Chapter 9 - Lombardi Lawton - Prey
November 16, 3040 9:31 PM
When I left our hideout, I was a little teary eyed. I had never been prouder. The fate of my brothers and sisters rested on me. Not once had I ever been entrusted with such responsibility, and now, it was finally time to prove my worth. I would not let them down. I'd rather die than have failure be an option.
I have always been seen as one of the weak links in our family. I am an outsider among my brothers and sisters. The facts are hard to ignore. While some of them were given gifts of strength and beauty, I never had anything to offer. I was considered ugly and useless. Some of my siblings tried hard to conceal the truth. Iris and Isaac, for example, included me in their conversations and treated me with respect. Candy sometimes tried to explain all the things she was working on. Even though I didn't understand it most of the time, I still appreciated the gesture. But some of my other brothers weren't like that, they weren't kind at all.
Tiago always has had it out for me. When we were young, he used to beat me up. He teamed up with my more brutish brothers, Alex and Ace, and ganged up on me. I couldn't compete with Alex's raw power, nor outrun the cheetah speed of Ace. They used to bully me to no end. Growing up was hard. I might as well have been their whipping boy.
Everyone had someone in our family. Tiago had his little gang, Iris and Isaac had their twin connection, even the other weak links had someone they could confide in. Maddie hung out with Oscar, and Leonard was the mama's boy. I had no one.
It wasn't like I didn't try to fit in. Actually, I tried really hard. Even when they pushed away, excluded me from all their little games, I persisted to get in. I think the more they refused, the more I wanted to belong. Even if they rejected me, it was still a sliver of interaction. As pathetic as it was, even that small amount was enough for me to keep trying. I wanted to be in Tiago's circle. It never happened, though, I was still on my own most of the time.
Maybe that's why I ended up sneaking out at night so many times. I wanted to get away from home, to get away from my loneliness. After everyone was in bed, I would climb out of my room and slip through the back door. Our house was far away from the civilization Primm offered, so the back door led to this open field that connected to the outskirts of town. Sometimes, I would walk outside and look at the night sky for hours, thinking about the future and where we would end up.
Other days, I explored. I snuck in the shadows of Primm's dim city lights. The town was relatively quiet at night and deserted for the most part, so getting around wasn't too difficult. I made sure I had a hoodie on to conceal my face. I didn't do it too often, maybe once or twice every other month. Mother was good at keeping us sheltered in the house, and I didn't want to run the risk of getting caught, so I only left when I had strong urges.
That's how I got to know the area around us. I knew the streets well enough. Ace couldn't even locate the Primm-Phillips supply depot. When he got confused, I knew it was the opportunity I was waiting for. It was finally a chance for me to prove myself. A chance to shine, a chance to be someone the family could count on. No more being picked on, no more being seen as the weakling, no more feeling that I didn't belong.
That was then, this is now. We're all grown up and we're all fighting for our survival. And who does Tiago entrust the most critical task to? Not Ace, not Alex, but me. That says a lot. I guess all those years, all that hardship I went through, Tiago was testing me, to see if I have what it takes when the time called for it. I'm not going to let him down.
I ran as fast as I could toward the Primm-Phillips supply depot, tote bag on my back, instructions in hand. The night has already blanketed the city and I was able to hide within the darkness as I made my way to my destination.
A block or two after I had left, I referred to the map that Candy had drawn. It was a simple straight path to the Primm-Phillips depot, and I avoided any major streets where I could be easily spotted. I had to make my way down Junket Street, where most of the businesses were either out or not around anymore. It was a street littered with emptied out lots and rusted storage bins, with tall buildings and little lighting. It was easy to go unnoticed.
I didn't really need the map, I already was familiar enough with the area to know where to go. It was just a mile away. If I hurried, I could get there in about eight minutes, but I didn't want to rush. I was fearful of bumping into someone. Quietly, I ran from building corner to building corner, hiding behind emptied bins, old vehicles, basically anything I could. And every time I took cover, I peered out to see if the coast was clear and continued the same thing over again.
This got old fast, though. About half a mile in, I hadn't encountered anything. No people, no dogs, no cats, not even a rat. This street was as dead as the night.
I decided to change up my strategy. I was only less than half a mile away, so at that point, a non-stop sprint would get me there in a few minutes. I was already hooded. Face, arms, everything was obscured by my clothes and nightfall. Even if I did bump into someone, I would be running by them so quickly that they wouldn't even have time to realize what had crossed them.
I positioned myself in a runners start and lost myself. I can't ever remember running that fast before, but the adrenaline from the danger coupled with my motivation attributed to my speed. I think I would have even impressed Ace with my swiftness. If only my brothers and sisters could see me.
And now I am here, standing in front of the Primm-Phillips supply depot with the weight of my brothers and sisters on my shoulders and a few breaths to catch. I look at my watch and see that it is already 9:30.
I start to search the grounds for this grating Candy had described. It's supposed to lead to an underground tunnel system where the main security controls are. According to her instructions, the grating is somewhere towards the back end of the building, opposite side of the entrance.
I walk to the rear and look at the ground, but I still see nothing. Candy has provided me with a flashlight wristband, so I turn it on and point to the ground. All I see are weeds and blades of grass. The plant life has grown wild and thick. Candy assured me the grating is here somewhere, so I get on my knees and tear away at the weeds. I have to move quickly.
The security system is only activated when an intruder enters the building unauthorized, so the outside grounds between the outer fence and the depot is safe. I am paranoid, though. I'm afraid that there might be some surveillance equipment or sensor that Candy failed to catch. Her research and hacking skills are amazing, but mistakes happen.
I continue to pull the weeds furiously, until my hand hits something hard on the ground. I stop in my tracks, turn my hands into a fist, and knock on it. It's dense. Carefully, I feel the surface. It's cold, smooth, and rusted. This must be the grating.
I remove any roughage I might have missed until I uncover the whole thing. It's a small, metal circle no larger than two or three feet in diameter, severely rusted from the ravages of time. Since it's so old, I don't have to worry about locks or anything like that, Candy's instructions state I can remove it manually. It's heavy, but with all my strength, I lift it briefly and slide it to the side. The hole reveals a ladder, which I climb down.
I make my descent into the ground below. It smells horrible, like aged feces. Humans used to dispose their waste down here, long before modernized toilets had the capability to disintegrate droppings on the spot. The smell must be from the remnants of the shit and urine, left to rot for decades, even centuries maybe. I can barely stand it, but I continue on with my mission, walking down the north end of the tunnel as my directions tell me to do.
The floor is a little moist. It's dark down here, but there are a few lights adorned on the ceiling that help me see. The air is colder than on the surface and occasionally I feel a few drafts of wind. It is larger than I thought it would be, and longer, too.
At the end, I reach a large met
al door. It looks new, probably something that had been built over the remains of the sewer. It has a numeric pad digitized on it, meaning a code is needed to open it. Behind it lies the main console that will allow me to disable the security system. According to the specs given to me, there should also be a metal grating on the ceiling of the room, which I can use to gain direct access to the warehouse floor.
But first things first, I must get past the secured door. Luckily for me, Candy was able to hack into the Primm-Phillips secured servers and obtain the access code for this door. She says it was pretty easy to do so, something about their server walls being breakable and a weak infrastructure on their encryption. It was a lot of technical jargon that I didn't understand.
I enter the ten digit combination: 4815162342. And as usual, she doesn't fail. Her access code works like a charm. I hear a click and clank within the metal door and it slides open. When she first gave me the code, I was wondering why I couldn't use an access code on the top entrance. She told me the locks used to fortify the security system were older than the rest of the security in the building. They built that first and later upgraded the security upstairs. Then they simply never upgraded back the stuff underground. Really shows you how well maintained this place is if everything is so out of sync.
I walk in to see a room very different from the dank tunnels. It's clean and smells much better. The walls are white and on the opposite end of the door is a giant computer. It's equipped with hologram technology, meaning there's no screen and, when powered on, a graphical interface appears in thin air. The room wasn't exactly state of the art, but compared to where I was earlier, it is a welcome change.
After I enter, the door shuts behind me. I turn back to Candy's instructions to see what I need to do. According to her, it's a standard Tang Phalanx Third Generation, meaning it's one of the earlier models. These ones have a manual override, which is configured by remapping certain wires on the circuit board. The newer models, which Candy said were in the ninth generation at this point, removed this feature, but I guess they didn't bother upgrading this console.
I open a small panel at the bottom of the box and I see nothing but a sea of wires attached to the circuit board. Candy's instructions make it very clear where I should place what. Switch circuit A from port A1 to A2, wire R from port B2 to B5 and so on. The goal of all this switching is to cause a system failure without making it obvious to the system. If I go about randomly pulling wires, the system's AI will be aware of tampering and automatically cause the alarms to go off. The wires I'm programming are masked switches that the artificial intelligence purposely ignores. Then after I'm done, the system failure goes off before the AI can react. It's a manual override designed to trick the AI from doing anything about it. It was installed in case the AI goes haywire and prevents a manual override. Once a system failure is detected, and after the AI realizes it can't do anything about it, thanks to the override, it automatically shuts down the security programs and my task is done.
After I make my modifications, I put the panel back in place and fire up the console. The graphical interface appears to me and it boots up. The artificial intelligence then speaks.
"System failure, going into automatic shutdown mode," it says. "Security programs will deactivate in five minutes."
It works! A timer then appears on the screen. I guess they give a five minute buffer in case someone wants to manually turn the security programs back on. So now I wait until I can enter the grounds.
During the five minutes, the console has computing capabilities, meaning I can use it to enter the infospace. With some time to kill, I decide why not. I open a new window and use the graphical interface to move some windows around. With my hands, I guide the display in front of me and open a browser.
Although I am not as technically gifted as some of my brothers and sisters, I am good enough to browse the space. It's easy enough. Once a window is popped open, simply enter your query and all this information pops up. The infospace has been around as long as intelligent animals have, probably longer. In its infancy, it was called the internet, but now the moniker has evolved to the infospace. I guess it's to emphasize the size of it. I heard back then you actually had to wait to open up browser pages and that it would take multiple queries, or searches as they called it, to find what you really wanted. They even had to remember web addresses. I can't imagine living in a time like that. Now, all you have to do is ask a question and ninety nine percent of the time, the results you're looking for get to you in a flash. Thank God for modern tech.
There's still about two minutes left and what I want to investigate is our next move. Tiago mentioned using the teleporters to connect to the Moon via a stop at San Francisco, but he might want to know some information about the teleporter stations around here. I use a quick query to get the locations of all the local teleporters near our hideout. The infospace returns information on two stations, the Li and Gonzalez stations. I wonder which one Tiago plans to lead us to? The Gonzalez one is closer to our hide out, it's probably that one.
Tiago and the others would no doubt need to know this, so I decide to retrieve the information. A few seconds later, a data cube pops out from the console.
"Security programs shut down," the computer says, breaking my thoughts.
It's time to go, but before I do I take some time to scan the warehouse, to get the locations of the items I plan to grab. I use the console to do an inventory search and I take note of where the food, insta-items, clothes, and other things are. I take the floor plans that Candy has handed to me and mark the locations on my map. The list has been double checked and I take one last look at it to make sure I have the rundown. I then climb up the ladder and open the grating that leads to the warehouse floor. It's lighter than the grating outside, making it much easier for me to remove.
I get above surface, put the grating back on the hole, and take a look around. There are boxes piled sky high.
"Crap, how am I going to sort through all this stuff?" I ask myself. "I didn't expect this place to be so crowded. I thought it was a small supply depot."
Digging through them might be more difficult than I thought. But it shouldn't be that much of a problem. After all I had done thus far, I feel a new sense of confidence that I have never felt before. I knew I could achieve, I just needed the opportunity to do it.
But then, my eyes go back to floor level and I see two figures in the shadows. The light from the Moon shines through a window on the wall, and from the darkness they step through it. A wolf and a gorilla appear before me, wearing militaristic uniforms. The wolf doesn't look too armed, he has some odd looking helmet headset combo on him and some kind of box on his front leg, but the gorilla looks menacing. The main thing I notice is his very big gun.
These must have been the animals that killed Leonard, these must be the animals that are after us.
"Stop right there," the gorilla says. I'm surprised because his human speech is very good for a different species. I understand him clearly.
I tense up and put my hand on my tote. I remember the explosives that Tiago had given to me and wonder if I should use them. It's too early, and I am seriously outgunned, so I wait for them to speak again.
"Drop the bag," the gorilla instructs me. I do not.
"Who are you?" I ask. "Are you here to kill me?"
The wolf then speaks. "Yes. On orders of the United Species Alliance, straight from the leaders."
A part of me is shocked. This was a direct order from the top of the top of the United Species Alliance. I knew they were involved in some scope, but I didn't think the big bosses were involved. This is larger than I imagined. The world really is after us.
Suddenly, without warning, the gorilla props his gun up from his arms and aims it at me. I only have a few fractions of a second to react, so I dash to the side, reaching for cover behind a stack of boxes.
I hear a deafening
blast echo behind me, causing items to fly everywhere. The force from it sends me flying headfirst and I use my arms to break my fall forward. Dust and debris rise and it becomes hard to see. I am little discombobulated, but uninjured.
The boxes don't provide much to hide behind, but since there are so many of them, they keep me hidden. I quickly get to my feet and hide behind another one as I try to figure out where my pursuers went after the first shot.
"Damnit, I missed!" I hear the gorilla shout. I realize that they're not far and that my only option is to bolt out of here. The supplies would have to wait if I want to live.
I start running towards where I think the entrance is, knocking down piles of boxes that stand in my way. Unfortunately, my sprint is a dead giveaway and another shot from the gorilla's massive gun comes hurdling my way. It once again misses about three feet from me, but it's still enough to knock me off my toes and cause another rain of supplies.
Once again, I am disoriented, but I hear the footsteps of the two coming my way. I look around to see if there's anything I can use as a weapon. I still have my bomb, but now is not the best time to use it unless I wanted to blow myself up in the process.
Luckily, though, fate intervenes. I see a button on a nearby pole that says conveyor switch. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I believe it turns on the machinery in this room and might provide a good enough distraction for me. I dash to it and press the button.
The machinery starts to run. Boxes move and the warehouse becomes noisy from the echoes of gears and devices.
"He's turned it on!" I hear faintly hear the gorilla say. "I can't hear shit."
Not wasting an instant of time, I make my way to the exit, bulldozing anything in my way. I don't care about the noise I make, I just need to get out.
I see it, the chain link fence with the word 'exit' marked on top. Never in my life do I feel so relieved to see a sign. I might not have what I came for, but at least I'm going to make it out alive.
Or so I thought. Something jolts me from the side. Feathers poof into the atmosphere. I fall to my right and tumble on the ground face first. Instinctively, I try to get back up, using my arms for balance. But as I lift myself up, my arm suddenly has a strong stinging sensation, like someone has pinched me. I collapse and once again my body hits the floor. I roll over, face up, and I reach my right arm over to my left, where the pain comes from.
To my surprise, a dark, thick liquid covers my hands. It is my own blood. I look to the left, the direction the blow came from. It is the wolf. His helmet protrudes a barrel that is smoking.
The gorilla rushes over.
"Nice shot!" he says to the wolf. "It's a good thing we decided to split up. Now let's end this."
I look directly into the eyes of the wolf. They are cold and empty. I sense that he has no satisfaction in what he is doing, but from his lack of emotion, I know he is going to kill me.
But I will not go down like that. I reach in my bag for the bomb and press on the trigger. I hear a high screeching noise, take it out, and throw it in their direction. I then jump as far away as I can.
Time freezes. I hear the explosive hitting the ground, the bellow of the gorilla yelling to move. And as quickly as I threw it, I hear an ear shattering boom behind me.
This is the third time I have been knocked down this evening. The gorilla's shots barely moved me, but this bomb flings me clear across the room. The force throws me directly into a wall, back first. It feels like someone has slammed me with a sledgehammer.
I lay on the ground, bones probably broken from my encounter with the wall. Everything on my body is sore, my legs, back, arms and head. I look at my arms and legs and see that they are bleeding, but at this point, I can't even locate where my wounds are. I see that they are painted with a thick coat of dark red. I touch my head and I feel the same thing.
I guess it's the adrenaline, because under normal circumstances, I would have been out cold. But things are visible, I can still see, and what I see is a large cloud of smoke in the air. Everything in my field of vision is dusty. I don't see the gorilla or the wolf either, nor do I hear them.
"Did I kill them?" I say to myself. But before I could even continue speaking, something trickles from the smoke. They're bright and blue, like a neon light. They're also small, and bounce on the ground toward my direction. They look like little spheres of lights.
"What is that?" I ask.
And then suddenly, I am flung from the ground again. The little blue spheres burst in front of me with violent aggression. Each explosion is like a tiny bomb and the collective of them sends me into the air and tears up my body. I feel things that I have never felt before, cuts so deep that it feels like something is eating at my flesh. Things I had control over suddenly do nothing. I try to move my fingers as I hit the ground, but I have none.
My body falls to the floor, and I know that pieces of me are gone. I cough as smoke and fumes enter my lungs. My vision is fuzzy, my ears are ringing, and I look down to my waist and see that my right leg is gone. My left hand has disappeared too, replaced by a stump that oozes out red liquid. My feathers, once glistening and healthy are now charred and burnt. My body is in agony, but the shock and adrenaline make it hard to focus on any one part. I am literally smoking.
There's nothing left to feel. I have failed. I came this close to being good enough, to being the guy who my family could depend on, but success evades me even until death.
I see the wolf emerging from the cloud of smoke, the barrel from his helmet still out and pointed at me. I hear him say something, and I'm not clear what it is. It sounds like fire, but it doesn't matter anymore. It's the last thing I hear. Seconds after the wolf speaks, I feel a jolt hit my head. An incredible pain occurs, like my skull is collapsing on itself. Everything turns black.
Looks like I didn't have what it takes.