving behind no trace that he was ever there.

A figure watching the scene from a nearby footbridge spoke into a throat mike. “Echo One, this is Echo Two, package is delivered did you get him?”

Several kilometres away and over two hundred meters underground, a man stood over an unconscious Toby, a tranquillizer gun in his hand. “Package received Echo Two. Good work people, everyone get back to base. Oh, an Echo Three, we need to have a word about that distraction of yours.”

Hero’s Journey Chapter Six – Trapped

Mid-morning, Madraday the 10th of Tanot, 674 AG (After Godswar)
Somewhere east of Sandown

As Kiba looked up nervously from his upside-down position, the wolf cub padded forward and stopped growling. The cub cocked its head and sniffed at Kiba. Apparently liking what it smelled, it yipped happily and began to lick Kiba’s face. “Eww cut it out!” Kiba said chuckling as the tongue tickled his face.

“Patsu!” The girl cried in exasperation. “You’re supposed to be an attack dog, not a lick ‘em in the face dog!” Sighing, she relaxed her grip on the spear and held out a hand to Kiba. “Come on,” she said as she helped him up, “nobody as clumsy as you could possibly be dangerous.”

“Thanks … I think.” He grunted as we wiped the wolf drool off his face.

“Don’t think,” the girl said fixing Kiba with a disapproving glare, “that this means that I’ve forgiven you for spying on me … pervert.” She accentuated her point by shoving Kiba softly in the chest. As she did so, Kiba hissed in pain and stepped back clutching his chest. Wincing, Kiba reached under his shirt and felt the reopened cuts across his abdomen. When he pulled his hand back out, its palm was covered in blood. The girl stared at the blood smeared on his palm. “Where’d all that blood come from?”

“It’s er, nothing,” Kiba said as he unsuccessfully attempted to wipe off the blood using the bottom of his shirt, “I just got … attacked by … um … an animal last night is all.”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re bleeding!” The girl exclaimed pulling Kiba by an arm towards the boulder she had been lounging on earlier and sitting him down. “Take off your shirt and let me have a look.”

“What? No!” He yelled standing up. With surprising force, she grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down onto the boulder.

“Stop fussing,” the girl said as she tried to take Kiba’s shirt off, “it’s not as if I’m trying to get you naked.” Kiba turned scarlet and spluttered a protest but words failed him and all that come out was a string of gibberish. As he clamped down on the shirt, the girl sighed and decided to try a different tactic. “Let’s try this again, my name’s Lylah and I know a little about healing,” she explained, “if you don’t get that wound seen to properly it’ll probably get infected.”

Reluctantly Kiba slowly pulled the shirt off over his head to reveal the four cuts, blood now seeping through the cloth strips. Lylah quickly appraised the wound as she picked up a small leather pouch that had been hidden behind the boulder. “That looks deep; you say an animal did it?” Lylah asked as she moistened a flannel cloth that she pulled from the pouch in the pool around the base of the boulder.

“Uh huh.”

Lylah removed the cloth strips from the wound and gently wiped the cuts with the damp cloth, cleaning out the dirt and remains of the yellow ointment that Kiba had applied earlier. Kiba resisted the urge to breathe in sharply as the cool water stung inside the cuts and he stiffened against the pain. When Lylah noticed Kiba’s obvious discomfort, she suppressed a smirk at his attempts to hide it. “Those cloth strips were next to useless,” Lylah commented as she placed her hand less than an inch away from his skin just above the cuts, “this should close those cuts quickly.” Closing her eyes in concentration, Lylah’s hand began to glow emanating a soft white light. Particles of light danced around her hand and streamed into the wound causing the skin of Kiba’s chest to also glow. Within seconds, the light particles had almost been completely absorbed into his skin and the cuts already looked shallower. Looking at the wound thoughtfully, the cuts already beginning to rapidly heal, she looked up at Kiba. “I might need some petra flower extract to treat any infection that might have already set in. I think there’s a patch growing just at the top of the cliff.” Kiba was barely listening, still looking at the now healed wound with an impressed expression. She turned towards the narrow path behind Kiba that lead up and out of the sinkhole. As she started to leave, Patsu jumped into Kiba’s lap and yapped in Lylah’s direction. Turning back, she scratched Patsu behind one ear and the small wolf cub made quiet contented noises. “Hey Kiba, could you watch Patsu for me? He hates being left alone, even for a moment.”

“Yeah sure,” Kiba said as he picked up Patsu and scratched him under the chin while Lylah picked up her spear and headed towards the path. Suddenly, Kiba turned to face Lylah’s back with a confused expression on his face. “Hang on, how do you know my name? I never told you it!”

“Oops.” Lylah stopped, her back and posture betraying no emotion except perhaps for the tensing of her shoulders. For a few long seconds neither of them moved or said anything, the silence only broken by the sound of water and wind. Kiba was the first to make a move, dropping Patsu and reaching to draw his short sword. When his hand grasped at thin air, he looked around cursing and spotted the sword lying at the base of the gravel slope on the far side of the sinkhole where he had fallen earlier. In desperation, he grabbed for the hunting knife still strapped to his thigh. Even though he knew that wielding a weapon with such a short reach against someone armed with a spear would put him at a serious disadvantage, it was his only defence. Before he had a chance to draw it and defend himself Lylah span around, picked up a small rock, and smashed it on the side of his head. Sent reeling by the blow, Kiba stumbled backwards over the boulder and fell sprawling on to the ground, white sparks dancing across his vision. He struggled to pick himself up and failed, a black fog closed in as he felt himself loosing consciousness. Collapsing back to the ground, the last thing he saw before falling into unconsciousness was Lylah standing next to him, spear in hand.

With the blunt end of the spear’s shaft, Lylah prodded Kiba’s unconscious form that was laying face down, his lower half submerged in the cold water. “Cute, but so naive.” Lylah said with a cruel smile as her skin began to change texture. Her soft flesh began to toughen and take on a distinct yellowish hue while her hair became dirty and ragged, matted with grime. Her skin, now the texture of tough leather, split and formed scales covering her entire body except for her face that remained clear. Finally, the pupils of her eyes changed from an oval shape to a crossed slit.

Patsu jumped down from boulder and landed next to Kiba. Whining softly, Patsu started nudging the side of Kiba’s face with his nose in a futile attempt to wake him. As Lylah reached down, the wolf club turned to her and assumed a crouched posture, his teeth bared in a snarling growl. Patsu lunged forward at Lylah’s hand threateningly as she tried to grab Kiba by the hair. Pulling her hand back quickly enough to avoid Patsu’s snapping jaws, Lylah swiped at the cub and struck it hard with the shaft of the spear. Patsu was sent tumbling nearly a dozen yards across the sinkhole’s rocky floor before coming to a stop. Whimpering in pain, he cowered as Lylah turned towards him with her spear raised. “Stupid mutt,” Lylah snapped angrily, “what’s gotten into you? Do you want to end up on some hunter’s wall?” Lylah turned back to Kiba, continuing to address Patsu over her shoulder. “If you every try that again, I’ll skin you myself.” Reaching down, she grabbed Kiba by his hair and began to drag him toward a cave entrance that had been hidden behind a dense group of bushes. A few minutes after she had disappeared into the darkness with her catch, Patsu began sniffing at Kiba’s discarded shirt.

—-

Several miles away Jiro bent down to examine a scrap of torn fabric snagged on a branch next to a riverbank. On its own, the black piece of cloth would mean little, but along with the faint but distinctive boot print in the soil beside the bush, it told him that Kiba had passed through here. It was lucky that Jiro had found the scrap at all. Kiba’s trail had met the river a short distance upstream and when it hadn’t continued on the opposite bank, Jiro had concluded that Kiba must have waded along the shallow river in an attempt to mask his trail. Luckily, Jiro had decided to head downstream to try to pick up the trail again and out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted the scrap of fabric.

Jiro estimated that he was still a good few hours behind the boy. Despite the relatively simple trick with the river, Kiba seemed more intent on putting as much distance behind him than on covering his tracks. Thankfully, this meant that it was easy to track him. Why Kiba was doing this was a question that Jiro was still unable to answer and the more he thought about, the more worried he became. At first, he thought the Kiba had foolishly gone after the soldiers that were tracking the survivors of Sandown. That would be a futile quest for revenge at best and didn’t explain why Kiba had felt it necessary to knock him out. As Jiro had tracked him it became clear that, whatever his reasons, Kiba was heading south and not following the survivors north.

He was about to follow the dirt path that Kiba had taken when he heard voices from upstream carried in on the wind. The voices had distinct Eldalan accents and from the brief snippets of conversation he was able to discern, they appeared to be trackers of some sort. Jiro reasoned that if someone were following them, any scrap of information that they had would be vital. Carefully, and silently, he waded back across the river and crept towards the source of the voices.

—-

Soti sat down heavily on a fallen log, his muscles aching from the overnight travel while one of his soldiers filled his canteen from the river. Above them, a trio of sparrows sang at the gathering clouds. At Lars’s insistence, they had continued tracking their quarry through the night and even though it had been a dark night, somehow the Ranger had been able to follow the tracks in the darkness. After reaching the river the trail had gone cold and they had faced a choice whether to go upstream or down in order to pick it up again. Soti had decided to defer making that decision until after the men had rested. Travelling through the night had taken a lot out of them, especially after yesterday’s exertions and although he hid it well, privately Soti knew he needed to rest himself. Only Lars seemed immune from exhaustion.

“What’s eating you?” Lars asked as he leaned against a tree next to Soti. “You’ve been more pensive than a priest since that mage left.”

Chewing on a hardtack biscuit, Soti waited until his men were out of earshot before answering quietly. “This isn’t why I joined the army. What kind of war are we fighting? You’d never describe Arcadia and Eldala as allies or even friends but relations were always cordial. Suddenly, a people we wouldn’t have thought twice about trading with before are a deadly threat to the Empire. Where did that come from? I just don’t get why we’re even here.”

Lars sat down next to Soti, politely refusing a bite of the dry biscuit. “The Emperor said to attack, so we attack. It’s not our place to question orders that may be based on information we don’t have.”

“How can a people barely able to fight back be a threat us? With these new portal stones, we were able to overwhelm their defences in a single day but where is the honour in the indiscriminate massacre of every man, woman and child?”

Lars turned to Soti, a strange expression on his face. “The mistake you’ve made is to keep thinking of this as just a war.” For a moment, neither man spoke; both were lost in their own thoughts.

“Lars, what exactly is going on? Why are we even out here looking for this kid?” Soti asked.

“What makes you think I know more than you?” Lars answered evasively.

“For one thing,” Soti began, “the Rangers always know more about what’s going on with the Empire than anyone else.”

Lars looked surreptitiously at the three soldiers resting by the riverbank. None of them showed any signs of being aware of their superior’s conversation. Satisfied, he turned back to Soti and began speaking in a low whisper. “Arcadia, Galtea, the Broken Kingdoms; this whole region used to be part of an ancient empire known as the Geldren Domain. It was massive, one of the most powerful nations before the Godswar. Even Eldala began life as a colonial province of it. Not much of it remains today except a few ruins and the common language that we all share. Before the Godswar, the Domain was dedicated to the worship of the Titans who, before the Usurper Gods started the Godswar, were the highest divine authority in existence. Ultimately, the Titans were defeated and were cast out of the heavens and their mortal supporters punished. The Gods devastated the Domain in retribution, almost wiping out this entire continent. Eldala was spared only because we had rebelled against the Domain and sided with the Gods, but even then we lost much.”

Frustrated, Soti interrupted the Ranger. “I went to school just like you Lars, what’s this got to do with what’s happening now?”

“Everything. Do you know what a titan spawn is?”

“It’s the half-demon offspring of a Titan and a human isn’t it? But they’ve not been seen in generations.”

“Not exactly. While they haven’t been seen in Eldala for some time, over here they are much more common.” Lars held up a hand to forestall Soti’s question. “Remember, that the home provinces of the Geldren Domain never abandoned the Titan’s. Even after the God’s victory, conversion was a slow process. Many continued to worship the Titan’s in secret, which led to the formation of the Titan Cults that plague the region to this day. Not long after, the Titan’s, who never completely abandoned the mortal world, rewarded the cults for their loyalty. They gave them a ritual that allowed them to tap into a fraction of the power of Titan and use it to impregnate a human woman. A few weeks later she would give birth to a child that would outwardly appear to be human but it’s soul would be that of a Titan. This child would grow up to be a powerful member of the cult, more often than not assuming its leadership.”

“So, you’re saying that this kid was, is, one of these titan spawns?” Soti asked. Lars however was not listening.

“Damn it, it all makes sense now! THAT’S why we attacked here in the first place. The invasion, the rumours, even that kid. It all fits, Gods how could we have missed this!”

Soti was confused; his friend seemed to be jumping from subject to subject. “Lars you’re not making much sense.” Lars grabbed Soti’s shoulders, the light of epiphany burning behind his eyes.

“Ask yourself this, why did we commit resources to taking out such a small village? It’s isolated, has no resources worth speaking of and has no strategic potential whatsoever. Even the Arcadians didn’t see the need to garrison it. What tactical advantage could we possible gain by committing troops here that could’ve been used to strengthen the attack on a larger target elsewhere? None, that’s what, and what made this village different from a hundred others just like it that are supposed to be dealt with by the second wave? Only one thing. The Toshiko kid, that’s what. The entire reason why we attacked that village is him!”

“That doesn’t…”

“No, listen. Before the Rangers were sent to infiltrate Arcadia, we started hearing rumours, both from some of the officers in charge of the invasion and from within the Imperial Court itself. Allegedly, the Emperor had been consulting priests and diviners for months prior to signing the order to launch the invasion. As cliché as it may sound, somehow His Highness had got his hands on some prophecy that spurred him into action. From the few fragments we are able to acquire, it claimed that a titan spawn born fifteen years ago here in Arcadia would be a future threat to the Empire.”

Soti’s eyebrow raised in scepticism as he responded. “Uh huh, a prophecy foretelling of some future threat. You’re right, that does sound cliché.”

“And it’s complete bullshit. In over 800 years of recorded history, there hasn’t been a single instance of a prophecy coming true. The myth of the prophecy handed down by the Gods is just that, a myth. That doesn’t stop some taking advantage of people’s gullibility however. Ever heard of the Order of Taran Kur?” Soti shook his head. “I’m not surprised, the Rangers have been investigating them for several years and we’ve got little more than a name and a list of some the individuals involved. Mostly high-ranking mages. We believe that they’ve been manipulating the Imperial Court for sometime and may be behind the fabrication of the prophecy. All in an attempt to get their hands on…”

“…the titan spawn.” Soti said, interrupting Lars and finishing his sentence. “But to start a war over it, that just seems insane. Whatever the reason is, I think it’s important if that’s the case, that we need to prevent this titan spawn from falling into their hands. Especially considering that bitch of a mage lied in an attempt to throw us of his scent. With green hair and orange eyes, it shouldn’t be too hard to find this kid.”

“Aye,” Lars agreed, “but first we should let the men rest. We’ll stop here for an hour and then head upstream.”

—-

Opening his eyes, Jiro broke the mental link with the sparrow above the Eldalan men. As he slowly crawled away from the group, he inwardly cursed. The conversation he had eavesdropped upon confirmed what Jiro had learned from the solider that he had interrogated the day before. Jiro had hoped that the soldier’s testimony, which had been based on rumour, would prove to be false despite the use of the Confessor’s Chain. However, given what he had just heard, he now had to admit the truth, if only to himself. The Eldalans, believing a prophecy, were here to eliminate a threat but since they had not known the exact identity of the threat, they had taken the coldly logical decision to ensure its destruction by wiping out every last Arcadian. “If I had just done my duty fifteen years ago like I was supposed to,” he started to think to himself before he clamped down on the thought. Whatever the present situation, he had made the right decision all those years ago. At least that’s what he hoped.

A few minutes later, he was back at the site where he had discovered part of Kiba’s shirt. With a group of Eldalan soldiers’ right behind him, he had to move fast and find Kiba. With his concern growing by the minute, he set off down the trail in pursuit of the boy.

—-

Kiba came to slowly groaning; cracking open one eye at a time, his head pounded and there was a ringing in his ears. Blood covered the side of his face where Lylah had struck him and the hair near the wound was matted with it. It was dark and he was still groggy from the blow so it took him a moment to realise the full nature of his predicament. Chained to the wall by wrist manacles above and behind his head, Kiba was in a sitting position with his ankles shackled and bolted to the floor. Locked around his neck was an iron collar fastened to the wall by a short length of chain, further restricting his range of movement. The chains chinked loudly against the stone as Kiba tugged at them but it was no use, they seemed fixed fast to the stone and no amount effort would dislodge them. Not that Kiba had any strength in him, since waking up he had felt weak and slightly nauseous. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he began to make out the stone walls of a cave. He appeared to be in a small chamber at the end of tunnel, a grate made of crudely constructed metal bars blocking the exit. What little illumination there was came from a dimly flickering torch, its light reflecting from around the corner on the damp cave walls. In the darkness at the back of the chamber, Kiba could now see the rough outline of a figure slumped against the far wall, partially hidden behind a natural column. “Hey mister, where…” he called out, but as he did so, something about the way the figure was sitting caused him to stop. Straining against the chains and the neck collar, Kiba shuffled sideways in an attempt to get a better view of the figure. When Kiba saw the bloated and decayed flesh of the corpse, he jumped back uttering a cry of shock. Although seeing a dead body similarly chained up was chilling enough, the expression on its face was force. Fixed on to its face was a terrifying visage, either a frozen expression of fear and pain or the result of decomposition on the muscles of the face. Considering his present situation, Kiba would put money on it being the former.

The sound of the metal grate being raised and slammed back down pulled Kiba’s attention away from the decayed corpse and back to the entrance of the chamber. Standing just inside the bars and leaning casually against the wall was Lylah. She smiled as Kiba glared at her, not the friendly smile she had shown earlier by the pool, an arrogant smug smile with a faint hint of hunger. “Well, look who’s finally awake.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Kiba yelled at her angrily as he tugged at the chains yet again. Lylah chuckled as she walked slowly across the chamber towards him, amused it seemed at his futile anger. As she did so, a burnt out torch fixed to the column in the centre of the chamber suddenly reignited.

Kneeling down next to Kiba, Lylah traced a finger through the blood on his face, causing him to suppress a wince as the finger crossed the still oozing wound. “Chained to a wall, no hope of escape or rescue and yet you’re still defiant. But then you’ve always been rather strong willed haven’t you?”

“Unchain me you crazy bitch and I’ll show you just how ‘defiant’ I can be.”

“Actually,” Lylah said as she straddled his legs, “I like you just where you are.” Placing her finger in her mouth, she licked off Kiba’s blood. As she did so, a shiver ran down her spine and every nerve ending tingled. For a brief moment as she savoured the taste, the colour of her eyes changed from blue to yellow and the pupils quickly changed from circular to cross-shaped. A ripple of scales flashed across her body as she swallowed the blood.

Kiba gulped nervously as he saw the momentary change in Lylah, the first pangs of fear beginning to gnaw at his thoughts. “What the hell are you?”

“I could ask you the same question,” she said lightly brushing his hair with her hand, “there’s three voices inside your head where there should only be one. One of those voices is so full of anger and malice that I can almost taste its rage. It’s practically screaming.” Lylah was now leaning quite close and Kiba was beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable at the close proximity. “Then there’s your’s, so confused and alone. In the last few days you’ve seen your entire world thrown upside down and you’re still trying to make sense of it all.”

“Wait,” Kiba said interrupted, “how do you know all this?” Then the answer suddenly hit him. “That’s how you knew my name without being told isn’t it? You’re reading my mind!”

Lylah smiled as she leaned even close, whispering into his ear. “It’s just a little trick, not even that hard really. I use it to peek inside a person’s head and see what their weakness is, what’s most likely to draw them in and make it easy to catch them off guard. Adolescent males are the easiest, show ‘em a pretty girl and they’ll all but bare their throats.”

Gritting his teeth and cursing his own stupidity, Kiba realised how easily he had let his guard down been sucked into Lylah’s deception. He recoiled, as much as he could, as Lylah abruptly licked at the blood oozing from his head wound. “What the hell are you doing!?” As her hand drifted down across his naked torso to his waist where it slipped into his pants, Kiba started to panic. “Hey wait,” he cried out as Lylah’s hand began to work its way down to his groin, “stop!”

Lylah ignored his struggles and continued regardless of his protests. “Gods, your spirit’s aura is so strong,” she said as she began to caress a suddenly very uncomfortable Kiba. “The old guy barely saw the week out, I bet you’d last for months.” Her free hand hovered just an inch above his chest and Kiba could something from deep within being sucked out of him and into the hand. Along with Lylah’s activities inside his pants, the sensation was not entirely unpleasant. However, this made him struggle and protest even more, unwilling to submit to it. “Stop struggling, this was the first thing you thought of when you laid eyes on me.”

“I SAID STOP!” Kiba yelled as he twisted violently, throwing Lylah off him. As she landed roughly, she reverted to her scaled form and slapped hard him across the face, her claws leaving three furrows across his check. Snarling in anger, she planted one hand on his chest, pinning him firmly to the floor while the other grabbed his hair and painfully pulled his head back.

“I don’t think you get it,” she said quietly, “either way, you’re dying down here. The only choice you get is whether you go screaming in pain or groaning in pleasure.” In answer, Kiba spat in her face. “Pain it is then.”

The claws on the hand pinning him to the floor began to grow, gaining an extra three inches. The tips of each claw pierced the skin as it grew, drawing blood. Kiba gasped at the sudden sharp pain as the claws embedded themselves in his flesh. Lylah’s smile however told him that much worse was to come. Seconds after the claws ceased growing, Kiba again felt the same sensation of something being sucked out of him. This time however, it was not a pleasant feeling as the pain grew by magnitudes. Despite himself, Kiba screamed as the white-hot pain flooded his body. As he writhed in agony, Lylah laughed softly as his spirit flowed out of his body and into hers. “Had enough yet?”

Kiba did not hear her however; all thoughts other than the pain had been overwhelmed. The pain was the worse than he had ever felt, worse even than when the Eldalan soldiers had stabbed him the day before. Yet in the midst of this, at the back of his mind, a voice cut through the pain. “Let me out you idiot before she kills both of us!” Kiba immediately recognised Dace’s harsh tone. A pressure, the feeling of him trying to break through, accompanied his voice. Kiba would rather die then let Dace loose on the world. Between the pain inflicted by Lylah, the draining of his spirit, and Dace railing at him to give in, Kiba could feel himself slipping away bit by bit and Dace getting ever nearer to freedom. Just as he reached the point where he could not struggle any longer, a new voice cut was heard in his mind.

“Don’t give in to him Kiba, you’re stronger than he is and he knows it!”

Dace seemed to yell back at the newcomer, but the damage had already been done. The newcomer’s voice had bolstered Kiba’s resolve, and despite the pain, chuckled to himself. Focusing on the flickering torch behind Lylah, Kiba forced a smile. “You gonna have to try harder than that,” he said to Dace.

“Brave, but stupid.” Lylah, of course, could not hear the voice in Kiba’s head as she fed on his spirit so she assumed that he had been speaking to her. “If that’s how you want it.” Kiba screamed as she increased the rate at which she fed multiplying the amount of pain she inflicted. This time, the boy was unable to take it and mercifully passed into unconsciousness.

Lylah withdrew her claws and looked down at Kiba as she stood up. His skin was pale, covered in sweat and the claw marks on his chest had become small tears, the flesh ripped as he had struggled with the pain. She had taken more than she had intended, loosing her herself in anger when he had resisted. Still, she thought to herself, Kiba had more than enough spirit to give.

Suddenly curious, she left the chamber and made her way through the poorly lit tunnels to another chamber some distance away. In one corner, there was a small bed buried beneath a pile of blankets and rags and against another wall was a table. On this table was the pack that had been ripped from Kiba’s back when he had fallen into the sinkhole. Lylah had retrieved it after she locked him up in her “pantry”; she used the belongings and valuables of her victims for barter and trade. Emptying the contents of the pack onto the table, she discarded the clothes and other supplies and picked out a small leather pouch. Carefully opening it, she took out the small pile of coins and an envelope. There must be at least 60 or 70 coins in the pile, quite a haul for a boy to be carrying around. Even though the coins would prove to be useful, her attention was fixed on the envelope.

The paper was old and yellowed; the back was sealed with a drop of wax indicating that it had probably never been opened. When she had been inside his mind earlier, she had seen an image of this envelope and received the strong impression that somehow it was important. Carefully she broke the seal, took out the letter within and started reading.

Ten minutes later, Lylah found herself standing over the still unconscious Kiba. “So that’s what you are,” she said to herself quietly as she watched his shallow breathing. “The letter explained a lot, too bad you’ll never get to read it.”

—-

The first few drops of rain were starting to fall when Jiro slid to a stop. Ahead of him on the dirt path sat a small grey wolf cub. On the ground in front of Patsu’s paws lay Kiba’s bloodstained shirt. Jiro’s heart skipped a beat when he saw it, even from where he was standing; Jiro could see that some of the blood was still wet. Taking a step forward, he bent down to pick it up but before he could do so, Patsu snatched it up and jumped back out of his reach. Perplexed, Jiro took another step forward and attempted to retrieve the shirt but again, Patsu jumped out of his reach. After a third try, the cub ran a dozen feet down the path and turned, as if waiting for Jiro.

Jiro stood back and sighed, you did not need to be a Royal Guard to understand what was going on. “Ok, I get the message. You want me to follow you is that it?” In response, Patsu yapped and hopped back a couple of steps. “All right then, lead the way.” The cub turned and ran down the path, Jiro chasing close behind. After a few hundred yards, Patsu darted off the path and into the trees. For a brief moment, Jiro wondered whether he was doing the right thing, leaving behind the trail he had been tracking and following the cub. However, he reminded himself that there was only one way the cub could have got hold of the shirt, Kiba must be in serious trouble.

The cub eventually stopped on top of a small hillock, treeless and with limestone rocks protruding from its grassy surface. As Jiro reached the top, he was able to see down the far side and see that it was broken up by boulders and crevasses. Probably the result of countless centuries of erosion and subsidence. Nestled in the shadows at the base of one of the deeper crevasses was the small mouth of a cave. It was to this opening that the cub bounded to and waited patiently for Jiro to catch up. Jiro clambered down into the crevasse and stood before the cave entrance. Rivulets of rainwater dribbled down the rough walls and into the cave, disappearing into the dank darkness. With one his short swords in hand, he pulled a large crystal the size of a chicken egg from a waistcoat pocket. The crystal was a sunstone, a type of crystal known for its ability to soak up light and then release it when the sunstone was in darkness and squeezed. Gently holding the sunstone, the quartz-like crystal emitted a soft white light that illuminated the descending passage. Not knowing precisely what he would find, Jiro carefully entered the cave and made his way down the slippery slope.

Twisting back itself a number of times as it descended, after several hundred yards the tunnel opened up on to a large cavern. Easily large enough to fire an arrow across without striking the far wall, the cavern’s floor was smooth rock whose shape reminded Jiro of gently undulating sand dunes. The effect was only pierced by stalagmites, stalactites, columns and a large pit in the far corner. One-half of the cavern’s floor was occupied by a small lake fed a cascade of clear water flowing out shaft on the cavern’s roof. In the light provided by the sunstone, Jiro could discern a series of worn markings in the cavern floor, the sign of a frequently trodden path. Following the path, Jiro could see that it ran from the lake to a series of hewn stairs near the pit. Moving towards the stairs, as he passed the pit the faint smell of decay assaulted Jiro’s senses. Apprehensively, he crept up the edge of the pit and peered down. Its base was hidden in darkness, beyond the sunstone’s light but the walls of the pit were riddled with ledges. The ledges were covered with bones and, in some cases, partially decomposed body parts. Jiro was no stranger to scenes of carnage, he had seen friends and comrades killed in battle before, but there was something about the charnel pit that bothered even him.

Patsu dropped the shirt and bit at the cuff of Jiro’s pants, tugging him towards the stairs. Leaving the pit behind, Jiro followed the cub up the slippery stairs and into a tunnel that sloped upwards. After five minutes of negotiating a maze-like warren of tunnels and chambers, the pup stopped and dropped into a defensive posture, growling lightly. Up ahead, the flicking glow from a torch could be seen approaching from around the bend. Quickly scooping up the wolf club, Jiro ducked into a side passage and crouched behind a stalagmite. Placing the sunstone on the floor, it ceased emitting its light and the passage was engulfed by darkness again. Jiro did not have to wait long as a yellow scaled, female humanoid, walked past heading in the direction of the cavern. One hand she carried a torch and the other was dragging a body. To Jiro’s immense relief, the body was that of an adult in an early state of decomposition. As soon as she had passed around another corner and the flickering torchlight could no longer be seen, Jiro picked up the sunstone and continued down the corridor, Patsu trailing just behind.

When Jiro came to a fork in the tunnel, he bent down and examined the floor. There was blood on the floor, from the angle and direction of the smears Jiro could tell that someone had been dragged down the right tunnel. Patsu ran down the tunnel and through the barred grate at the end into the chamber beyond. The chamber was lit by a single torch and, by its light, Jiro could see Kiba slumped against and chained to the wall.

He quickly broke the lock securing the grate and rushed over to the boy. Kiba was unconscious but thankfully still alive. Using a dagger, Jiro snapped several rusted links freeing Kiba from the wall and floor before gently laying him down. For the time being he could do nothing about the neck collar or the shackles around Kiba’s wrists and ankles, they would have to wait until later. Jiro took a canteen of water and poured some of its contents onto Kiba’s face. Spluttering, the boy regained consciousness but it took several moments for his eyes to focus. “Are you okay to walk? We need to get out of here as soon as possible.” Jiro asked quickly, concerned that the creature could return at any time.

Kiba, for his part, seemed to have trouble concentrating and for a brief second seemed unable to recognise Jiro. Weakly, he tried to push Jiro away before responding, his speech slurred. “Piss off; I’m not falling for it again.”

Jiro grabbed the boy’s chin and forced him to look the older man in the eye. “Kiba, I need you to focus.” It was no use; Kiba did not seem to hear him.

“You’re in my mind again, showing me what I want to see.” As he spoke, his eyes began to flutter as he started to loose consciousness again. In response, Jiro reached into another pocket and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid. Popping the waxed cork stopper with his thumb, he forcibly opened Kiba’s mouth, poured the liquid into the boy’s mouth, and then held the mouth closed. He had to act quickly, the moment the liquid was exposed to the air and came into contact with the heat of the body; it evaporated becoming an odourless, invisible gas that acted as a powerful stimulant. It took effect as soon as Kiba breathed it in, increasing his heart rate, breathing and the flow of blood to his brain. Almost instantly, his eyes snapped open showing much more alertness than before. “Jiro? What the hell are you doing here?”

“You with me?” Jiro asked as he helped Kiba up. The boy nodded, still unsteady on his feet and needing Jiro’s help to stand. “Good, because we need to get out of here fast. Afterwards, you can fill me in on what you’re doing down here and then you can explain why you thought it necessary to bean me on the back of the head.”

Kiba smiled weakly at Jiro’s attempt at humour. “Oh … that.”

“Yes ‘That.’” Jiro said as he lifted up the grate and helped Kiba underneath it.

“How did you find me?”

“He showed me,” nodding towards Patsu who followed the pair close behind.

“Patsu!”

“So the little fella has a name them, looks like you made a friend.”

As Jiro helped Kiba down the tunnel, he knew that if they did not move faster they would be caught. But as he looked over at the boy’s pained and slightly woozy expression, he realised that it was probably a miracle that he was on his feet at all.

Suddenly Kiba stopped, his hand flying to his neck as if searching for something. “Shit,” Kiba cried, “where is it?” Kiba had just realised that his pendant was missing. Panicking, he frantically tried to go back to the chamber to search for it but was stopped when Jiro grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

“Where’s what?” Jiro asked confused.

Kiba opened his mouth as if to say something but instead looked down at his feet. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

—-

Lylah dumped the body of the hunter over the side of the pit and watched as it tumbled into the darkness and vanished. She was about to turn and head back to the stairs when she noticed something lying on the floor on the far side of the pit. Picking it up, Lylah quickly realised that it was the shirt belonging to Kiba that he had taken off while in the sinkhole earlier. There was no reason why it should be down here. Inspecting the shirt, she noticed a damp patch surrounding a cluster of small holes. They were bite marks and the dampness had been caused by saliva. “Patsu,” she cursed as she saw a series of boot and paw prints heading towards the stairs.

—-

Leaning on Jiro for support, Kiba followed Patsu as he lead them up the left hand fork to what he hoped was the surface. They passed a number of side tunnels and chambers, one of which was lit by torches. As they hurried past it, Kiba stole a glance inside. He saw the contents of his pack emptied on the table inside along with his other equipment. Pulling away from Jiro, he stumbled inside and began to frantically search through the pile.

Jiro followed him into the chamber and tried to pull him away from the table. “We haven’t got time for this!”

“I’m not leaving without it!” Kiba snapped back, a determined look on his face.

“Without what?” Jiro asked exasperatedly.

“My pendant!” Jiro immediately knew what Kiba was talking about; after all, he had been the one that gave Ren the pendant to give to the boy. He could understand how much that pendant might mean to him, as it was the only link between him and his mother. “Found it,” a relieved Kiba said as he plucked the steel chain from the pile of clothes. Putting it on, he held the crystal as he closed his eyes as if in silent prayer.

Sweeping the rest of the items into the pack since they might as well take everything with them, Jiro noticed the silver disk hanging on the chain next to the pendant. “Where did you get that?” He asked pointing at the disk.

“This?” Kiba said quietly holding the disk, “I found it in a box under dad’s bed. I … think it belonged to him.” Kiba swayed as he said this, almost falling to the floor. The stimulant was starting to wear off.

Picking up the pack and Kiba’s weapons, he put an arm around the boy and guided him out of the chamber. “Time to go.”

Following Patsu, they soon felt fresh air on their faces and could see sunlight filtering into the cave from an opening ahead.

—-

Lylah slammed the bars of the grate in anger, screaming a curse. Somehow, the boy had got loose, probably with help. Running down the passageway, she slid into her sleeping chamber. As she expected, the boy’s things were gone from the table. Picking up a crossbow from a wall rack, she checked the tension of the bowstring before picking up a quiver containing a number of bolts. Each of the bolts had a leather cap covering the head of the bolt. When Lylah locked the bowstring in place and loaded one of the bolts, she removed its leather cap. When she did so, the metal of the head glistened as it was covered by a sticky substance.

Careful to prick herself with the bolt head, she set off down the passageway towards the sinkhole entrance.

—-

As Jiro and Kiba left the cave, the rain had now become heavy, falling from the oppressively low grey clouds and striking the ground in great moving sheets. “Good,” Jiro said as they stepped into the torrential downpour, “the rain should mask our trail somewhat, making it harder for those following us to track us.”

“Silver lining huh?” Kiba asked weakly.

“You got it kiddo, come on, stay with me.”

Kiba managed a laugh, “I thought I told you I’m not a kid any more.”

Jiro cried out in pain, stiffened and fell forward taking Kiba with him. Looking over at Jiro, Kiba saw a crossbow bolt sticking out of his back. For a brief, panicky second, Kiba feared the worst but he saw the Jiro was still breathing and his eyes were open. Meanwhile Patsu had turned to face the cave and was growling, aggressively. Kiba turned and looked in the direction that Patsu was growling.

Lylah stood there calmly loading another bolt. “Interesting thing about petra flowers, crushing the stamens produces a powerful paralysing toxin.” Kiba drew one of Jiro’s short swords and attempted to get to his feet, falling back down. “The toxin is short lived but extremely fast acting. It starts breaking down in the blood almost immediately and within a few minutes, it has almost completely dissipated. What was on the bolt is just enough to cause instantaneous and near total paralysis of the voluntary muscles.” Lylah began to walk slowly forward, aiming the crossbow at Jiro. “A second bolt will unfortunately cause paralysis in the autonomic muscles such as the heart and lungs. Death follows within minutes and I’ve been told it’s quite painful.” Taking aim, she pulled the trigger and fired the bolt at Jiro’s prone back. Kiba lunged forward, interposing himself between the bolt and Jiro. Raising the short sword, Kiba just managed to bring it up in time, sending the bolt ricocheting harmlessly to the sinkhole’s wall. The sword was knocked out of his hand by the force of the impact. “Impressive, but that won’t stop be from killing that man and dragging you back to you cell.

Pulling out her third and final bolt, she locked the bowstring and loaded the bolt. Lylah decided to shoot Kiba, slit Jiro’s throat and drag the paralysed boy back to the cell. When she lifted the crossbow and aimed at Kiba, she was surprised to see that he had managed to get to his feet. He still looked unsteady, and his head was down looking at the floor, his hair hiding his face. Regardless, she fired the bolt.

In a display of blurred movement, Kiba’s hand whipped up and grabbed the bolt out of the air. In an effortless display of strength, he snapped the bolt snapped in his hand, dropping the two broken halves to the ground.

“How the…” Lylah whispered.

“In the last 24 hours,” Kiba began without looking up, “I’ve been shot at, stabbed, chased, beaten and nearly raped by some shape changing freak.” Kiba looked up at her, brushing his hair out of his face. “I’m through playing the victim.”

Hero’s Journey Chapter 5 – Revelations

A few hours before dawn, Madraday the 10th of Tanot, 674 AG (After Godswar)
Several miles east of Sandown

Kiba scrambled to his feet and began to back away from Dace. “What’s going on? What the fuck are you?” He asked in a shaky voice as Dace got up and faced him. The small boy began to grow in size as he fixed a disturbing grin upon his face. His hair grew longer and wilder, like Kiba’s and he slowly filled out the shirt that Kiba had given him until he resembled Kiba in both size and appearance. For all purposes, he was a mirror image of Kiba, albeit with the additional monstrous features of fangs, claws, pointed ears and a row of spikes down his spine.

“Fifteen years,” Dace said quietly, menacingly, “for fifteen damned years I’ve been stuck here, watching you play happy families with that old man.”

“Just stay back, whatever you are,” cried Kiba was he picked up a branch and tried to ward off the thing in front of him. Dace swiped at the branch with an open claw, splintering the wood into fragments. Kiba stumbled back from the splintering branch and backed into the trunk of a large tree. As he tried to dodge around the tree, Dace darted forward and slashed at Kiba’s bare chest with his other claw, slicing the flesh. Before Kiba had a chance to respond, Dace gave a him a powerful two-handed shove that sent him to the floor.

“Shut it,” Dace spat as he picked Kiba up by the neck, holding him against tree, “if it wasn’t for me, we’d be dead right now. You’re just a pathetic weakling and without me, those soldiers would have butchered you like a farm animal.”

“What are you talking about?” Kiba croaked as he struggled for breath. Dace was gently squeezing his throat in a calculated show of strength and dominance, restricting the flow of air into his lungs but not cutting it off entirely as Kiba beat ineffectually at his arms. Dace leaned forward until their faces were just a few inches apart.

“Let me refresh that memory of yours blackout boy. Remember back at the farm when you tried to take on those soldiers by yourself? Remember how they kicked your arse and how one of them sliced open your gut while the other stabbed you in the back?”

Kiba did remember, he remembered passing out from the wounds only to wake up to find them miraculously healed and the three surviving soldiers dead. Although he had been more concerned about his father at the time, afterwards the incident had bothered him more than he had cared to admit. None of it made any sense and by rights, it should have been him who was dead, not the soldiers. However, as Dace spoke, he started to recall things that he hadn’t remembered before. The look of sheer terror on the soldiers faces, their screams as they were torn apart and the nauseating taste of their blood. “It was you,” Kiba whispered, “you killed them. The soldiers, somehow you tore them apart like some sort of animal.”

Dace laughed sharply grinning a fanged smile. “You really have no idea what you are, do you?” He lifted Kiba off the floor with both hands and began to strangle the boy. “Not that it matters anyway, you’ll be dead in a couple of minutes and then I’ll be free. I guess the first thing I’ll do is do some finger painting with Jiro’s intestines. Of course,” Dace giggled, “removing them is liable to be a little painful. For him at least.” As Dace gloated, Kiba’s vision began to fade but as Dace made his threat towards Jiro Kiba’s eyes snapped back into sharp focus. Red mist began to creep into the edges of his vision and his stare at Dace was so intense that Dace’s speech faltered.

“You. Stay. Away. From. Him.” Kiba growled and the pupils in his eyes starting to glow. He grabbed Dace’s arms with a pair of clawed hands and slowly pushed them apart, forcing Dace to release his grip on Kiba’s neck. Dace’s smug, confident demeanour began to crack in the face of Kiba’s unexpected resistance. He strained against Kiba’s grip but the boy’s hands were locked tight and Dace could not move his arms even an inch from where Kiba wanted them. Suddenly Kiba’s head lunged forward, his forehead smashing into Dace’s nose. With a crunch, the nose broke spraying blood everywhere. Dace staggered backwards clutching his nose and tripped over a tree root landing unceremoniously on his arse.

“Bastard,” he cursed, “you broke my fucking nose!”

“I don’t care what the fuck you are any more,” Kiba yelled as the kicked Dace in the head knocking him onto his side where Kiba continued to repeatedly kick his side, “I’m gonna kill you!” As Dace lay on the floor Kiba picked up a rock and prepared to bring it smashing down on to Dace’s head.

Dace laughed painfully, coughing up blood. “You can’t kill me, not here anyway. When you were nine and you fought back against that bully despite the fact that he was twice your age and nearly twice your size, I’m the part of you that broke both his arms and continued to beat on him even after he begged for mercy. That little runt that followed you around the village all the time? Busa or something? I’m the part that would have readily wrung his scrawny neck to make him stop bugging you. When those soldiers caught up with him, I would have happily sat there and listened to his screams. Every dark impulse, every violent thought, that’s me. I’m the part of you that you inherited from your true father, not that weak human whore of a mother. I’m part of you and I always will be.” As Dace spoke, Kiba’s resolve wavered, he started to lower the rock, his claws retracted, and his eyes stopped glowing. “The funny thing is, if it wasn’t for the farm, we’d never have met. In that moment when you were dying, all your hate and anger, all that frustration at being unable to save Ren, it opened a doorway. And for a short while, I was free in the waking world. But the thing about that doorway is, once opened, it’s impossible to close all the way again. Eventually, you’ll let your guard down, you’ll slip up. When that happens, next time I’ll make sure my stay is permanent. I’ll even let you watch from in here as I destroy everything you hold dear starting with that bastard Jiro.”

“You may be right,” Kiba said quietly, “I might not be able to kill. But that won’t stop me from doing this.” He raised the rock above him and smashed it down onto Dace’s head. It took three strikes for Dace to stop twitching. When he was done, he dropped the rock and looked at Dace’s body for a few seconds without emotion before turning and walking off towards the trees.

Dace cracked upon an eye and coughed up a glob of blood. “You think this changes anything spawn breath?” Kiba paused without turning as Dace spoke.

“What did you call me?” Kiba asked, speaking barely above a whisper.

“You heard me. You’re a daemon, an abomination, a creature of pure evil, a plague on mankind, a Titan Spawn. Half human, half titan, on your father’s side. You’re blood father that is.” Dace laughed coughing up a bit more blood as Kiba clenched his fists and hunched his shoulders. “Oops, I guess it looks like Daddy never told you who your parents were did he … no wait, that’s not it is it? Ren didn’t just not tell you, he lied to you didn’t he?” Unable and unwilling to hear any more, Kiba ran off into the trees, Dace’s pained laughter ringing in his ears.

As soon as Kiba was out of sight, a figure stepped out from the opposite direction. He was the same age as Kiba and like Dace, resembled him physically except unlike Dace he appeared completely human and had short black hair and piercing blue eyes. Around his neck hung a small blue crystal on a steel chain, identical to Kiba’s.

“Dace,” the newcomer admonished, “you are such a jerk sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Dace retorted as he slowly picked himself up off the floor, “what you gonna do about it normal boy.” The newcomer backed away as Dace approached. “Yeah, thought so. Now piss off before I drop kick you to the face again.”

—-

Jiro looked over at Kiba’s sleeping form, the boy had tossed and turned throughout the night. Occasionally mumbling or groaning in his sleep. Bad dreams, Jiro mused, but who could blame him. The day had been rough for everyone but thankfully, the night had been quiet.

As the first vestiges of light began to show on the eastern horizon, it Kiba’s turn to be on watch. Jiro got up, walked around the smouldering remains of the campfire, knelt over the boy, and began to gently shake him awake. Kiba’s eyes snapped open and as quick as a blur, he reached under his pack that he was using as a pillow and grasped the handle of the hunting knife. Faster than he Jiro’s eyes could follow, Kiba brought the knife slashing upward, stopping just less than an inch from Jiro’s throat.

“Whoa, easy! It’s just me,” said Jiro as he gently moved the knife away.

With a sheepish grin, and now fully awake, Kiba sheathed the knife. “Sorry, bad dream.”

“Ah-huh,” nodded Jiro, “remind me never to wake you in the morning without putting armour on first. Anyway, time to get up squirt it’s your turn on watch.” Jiro was weary from exhaustion and as he picked up a blanket and turned to make part of the ground comfortable to sleep on, he didn’t notice that Kiba watched him closely, intently. With his back turned he didn’t see the boy silently pick up a heavy and unburned piece of firewood. Stealthily, Kiba crept up behind Jiro and brought the makeshift club smashing down hard onto the back of Jiro’s head. The man’s eyes rolled upwards and he crumpled to the floor unconscious. Kiba stood over the defenceless form for several seconds holding his breath before dropping the makeshift club and kneeling down next to Jiro. He gingerly felt for a pulse and having found one, released a relieved gasp of breath. Kiba silently thanked the gods that the blow had only stunned him as he had intended as he quickly attempted to make Jiro comfortable.

“Sorry,” he said quietly as he picked up his pack, a few supplies and his weapons, “I wish there was another way, but I hope you take the hint. Where I’m going, you can’t follow.” He checked Jiro one last time, tenderly placing both blankets over him. “Goodbye, uncle.” Kiba avoided looking back as he left, running through the woods in the early dawn light holding back tears. If he had, he might have had second thoughts about what he was doing but for Jiro’s sake, he needed to put as much distance between the two of them. He had no destination in mind; Kiba hadn’t thought that far ahead, he just knew that he had to get away.

When Jiro regained consciousness some time later, he groaned and clutched the back of his head, cursing in several colourful languages. It took him a few minutes to realise what had happened and when he looked around and saw that Kiba was gone, his cursing reached new levels of vulgarity. The sun had just begun to climb into the sky, Jiro saw as he quickly packed up his gear, he couldn’t be more than an hour or two behind the boy, whatever that idiot was thinking. Whatever Kiba’s reason for attacking him, Jiro thought as he set off in pursuit, it had better be good.

—-

Kiba had been running through the woods for a couple of hours when he finally had to rest. He stopped at the bottom of a wooded scar-like ravine. A brook cascaded over the steep sides forming a waterfall that plunged into a pool of crystalline waters before continuing down the ravine. Shrugging off his pack, Kiba cupped his hands in the water, splashing some of it onto his face before refilling his canteen and taking a long drink of the cold water. When he stretched out over the water again to refill the canteen a second time, he winced in pain, his hand moving to his chest. Kiba put the canteen down gently on the grass and proceeded to take his shirt off. When he did so, he could clearly see four ragged and red tears across the skin of his abdomen. A wound identical to one that Dace had inflicted on him last night. Although that had only been a dream, Kiba was sure that somehow, it wasn’t just an identical wound, it was the exact same wound.

Whatever its origin it was starting to sting like sin and the skin around the cuts was beginning to turn an angry shade of red. He reached behind him for his pack pulled out a small vial and a bundle of cloth strips. Kiba held his breath as he applied the yellow ointment to the cuts, he didn’t know exactly what it was made of but it smelt of cow urine and he suspected that that might be its chief ingredient. Gently he placed cloth strips along the length of the cuts and the ointments adhesive properties held them firm against the skin.

When he placed the vial back into his pack, his hand brushed against a small leather pouch. Hesitating slightly, he pulled it out, opened it and looked at the contents. It contained the gold coins and the envelope that he had retrieved from the box under Ren’s bed. Also inside was the small silver disc with Ren’s name inscribed upon it. As he held the disc in his hand, it was warm to the touch and the metal felt slick and wet even though it was dry. Kiba held the disc up to the morning sun, letting the soft light play across the gold etched symbol on one side. He had seen that symbol before, he would swear to it but for the life of him, he could not remember where. It was the only thing that he had left that belonged to his father, Ren and as the wind gently rustled the leaves on the trees around him; Kiba undid the chain he wore around his neck. He threaded the steel chain through the eye and let the disk slide down the chain and chink gently against the blue crystal.

Apart from the gold coins, the only thing left in the pouch now was the letter. Since leaving the farm yesterday, Kiba had not had a chance to open and read it. Since he needed to rest for a few minutes to catch his breath, he decided that now was a good time. However, he was hesitant to open it. Regardless of what Dace had said, Ren was the only father he had ever known even if he wasn’t his blood father. All the same, Ren had literally used the last moments of his life trying to tell Kiba the truth about them. With that in mind, Kiba broke the seal and opened the envelope. He was about to take out the letter, when he heard the sound of singing drifting in on the wind.

Quickly he stuffed the envelope back into the pouch, picked up his pack, donned his shirt and slung his quiver and scabbard. Scrambling up the steep side of the ravine, he stopped and turned towards the source of the singing. The voice was gentle and soft, most likely that of a woman. Although Kiba couldn’t understand the words, the singing itself was beautiful and extremely soothing. Against his better judgement, Kiba climbed back down the slope and began to creep downstream towards the voice. The brook followed the course of the ravine, bending around a blind corner before tumbling down into a small sinkhole before descending further into the depths. Almost as if he was stalking some game animal, Kiba slowly crawled on his belly towards the edge of the 30ft drop into the sinkhole. Hiding behind and amongst a group of bushes, he peeked over the edge.

Below him, by a pool that covered half of the base of the sinkhole, was a girl that was roughly Kiba’s age, perhaps a little older. She was lying back on a rock that jutted out into the pool letting her feet dangle lazily into the cool, clear waters. Her voice resonated perfectly with the natural acoustics of the sinkhole creating an almost ethereal quality to the song she was singing. The girls long brown hair was splayed out haphazardly on the surface of the rock. Shimmering in the sunlight, it created a halo-like effect around her head that framed her face. Her clothing, a pair of rough cloth pants and matching shirt was wet and next to her was a collection of small fishes drying on the rock. A small grey wolf cub lounged on her chest, baring its fangs in a lazy yawn as she stroked its back, singing to it.

Kiba lay on his front as he watched the girl below, barely daring to breath. There had been a few girls his age in Benbridge but none of them had been as beautiful as her. The way the sunlight highlighted her hair, her heavenly voice, the way the cub nestled snugly between her … Kiba sighed, as if a girl like her would ever give him the time of day. He lingered for a few moments watching her before realising that he should probably go. Shifting his weight, he began to shuffle back while crouching on all fours. As he did so, the ground beneath him gave way pitching him over the edge into the sinkhole. For a few seconds, he fell through the air his arms flailing as he cried out. Halfway down the cliff was a nest of branches and as he fell through them, one of the thicker branches hooked itself onto the straps of his pack. Kiba’s fall was momentarily arrested but the sudden tug by the branch turned him upside down and tore the pack and quiver from his back. His fall resumed and he struck a slope at the base of the cliff, sliding down the steep gravel slope head first for the final few feet before coming to an unceremonious stop sitting on his head, his shirt flopping down to cover his face.

As the dust settled, Kiba heard a low growl and slowly lifted up the flap of his shirt. From his upside down perspective, he saw the small wolf club crouched and growling in front of him, its fangs bared. It would’ve been cute if it wasn’t standing at the feet of the girl who was now scowling and brandishing a spear whose point was only inches from his neck.

Kiba grinned nervously, his cheeks burning. “Er … Hi?”