Chapter 1
Chapter 5
The tall monolithic concrete structures, that once was the heart of the city’s booming industry, lay decaying from the years of neglect. The walls of the structures were lined with graffiti and alarmingly large cracks exposing the rebar and support that were the only visible thing keeping them intact. The fractured or shattered glass giving preview of the mostly empty assembly floor. The portals on the ceiling giving anything inside view of the sky, but the collapsed ceiling failing its main purpose by allowing the rain to fall through unimpeded. The apartments that dwelled in the looming factories’ shadows didn’t fare any better by the ravages of time. The former homes of many of the factory workers now only host a few unfortunate residents and more than a few herds or family of fluffies. The crumbling walls and broken ceilings gave most some cover from the rain, but it gave fair warning of the dangers of the observant that, if either faltered under the every increasing weight of time, the rain was a more comforting and forgiving substance when crashing down from the heavens.
When the truck came to a stop, Dylan and Stryker hopped out of the vehicle; neither saying a word as they went to the back to kit up for the hunt. Dylan assisted Stryker with his harness. The polycarbonate light weight harness would protect Stryker against attacks from hunters, or small arms fire, and allow him to move freely as he wished. After Stryker was set up, Dylan equipped his own polycarbonate vest with his mask, goggles, and combat gloves. Once done, he holstered two pistols and draped his assault rifle sling around his neck as the rifle clung to his chest. Dylan slammed a magazine loaded with explosive rounds into his rifles and loaded a few more mags into different pockets on his vest. Closing the back of the truck and locking it, they both headed to the factory to begin their search. The hunt was on.
The crackle of shattered glass and the grinding of pebbles on pavement under hoof and boot made a stealth entry impossible as the pair entered the loading bay of the factory. The flashlight from the rifle pierced the veil of darkness as they pressed forward. Dylan swept the light to the left where the assembly of tractors had taken place with some trapped by their mechanical anchors and the rust covered them like a blanket. No movement to be seen as Dylan swept right to the offices when a few fluffy families took up residency. The light from the weapon causing most to stir as a foreign beam decided to bask them in its mission to illuminate the void of darkness. The proclamations of beauty directed towards the light like a heavenly being arose from the fluffies that saw it. Dylan turned the light over to the nearest nest to see if the hunter was hiding among them as an impostor. None showed any concern as they blindly marched towards the light in a vain attempt to hug and love it.
Dylan quickly turned off the light and navigated a few feet away, the pathetic cries and sobbing of the fluffies for their illuminate god caused Dylan to take pause. The cries would last hours, but for Dylan’s sake, a few minutes would give ample time for the hunter to strike its prey. The cries didn’t change to terror which Dylan took as his prey wasn’t among them. Dylan flicked the light back on and resumed his search. They both came across the same scenario for the other two divided offices before making their way to a split in their search. One way leading towards the breakroom and bathrooms, and the other leading to the observation platform where the supervisor sat to overwatch the factory floor.
“Do you want to take the breakrooms, or do you want the supervisor’s office,” Dylan asked as he looked down the small corridor to the four rooms on the ground floor.
“I guess I’ll take the lower area,” Stryker looking up at the rising stairs to the supervisor’s office, “It’ll be easier for me to search down here. You take up stairs and look to see if you can see anything we missed on the factory floor.”
“Got it. Good luck and call me if you run into trouble,” Dylan started to ascend the stairs before stopping a turned to Stryker, “And don’t harass any of the fluffies here, please. This crumbling building makes it hard enough to be stealthy. The last thing we need is these things screaming their heads off.”
“I didn’t plan on it, but if they catch any glimpse at me, they will scream anyway,” Stryker pressed a button on the collar of his harness igniting two beams from the shoulder mounted lights, “But I’ll try and keep a low profile, or at the very least blind them.” Dylan stifled a chuckle, nodded to Stryker, and resumed his noisy climb to the office.
The rickety steps moaned and cracked, threatening to collapse, as Dylan took very ginger steps up. The floating pod of the supervisor’s observation hadn’t fared any better, but the view from there gave clear sightlines to the factory floor. The office was covered in dust, rust, and a scrabble of papers that littered everything. The old wood desk, that must have been a pain to get up here, was covered in papers from policy changes, projection spreadsheets, and monthly quotas. Moving behind the desk where the supervisor would sit and watch over the demoralized workers as a lord over their serf of the kingdom he served, Dylan stepped on something that made a muffled crack. Swinging his light over the object that crunched under his boot, he saw a fluffy skeleton which surprised Dylan. The little thing must have come up here thinking it was a good idea to get food or to show its brevity of bravery to its herd before not being able to get down due to the extreme height. Dylan ignored it and moved towards the window to see if he could spot anything out of the ordinary.
Colorful dots milled about on the factory floor oblivious of their new observer. Dylan could see some of the poorly camouflaged creatures that were perusing to meet and hug, fight, or fuck to their hearts content. The absence of humans made them wearier to outsiders and very codependent on each other. Dylan saw one of the homeless residents come in from the employee entrance of the factory and get assaulted by the bright teal dot. The assumed smarty staring down the giant in a tempt to scare them away only to be snatched up and taken out of the factory. Dylan could only assume it would be used for food since desperate times do call for desperate measures. The rest of the fluffies fled; leaving their so-called leader to its fate as they didn’t want to join them. Satisfied with his observation, Dylan radioed to Stryker.
“Nothing up here, and the factory floor is clear. I’ll meet you near the employee entrance. Do not go outside until I get there. The homeless are using the fluffies as food, and they may think you would be a good substitute for their smaller catch.”
“Roger that. I’ll be cautious. Nothing of note in the breakrooms and the bathrooms were clear. The doors too heavy for a fluffy to open. Anything to report up there,” Stryker asked as he carefully navigated towards the door.
“Not the target we are searching for, but the ecology of this place is bleak. I’ll be there in a few,” Dylan said as he stepped from the shaky stairs to secure concrete. With a sigh of relief, he increased pace as to not keep Stryker waiting.
As Dylan reached the door, Stryker appeared from the shadows like an apparition come to haunt him. Dylan, not wanting to alert the residents just yet quietly opened the door just wide enough to see if anyone was waiting on the other side. All that could be see were three people standing over a barrel fire cooking their catch for the evening. The still weeping smarty pleading with his predators to spare his life as he was a good fluffy. Dylan shook his head at the absurdity of these things sometimes knowing they could never comprehend the cruel mistresses of fate and luck. Dylan met Stryker’s gaze.
“Three residents over by the burning barrel. No one else in sight. We are going to move to the apartment on the right and search there. Remember, no interactions with the residents unless absolutely necessary,” Dylan whispered his orders to Stryker, who nodded.
With caution, Dylan raised his rifle and cautiously opened the door, exposing both to the dreary, rainy outside world. As both pushed out into the rain, they made head way towards the apartments on the right, away from the three cooking their now silent meal. Dylan kicked in the blocked double doors to the apartment giving them full access to the run-down building. Ignoring the first floor, Dylan and Stryker made their way up to the second in a faster pace than in the factory.
“We have to find this thing before it attacks anyone here,” Dylan’s sentiment was reciprocated by Stryker.
“Yeah. It wouldn’t take much for it to target anyone here if they are competing for food. Hunters are notorious for attacking anyone or anything that is utilizing its food supply.”
The stairs to the third floor were blocked by rubbles that would be impossible to move. Dylan looked at the corridor leading to the other side of the building and pressed forward with Stryker in tow. The rooms that were exposed to the hallway were ordinary and bare compared to their modern counterparts, but something about a third of the way down caught Dylan’s eye. One of the rooms looked occupied despite being blocked from the outside. Dylan came to a halt, which almost made Stryker crash into the back of him, to investigate why that suspicious looking room. Dylan, with his weapon at the ready, slowly pushed the door open as to not alert anyone inside. The room had no occupants, but it was filled to the brim with lab equipment, test tubes, bunsen burners, and a variety of assorted tools. The room was much larger than it appeared in the hallway, for whoever worked with this equipment broke the walls in between the adjacent room and the wall from that room.
Dylan made his way to the middle section of the expanded room which housed computer terminals, file cabinets, and scattered documents all over a metal table that extended into the final quadrant. Dylan had been too preoccupied with the amass of laboratory grade equipment that he didn’t hear the crunching of glass coming for the door they entered from. Thankfully, Stryker did, and got Dylan’s attention as quickly as possible before hiding himself.
“Psst! Dylan. We have company. Quick. Hide,” Stryker dover under the covers that shielded some of the equipment from the elements that found their way into a busted sliding door overlooking a balcony.
Dylan took Stryker’s lead and ran to the final section and hid behind a row of empty cages that helped break up Dylan’s form as the walls were that of a dark background. A minute later, a figure passed by Dylan; he was so engrossed with the files in hand that he was unaware of any changes to the room that Dylan and Stryker may have caused. He set the file down on an empty spot on the metal table as he moved towards the back wall to row of covered cylindrical objects.
Dylan could see him a bit better now from where he was standing. The man was of normal height with disheveled jet-black hair with patches of light grey hair which struck Dylan as old since he appeared to be around his late twenties, early thirties at most. The thick, dark rimmed glasses gave him the appearance of a mad scientist which worked for Dylan since he could see the lab coat he wore was tattered from overuse. The man turned and picked up a vial from the table and loaded its contents into a syringe before placing them both back onto the table.
The man turned again to the covered tubes with the intent to unveil the secret that lay within. Like a game show, or magic trick, the man ripped the covers off to reveal an incubation chamber that housed abnormally large fetuses of the fluffy variety. Dylan was shocked at the sight having to fight back any noise that would have given him away. The man pivoted to pick up the syringe filled with the mysterious serum and inject it into the feeding tube of the developing creature. After the syringe was emptied, he turned to some other documents and jotted down the information he thought would be essential to his experiments, and, not too soon after, the hunter that Dylan and Stryker were looking for appeared, blood soaked, and carrying a mare with enlarged breast indicating she had given birth or was about to. The man turned to the hunter with a quizzical look on his face.
“Why are you covered in blood? You didn’t harm this one, did you? We need to have our test subjects intact,” the man questioned with the hints of building rage in this raspy voice.
“Nu huwt subject. Subject no wan come wiff fowty-two, so had to num babbehes to get hew to wisten,” the hunter explained with a pained expression of fear which was new for Dylan to see.
“Good. We just need them physically intact. I could care less about their mental wellbeing,” the man picked up another syringe filled with a different liquid, “These things are a pain in the ass for case studies, but when they are catatonic, things are much easier, and quicker to boot.” The man injected only a quarter of an unknown formula from the syringe into each of the mare’s breasts. She made no sound.
“Wah do wiff otha fwuffy mammahes? Yu sent them to feed weplacements,” the hunter’s question gave both Dylan and the man pause as to what it meant. The man was the first to catch on.
“Yes. The other mares were sent to feed your replacements. We keep losing to many hunters because you assholes can’t keep your savage ways in check, so you keep getting offed by IRATE. Fucking IRATE. I swear, they will be a crux in this entire operation, but, because we have potential assets in IRATE, we can’t just wipe ‘em out wholesale,” the man argued more with himself than the hunter who hung it head low in same as if it did something wrong personally.
Dylan had heard enough and raised his rifle to take aim. Unfortunately, as he shifted, some glass popped under his boot. Both the man and hunter look directly at Dylan’s position, but it was too late. Dylan let loose three consecutive shots. One missed entirely, hitting a window causing the explosive round to detonate busting the window in a flurry of twinkling shards of death to the outside. The other two struck home into the hunter, one ripping its head off, and the second tearing into its shoulder, both blasting the surrounding area with blood and viscera as the round did their thing. The man was left, covered in the remains of the hunter, stunned as he came face to face with the smoking end of an assault rifle aiming right between his eyes.
“Ha…. Wh-who are you? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME,” the man was shaking like a leaf as he was trying to desperately find a way out, fast.
“You are under arrest for the production of unlicensed, and unregistered hunters,” Dylan kept the gun trained on him with his finger only millimeters from letting it sing.
The man took notice of Dylan’s arm patch that read IRATE Division on it. The man’s shaking turned from fear to rage as he falsely assumed that IRATE couldn’t arrest him since he was no cop.
“You fucking wanna be cop! You can’t arrest me. You have no jurisdiction here, no power, NO RIGHT to arrest me,” the man started to laugh hysterically, “You can’t do shit.”
Dylan cracked the butt of his gun against the man’s face causing him to fall to the floor, “Article 184, Section 15: Anyone that is producing, selling, or harbingering illegal fluffies and fluffy variants are subject to any arrest by agent(s) of any state, local, or federal fluffy control or law enforcement. Since you are producing hunter class fluffies, I can and will arrest your sorry ass,” Dylan raised his weapon again to the man’s head, “So, I’ll say it again for you princess, you are under arrest.”
The man, knowing he is cornered, smirked through the pain from his bloodied and broken nose. Without saying a word, the man pulled out two canisters and popped the top on them releasing a thick, white, suffocating smoke as he got up and fled for under Dylan’s nose. Dylan, reaching fast, aimed his weapon and fired it at the remaining windows. The bullets sang through the air as they found their targets with ease. The smoke started to dissipate as the air started to vent it out of the shattered windows. Dylan only managed to see the dark, silvery coat of Stryker as he was about to give chase.
“Stryker, no! Don’t chase him. We are in his domain, and he could have booby trapped this entire building. Lets get as much intel we can carry here,” Dylan explanation halted Stryker’s pursuit and gave both of them time to collect the more valuable looking notes that scattered the table.
“We lost our only lead that could point out any possible double agents within IRATE, right,” Stryker was more than pissed that his target had gotten away, but he did see where Dylan was coming form.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get him. I’ll have one of our data team members from the lab track down anyone visiting any hospital for a broken nose,” Dylan said with a smile as he had gotten some satisfaction from busting up that man’s face a little, “Now come on. We have to collect as much intel as possible and call this in, so we can thoroughly filter through all this.”
Stryker went over to where Dylan had been shifting through all the papers that could be used versus the outdated or irrelevant information from the large unkempt pile. Dylan quickly opened one of Stryker’s pockets and deposited a medium sized stack of papers into in and zipped it back up and moved to the other side to deposit roughly the same about into the other side to even him out. Dylan quickly returned and stuffed two manila folders and an oddly dark green folder with golden gilded letter on it that had caught Dylan’s eye, for it was one of the folders the man was entranced by earlier. Just as Dylan put two vials of unknown serum into his breast pocket, six hunters came in, three on the left side, and three on the right, cornering Dylan and Stryker giving them no chance of escape from which they had entered. Dylan was anticipating some form of backup the man could have called in, but he was not thinking it would be more hunters. Quickly, Dylan went to the balcony and kicked out the rusted guard rail that landed haphazardly on the overgrown grass below.
“Stryker! Jump, NOW,” Dylan gave Stryker some space as he leapt off the balcony at full speed. Dylan watched as he unfurled his massive wings. His graceful descent to safety would have left Dylan speechless, but he didn’t have time to admire Stryker’s elegant landing. Dylan raced back into the room unleashing a hailstorm of bullets from his rifle as he ran to the fire escape that sat in between the middle and last rooms. The hunters that didn’t catch a randomly ejected projectile gave chase as Dylan neared his contingency planned exit. One of the hunters managed to cut him off and leapt into the air in an attempt to strike at Dylan throat. Dylan let loose the final two rounds into the airborne hunter both striking true, but the click of his rifle meant he no longer could use it as intended. Thankfully, he didn’t need to as he took a sharp turn toward the escape, and he let loose a handful of flashorbs as he leapt to the rusty ladder and slide down enough for the percussive blast not to affect him.
The ground met Dylan’s feet a bit too harder than he would have like, but he didn’t receive any debilitating injuries as the soles of his boots touched down on the lush, thick, overgrown grass. As he turned to leave to meet up with Stryker, one of the pursuing hunters landed hard on the grass in front of Dylan which startled him. He swiftly pulled one of his pistols and dispatch it just in time for another to follow suit, but this one broke its fall with its neck, killing it instantly. Dylan looked up to see that the flashorbs had done their jobs well as the remaining hunters were still recovering from the blinding light and percussive noise. Dylan ran to his truck to call it in. There was still a ton of intel in there, and it needed to be recovered.
As Dylan made it to the truck, Stryker had already called in reinforcements which were just arriving on scene. Dylan, throwing open the back doors of the truck, slipped out of the polycarbonate vest and outfitted himself with the heavy ballistics vest that made him into a living tank. He reloaded his assault rifle with more explosive rounds and made his way to the tactical van where he met up with the commander of the operation and the head of the IRATE Division; Franklyn Tohr. Tohr looked as if he came out of an eighty’s military movie. He was a rough and ruggedly build man with short, pearl white hair. He addressed Dylan as he, himself, was getting ready to raid the apartment along with five others.
“So, you are the one that found this place. Good. We can use all the intel we can get to see if we can stop these abominations before they start actually killing people, so what information to do you have?”
“There is a lab on the second floor that is operating as a grow station for the hunters. There is valuable intel in there that could be useful in dealing with these hunters in a more covert way. The suspect did manage to get away, but not before I roughed him up a bit, so I’ll have the lab monitor anyone coming in with a broken nose for the next week,” Dylan turned to Tohr to express a concern, “Sir, I think the place may be booby trapped. I think we should get EOD from the nearby army base to come check it out.”
“Nonsense. You’re just being paranoid. If you didn’t trigger any traps in there, then there must not be any. Now let’s get a move on. How many hostiles in the area?”
“We were ambushed before we could access the number of hostiles in the building,” Dylan explained as Tohr looked on with displeasure.
“Alright, men. We are going blind. If you see any fluffies in the target building, you are free to engage. They are not your run of the mill stress toy. These are hostile and should be treated as such. Understood,” Tohr’s command echoed through the empty structures.
“Yes, sir,” the men shouted in unison which caused Dylan to shake his head in disapproval as the noise in such a quiet place would give away their numbers and the element of surprise.
As the men started to make their way to the apartment, Stryker was on the verge of following but ceased as Dylan shook his head and signed with a free hand, ‘no’ and ‘danger.’ Stryker nodded, and, without question, returned to the truck to wait for their return. Tohr didn’t let this go unnoticed as he saw the stalker return to the truck.
“You’re not taking your stalker with you,” Tohr interrogated Dylan, “It would be a good asset in there.”
“No. His job is done. He gets a break. It’s our turn to pick up the slack,” Dylan said coldly, “Besides, he’s not yours to command.”
The blood in Tohr veins ran hot with rage as Dylan dared to defy him but decided to drop it as they approached the entrance. The doors were resealed and barricaded from the inside. Tohr commanded one of his men to breach the door, but as soon as his boot connected with wood, the laboratory in second floor of the apartment exploded, knocking everyone to their feet and sending glass and loose debris zipping through the like shrapnel. The shock from the explosion had everyone on edge as the rose to their feet. Dylan, being one of the first to get up, checked to see if everyone was ok and moved out from under the overhanging doorframe to see the entire second and third floors engulfed in flame. The reddish orange ambers eating its way through all the valuable papers that could have put an end to the man-made outbreak of hunters.
Dylan, now exhausted and defeated, let out a heavy sigh, and returned to his truck. With the inability to recover any documents from the makeshift lab, Dylan and Stryker headed home. The ride home was long and daunting. After parking in the garage, Dylan took out all the thing he managed to grab before the lab was firebombed: a marginal bits of paperwork, two vials of an unknown substance, two manila folders, and a dark green folder that had golden, glided letters that read: Project False Prophecy.
Chapter 7