The Quest of One

Nature

The left side of the highway leading into Los Angeles is backed up for miles by hundreds and hundreds of refugees. Some of the people who weren't lucky enough to refuel before the earthquake have abandoned their cars altogether and taken to walking the rest of the way east. Where we're heading, several raging forest fires cough up smoke and a burnt orange glow against the night sky.

We get a military escort behind the convoy of humanitarian aid vehicles leading into the city. As far as they know, the semi-trucks we travel with hold boxes of relief material for the citizens still trapped inside their leveled city. And unless we find a Garde somewhere in all of this disaster, then the humans will be able to go on with their shitty lives never knowing what we hold captive.

Before we slaughter them and conquer the survivors, that is.

Adamus rides bitch between me and the General. His eyes are closed, the homework in his lap forgotten mid-sentence. I grab the pencil that dangles from his limp hands and rest it atop my index finger, aiming it at the traffic on the highway. I imagine that the refugees are fleeing Mogadorian expansion, and that I am one of the warriors chosen to pick them off—

The General reaches across Adamus and grabs my arm. His grip is like the bite of a kraul—there's no way free unless he chooses to let go. I grit my teeth and drop the pencil, fighting every urge not to yelp in pain. The General finally releases me and Adamus jerks awake, startled by his father's sudden closeness. He sits up, aping that regal posture the General carries, and stares ahead at the dark skyline.

"I need you two to maintain operational integrity when we reach the camps," the General growls. "You will not compromise us."

"Yes, sir," replies Adamus. "We will not fail you."

I feel the General staring daggers at me, waiting for my answer. I simply nod in response, maintaining the face of a warrior as my left arm finally regains circulation.

The triage is lit by floodlights in the LA Memorial Coliseum. Adamus and I help unload the supplies from the truck. All around us are mortals wailing in anguish. Broken bodies rest on gurneys, doctors scamper between patients, and in the midst of it all are trueborn tech weenies. When they're not helping the medics, they watch with repressed delight as the humans set broken bones and amputate mangled limbs.

"Pathetic," I mutter to Adamus, "isn't it?"

But Adamus isn't paying attention to me. As he carries a crate of medicine in his frail arms, he never takes his eyes off his father. In a single tent, the General looms over a row of gurney beds and the two patients on them—a lanky white man with a round face and a burly woman in a hospital gown. The man speaks emphatically, imploring the General for help. Or mercy. I can't tell. Eventually the General walks to the front of the tent and closes the curtains, isolating the three of them from the rest of the camp.

"What do you think they're talking about?" I ask.

Adamus glances over his shoulder at me. "Don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if that guy knew something about the earthquake."

"What do you mean?"

After he sets the box down in one of the medical tents, Adamus and I sit at the rim of the trailer. "Well," he starts, "operational integrity ensures that we only interact directly if it involves a possible Loric presence."

"Uh, right."

"If that's true, then why are we working the relief effort for a city full of mortals?"

"Because...a Loric must be nearby?"

"Or maybe it was a Loric at the epicenter of all this."

Before I can reply, the General rushes from the tent. He barks at the doctors for help in a voice dripping with false humanity. I wonder what damage he must have done to that man.

His gaze nearly falls on us.

"Shit." I jump to my feet and grab one of the crates behind me, dropping it in Adamus's lap.

"Ouch!" Adamus grunts. "By Ra, Ivan!"

"Get off your ass before he sees!" I hiss, grabbing two more crates.

They're heavier than I expected, and the top box slips and falls hard onto the steel floor of the trailer. Hard enough to shake the floor and beyond.

Loud enough to awaken what lies behind the wall of boxes.

I feel the piken before I hear it. The beast's breath is hot and deep and carries a bass that rumbles in my chest. Its growl should be low enough that nobody outside hears it, but as the roar rises in intensity, I realize what this sound means.

This piken is hungry and the tranquilizers are wearing off.

Suddenly the trailer is rocking back and forth. Adamus and I leap off the rim as boxes go sliding about. A series of upturned screeches accompany sharp bangs against the inside of the truck. It roars again and again, trying to tear itself free from the reinforced cage to no avail.

I turn away from the trailer and back to the triage. No more moans, no movement, no doctors weaving in between tents. Just an encampment of humans who just heard the bays of a creature that shouldn't exist on their planet.

The General brushes past me and walks to the driver's side door, mutters, "Dammit, boys. I told you two to maintain integrity."

He reaches inside the cab to retrieve a black leather sheath, the simple white hilt jutting from the top of it. As he pulls free the sword and points it toward the sky, I realize that this is going to be an example of what happens to mortals when they learn too much.

The crowd is silent as, by order of the General's nods, one of the tech weenies jogs up to the trailer and pushes past some of the supplies. The trueborn unhooks the heavy-duty latch on the cage door and sprints out of the way as the piken crawls from the truck.

It opens its long snout and tastes the night air, drool falling from its teeth and forming a pool on the ground behind the truck. Enclosed in the football stadium, the piken will have free rein over the mortals in the triage—the humans who now know too much.

The piken lifts its head, lets out an earsplitting roar, and then lunges.