The Lost & Damned 1 Read online

  SILVER:

  The Lost & Damned

  (Part One)

  Written By

  Keira Michelle Telford

  Copyright © Keira Michelle Telford 2012

  Venatic Press

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Chimera & Cover Artwork by

  Kitt Lapeña

  www.facebook.com/scarypet

  scarypet.deviantart.com

  Other Books in the Series…

  SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain)

  WWW.ELLACROSS.COM

  JOIN THE FIGHT

  “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

  -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Amaranthe & Surrounding Area

  (Circa 2348 CE)

  Chimera

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ZERO

  An Exordium

  Second Reclamation Territory

  Amaranthe, 2338 CE

  – Ten Years Ago

  Destroy. Reclaim. Rebuild. Control.

  Repeat.

  Destroy. Reclaim. Rebuild. Control.

  Again.

  Over and over and over again, the mantra repeats inside her head. Steel toed military boots stand their ground in half an inch of water, the heels embossed with a titanium plate that displays the government’s seal of power—an Omega.

  The Omega Administration.

  Inside a derelict building, rain water pours in from the open roof, slowly flooding the crumbling remains of a long dead human civilization.

  As miniature waves lap at the edges of the military boots, they catch upon the light of a fallen flashlight. Swirls of deep merlot mingle with the clear rainwater, and red tendrils of spilled blood pool around her feet. Something small and round, caught in the gravitational flow of the water, bounces on the surface, spinning and tumbling toward the military boots. Seconds before impact, the toe of the right boot rises up and captures the tiny ball gently beneath it.

  An eye.

  Detached from its former owner, the human-sized eyeball—complete with a pink tail of optic nerve and muscle attachments—gleams bright against the moonlight that’s shining down from above.

  Gleams bright.

  Gleams violet.

  A bright violet iris, crushed beneath the military boot.

  Pop.

  Exploding eyeball fluid joins the water-blood soup mix.

  Click.

  A silver-plated, custom engraved HK USP handgun is removed from its holster and taken in the right hand of a seasoned Hunter. Her name, rank and Division are embroidered over the chest of her Kevlar vest, above the Omega emblems.

  Commander Ella Cross.

  Hunter Division.

  Tall and strong, her long blonde hair is always pulled back into a ponytail. She’s in her mid-twenties, and would be captivatingly beautiful if her form were not perennially hidden beneath a soldier’s uniform. Her face, smeared with blood and dirt, is pleasingly symmetrical, and her large, silver eyes abound with feeling: full of the emotions she too often tries to hide.

  Oblivious to the rain, despite being soaked through, she keeps her focus and raises the gun silently upon her enemy.

  A Chimera.

  A skeletal frame that was—many centuries ago—human, is now deformed and quadrupedal. Opposable thumbs have become redundant dew claws, and delicate, pink human skin has been replaced by a thick, gray, leathery sack of flesh. Enraged by the loss of an eye, this particular Chimera digs its long talons into the floorboards so deeply that one of the talons breaks away from the nail bed, tearing through the nail matrix, causing instant and profuse bleeding.

  Its fight or flight response triggered, muscle attachments along the creature’s thoracic spine begin to contract. Signaling to an opponent that an attack is imminent, this contraction results in the horripilation of spinal erectile tissue: several engorged bumps, swelling with blood.

  Swaying its hindquarters from side to side, the Chimera swaggers, trying to make itself appear bigger. Deep inside its throat, a low rumble begins. Baring its teeth and raising its nose high into the air, the Chimera shows off its strength. Long canines protrude from the maxilla, torn pieces of flesh from its last meal still clinging to the gum line.

  Remnants of the Chimera’s human ancestry are few and far between. Human ears sit awkwardly on the side of its head. A human nose has adapted poorly to such a drastic change in cranial anatomy, and appears stretched and pig-like. Only the eyes—or eye, in this case—retain some semblance of humanity. The shape and size remain similar to humans, but the color is distinct and unusual.

  Violet.

  The Chimera looks up at Commander Ella Cross—or Silver, as she prefers—and she waits with her weapon poised. Wrapped tightly around her wrist, a pair of military dog tags jangle together.

  Not hers.

  Stamped ‘DECEASED’, they belong to Jonathan Cross.

  Done posturing, the Chimera turns in Silver’s direction and takes a step forward.

  Click.

  She fires, but … nothing.

  Empty clip.

  Sensing weakness, the Chimera quickens its approach but slips on the wet floor. Unable to withstand the pressure of the animal’s colossal weight slamming down against it with full force, the floor gives way.

  Not soon enough.

  The Chimera buries its talons into Silver’s ankle.

  Dragging her down with it, they both tumble into the floor below, the empty gun bouncing away into the shadows. Landing flat on her back, Silver struggles to breathe. Water pours down from above and temporarily blinds her. She rolls over onto her hands and knees, trying to get a visual on the Chimera.

  A shot.

  Out of her periphery, Silver sees the animal fall, the gunshot obliterating its other eye. Following the trajectory of the shot, she finds Alexander King.

  Hunter.

  Friend.

  More.

  Sitting in an old rocking chair with a cigarette between his lips, reading a vintage 2013 CE newspaper he found on the floor, he exudes the calm, trained demeanor of an experienced soldier. Tall, with dark hair and soft eyes, he’s the locker room pin-up for every female Cadet in the Hunter Division training Academy. He has the kind of arms you feel safe in, no matter where you are, and the experienced hands that always know just how to touch.

  A few years older than Silver, he has a more practiced patience about him. His heart rate doesn’t exceed seventy-five steady beats per minute, despite the war going on around them. Barely looking up from the newspaper, he sets his gun down on the arm of the chair.

  “That’s fifteen to me.”

  Silver cracks a smile, hauling herself up off the floor and dusting herself down, stepping out of the way of the rain. “It’s still early.” She finds her gun and reloads it, nodding toward the newspaper in his lap. “Brushing up on your human history?”

  “Don’t you care at all about how we got here?”

  Silver shakes her head. “I care about getting us out.”

  Alex folds up the paper—The New York Times—and tosses it aside. The headline story reads: ‘End is Nigh: Chimera Virus Breaks Loose’. It tells of a global terror attack—a catastrophe of epic proportions. During an oil crisis, several major political organizations pooled their resources and deployed a biological weapon, intended to wipe out all opposition to their claim on a newly discovered oil pocket in Russia.

  Unfortunately, Russia fought back with unprec
edented force and the war turned nuclear. In the midst of their retaliation, the biological weapon—a blood borne pathogen—was vaporized.

  A viral strain of purposefully engineered synthetic DNA.

  It became airborne.

  No antidote.

  Exposure meant transformation.

  Humans became Chimera.

  On the back page, a small footnote documents the extinction of polar bears.

  Silver wanders across the room to the nearest window and looks out over the city. Something that was previously known as New York City is now a fragile shell of Old World human civilization, smothered in fire and echoing with the war cries of the Hunter Division.

  “Human greed destroyed the Old World centuries ago.” Silver’s jaw tightens. “We fight for the New World now.”

  In the distance, the fortifications dividing this reclamation territory, Old World Queens, from an area of human occupation in Old World Brooklyn can be seen protruding above the skyline. Within those fortifications, humans are safe.

  Safe inside the Sentinel District: a part of the first reclaimed human city.

  Amaranthe.

  Her city.

  She watches, stone cold, as a Hunter on the street below dispatches a Chimera with his bare hands.

  “Destroy. Reclaim. Rebuild. Control,” she repeats.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alternative Meat

  The Fringe District

  Amaranthe, 2348 CE

  – Present Day

  It barely hurts.

  Sharp steel slices through human skin like butter, and Silver knows just how deep to cut. Running her knife’s blade along a fading pink scar of damaged skin, she opens up a fresh, shallow wound and lets the liquid gush.

  Flowing from this laceration just below the crook of her right elbow, red tendrils spill out like water from an overflowing cup, snaking down her forearm in all directions. Beside this wound there’s another, and another below that. In all, ten parallel lines mark the soft skin of her inner arm, each in varying stages of repair.

  So used to pain, a faint tingle in her fingertips and a sudden rush of warmth to her skin is all she can feel. Soon, the area is throbbing with every beat of her heart. The warm sensation intensifies at the source, while her fingers feel the cold of the autumn breeze for the first time, her body drawing all of its resources toward the site of the injury in an attempt to mitigate the damages.

  Standing perfectly calm, Silver waits for a reaction from her audience.

  A Chimera.

  The lure of her blood ensures that it won’t try to flee. Its violet eyes bulge with anticipation at the sight and smell of pre-dinner drinks, and the wary creature sways its muscular hind quarters slowly back and forth. This trick, the swagger, is supposed to intimidate the opponent, but Silver isn’t the least bit deterred.

  It’s been a long day. Her old, scuffed Hunter Division boots need to be re-soled again, and her feet feel like they’re on fire. Her jeans are torn at the knee, and patched up crudely with hemp cloth. A filthy tank top clings to her skin with sweat. From her neck, a tiny bead of moisture breaks free and glides crossways over two pairs of military dog tags.

  Hers and her lover’s.

  Both stamped ‘DISCHARGED’.

  It’s been six years since her banishment to the Fringe District, and the only surviving vestiges of her life in the Hunter Division are the Omega emblems on her boots. Still visible beneath layers of dried blood and the mud of over two thousand days and nights, they’re the last proud remnants of a past devoted to the pursuit of human advancement.

  She’s now in her mid-thirties, but her looks have been resilient against the violence of her life. Still strong, still beautiful—still dangerous—her grip tightens around the knife in her hand.

  In a second or two, the Chimera will pounce. In preparation, it shifts its weight into its back end and lets out a loud shrill. Any other Chimera within earshot are beckoned to join in the feast.

  None appear.

  In the Fringe District, live Chimera are kept only for the pleasure of their human captors. Restrained in cellars and basements, behind electric fences and heavy chains, often under armed guard, escapees are an extraordinarily rare find—they’re just too valuable to lose.

  Every night, these ferocious beasts are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of anyone able to afford a bet, and pit fights have become big business. Chimera never make it out of the ring alive. For their owners, death has its own price tag.

  Chimera are the only legitimate source of meat in Amaranthe, and pit fight losers are butchered and sold as soon as the animal’s corpse hits the ground. This helps to supplement the ruthless meat market, in which the demand consistently outweighs the readily available supply.

  With the small exception of these pit fight losers, all the meat in the city is the product of a Hunter’s work, and Silver knows it—she used to be on the front line of it.

  Hunters are relied upon for so much, and meat is just one component. Live female Chimera are brought back into the city to be used for milking in the dairies, and for the extraction of abstergent serum—a milky, white antibacterial fluid—from their eyes. Other live specimens are captured for use in the Omega labs for medical research. Some are even used as target practice for the students in the Hunter Division Academy.

  During the Second Reclamation, every viable kill was retrieved to feed the city and meat was plentiful. Now, though, with the city still recovering from the unexpected hiatus of the Third Reclamation, meat in the Fringe District is scarce.

  At the Hunter General’s order, the reclamation finally recommenced just two weeks ago, and the Hunters are keeping all of their daily kills just to satisfy the Sentinel District population.

  Panic on both sides over the sudden irregularity in supply means that less and less fresh meat seems to be making its way into the Fringe. Consequently, the price of Chimera meat continues to sky rocket way above what most here can afford, and the alternative meat market is thriving.

  Alternative meat.

  Human.

  That guy you passed on the street corner last week is next week’s dinner. Though most Fringe District residents push the ugliness of it to the very back of their minds, and pretend not to care where this meat comes from, Silver can’t do that. She’s never eaten it, and nor will she. If she can’t afford Chimera meat, she’ll go without.

  Not today, though.

  A veritable bounty is staring her right in the face. With her U-Check balance hovering just one bottle of liquor above zero, she’d been starting to worry. After five days without proper food, she can tell that her performance isn’t up to par.

  Distracted by her grumbling stomach, she doesn’t hear the footsteps.

  She mistakes the creak of floorboards for one of the building’s natural, ready-to-crumble groans, and she doesn’t even smell the stench of freshly burned cannabis until it’s already too late.

  A gun is pressed against the back of her head, and a deep voice orders the Chimera to back down. The Chimera is an adolescent, probably hand-raised, and still easily manipulated. Before it’s old enough to fight, it’ll be used as a show of muscle to help guard property or merchandise.

  Today, on the top floor of a hemp factory, it’s watching over a stash of marijuana buds, left to dry out underneath a tarp. Below them, on the ground floor, the growing room contains rows upon rows of cannabis plants, tended to assiduously by dozens of laidback horticulturists.

  This practice, not just a means of producing pot for the illegal drugs trade, is also an essential part of New World life. Hemp is used to make clothing, bed sheets and other soft furnishings. Almost everything made of fabric is derived from hemp, since the cannabis plant was one of the few not only to survive the apocalypse, but to flourish in the wake of it.

  Refusing to completely adhere to the order barked at it by its master, the Chimera puts its belly to the floor and begins to crawl slowly toward Silver.

 
At the press of a button, the man holding Silver at gunpoint triggers an electric shock, delivered to the Chimera via a metal collar clamped around its neck. Such collars are usually reserved for Jades, the Fringe District prostitutes, but their use is gradually becoming more generalized.

  The Chimera squeals and rolls over onto its back, splaying its legs apart. Genitals exposed, the creature conveys its submission by urinating on itself, and keeping its gaze averted.

  By Silver’s right ear, at the very corner of her peripheral vision, she can see a pair of broken Police Division handcuffs dangling from the wrist of the man with the gun.

  “How did you break free?” she asks, more curious than afraid.

  “You must be off your game. A cheap piece of metal can’t beat a hacksaw and a little bit of patience.”

  Silently, Silver reprimands herself, makes a mental note of the mistake, and attempts to recover the situation. “It doesn’t matter. The Police Division is already en route.”

  Without even the faintest hint of sirens upon the air, the man confidently calls her bluff and pulls back the hammer of the gun. “They must be lost.”

  Thunk.

  Metal hits wood.

  Tumbling in through a shattered window, a stun grenade rolls over the uneven floor and comes to an unsteady stop at the Chimera’s feet. The creature inspects it, poking its snotty nose at the Omega emblems stamped along the edge.

  Silver cocks an eyebrow. “I think they found us.”

  A timer hits zero.

  Armed with the advantage of being able to visually recognize different types of Omega grenades, Silver knows just what to expect. She squeezes her eyes tight shut, clamps her hands over her ears and drops to the floor.

  Boom!

  The whole building shakes with the shockwave of the sound, and the room fills with a split second flash of bright, white light. The Chimera squeals in pain, its delicate retinas unable to withstand the glare. A tiny trickle of blood seeps out from inside one of its ears, the drum burst from its proximity to the noise.