Page 2 of Semi-Human

Ten years after Skyfall.

We’ve been watching them for over two hours, waiting for the sun to set. The Rocky Mountains are north of us, striking in the distance. Through the visor of my helmet, I observe the Raiders’ heat signature. The tech is old and not always reliable, but it saved my life more than once. The rest of my squad is close by on the ridge. There are six of us, including my staff sergeant, Ace.

“Josh, what’s the final count?”

I hear him through the comm in my helmet, even though he’s not far.

I raise my visor and watch through the scope of my sniper rifle to double-check. “Ten Raiders. Three captives are in the cage on that cart, but I think two of them might be passed out or dead.”

“Who are you thinking?”

He means who I am thinking of shooting first, since I’m the one with the sniper rifle. “The man next to the cart is the only one holding a gun. He’s cleaning it, but it will be quicker for him to use it.”

And he’s also right next to the captives, meaning that taking him out first might save their lives, but I don’t say it. The captives are not from our Hive, and our top priority is taking out the Raiders. They sealed their fate the second they ventured too close to our territory, and I’m eager to deliver their judgment.

“The man next to the cage is drunk,”

Dara says. “It’s a waste to take him out first.”

She’s right, though it annoys me to admit it. “If not him, then the two next to the tent. They carry the most serious rifles.”

“Agreed,”

Ace says. “Can you take them both?”

I calculate my chances. The first will be easy, but the second will either freeze in shock or immediately move. I can’t predict in which direction it will be, but the man on the right has fewer places for cover, making him a better target number two.

“I can take them both,” I say.

The rest of the squad chooses their targets, and it irks me that the man guarding the captives is chosen as the lowest priority. I want to argue, but as a private, I’m meant to shoot whoever I’m told, when I’m told.

It’s already dark, but the moon is full in the cloudless sky, and the Raiders have two campfires. I remind myself that I have shot through worse conditions, and this should be over in a minute if we don’t fuck anything up.

“Josh, whenever you’re ready,” Ace says.

I take a deep breath and focus on my target. He moves his hands when he speaks as if he’s telling a story, but it’s about to get a different ending. I take my shot. With my finger still on the trigger, I see blood bursting from what was an intact skull a second ago. Luck is on my side as the man on the right is staring in shock at his friend who crashes to the ground. Before he can react, he’s one head short.

Gunshots rain down, slicing through the Raiders who don’t even know where to look. I breathe in relief when the man next to the captives is gunned down, but I can’t tell if he shot the prisoners. When it’s over, I lower my visor and scan for heat signatures. The bodies are still warm, but I can’t spot movement from the cage.

“Let’s head down,”

Ace says. “High alert, everyone. Good job.”

We climb down carefully, making sure to look around in case the commotion attracts unwelcome guests. When we reach the Raiders’ makeshift camp, I raise my pistol, which is better suited for close combat. The Raiders who didn’t die immediately have had time to bleed out.

“We’re good,”

Ace says, and I lower my pistol.

“Don’t kill me!”

It’s coming from the cage on the cart, meaning we have at least one survivor.

We reach the cage, where a young man—maybe a teen—sits curled up, his knees drawn to his chest.

“Are you injured?” Ace asks.

“I… no. I don’t think so.”

“We’re from the Hive Unity.”

“Defenders?”

There’s hope in his voice, and I feel a moment of pride.

“Damn right,”

Dara says.

He lowers his knees, and I see him more clearly, but it’s hard to determine his age. His short, curly hair is as dark as his skin. “My parents?”

I assume they are the two other people in the cage.

“Everyone’s dead,”

Ace says and breaks the lock with the butt of his rifle. “Sorry, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

He walks on all fours past the bodies, then climbs out of the cage. He’s slightly shorter than me, his clothes torn and bloody. His eyes dart between us, and I’m surprised there isn’t more fear in them after everything that happened.

“What’s your name?” Ace asks.

“Finn.”

“And which city are you from?”

“What?”

“Which Free City are you from? Or is it a settlement? Maybe there’s a caravan heading there from our Hive.”

He sucks on his lower lip before saying, “I’ve got nowhere to return to. I’ll go back with you to your Hive.”

“It’s not that simple,”

Ace says. “We don’t take in refugees.”

As the old saying goes, the Hive is for the Hivers.

“If it’s not that simple, how can we simplify it?”

Finn asks in defiance, and I hold back a smirk.

Before any of us can respond, I catch a flash of light in the woods. All six of us raise our weapons and spread out to find cover.

“Hold,”

Ace tells us. It’s never smart to shoot at someone you can’t see while they can see you.

I catch three more flashes of light, meaning those are friendlies. Ace raises his flashlight and responds with three flashes of his own. A minute later, they walk out from the line of trees, almost twenty of them.

“Are they also from the Hive?”

Finn asks nervously.

“Yes,” I say.

As we wait for the other squad to reach us, Finn walks between the bodies of his captors, watching with a blank expression. I wonder how long he’s been with them and what they were going to do with him and his parents. Likely sell them off to slavers. If Raiders can’t recruit you, they either kill you or make money out of you.

The other squad reaches the camp. They have their weapons drawn, but they’re not aiming at us. One of them comes to face us, a first lieutenant by the badge on his sleeve. I sense who he is before he takes off his helmet. His blue eyes meet my gaze. I haven’t seen him in over three months.

“Good to see you, Anderson,”

Ace says. If it were any other first lieutenant, he would’ve used his title, but Caden is known for not giving a shit about formalities.

“You too, Ace.”

He looks around. “Seems like you guys took care of things.”

“We did. It seems you’ve seen some action yourselves.”

Caden nods grimly but doesn’t elaborate. “You guys are heading back to the Hive?”

“That’s the plan.”

Ace signals Finn to come closer. “We saved one of their captives. He asked to come back with us.”

“Did he now?”

Caden sizes him up.

“I’ve nowhere to go,”

Finn says, his chin raised. “If I can’t come with you, you might as well shoot me right here and now.”

Caden chuckles. “Yeah, alright. Let the assembly figure this out. We’ll set camp here for the night and head back to the Hive together at first light.”

He divides his squad into guard shifts, breaking the area down into parameters.

We drag away the bodies of the Raiders, and I expect Finn to ask if he can bury his parents, but he doesn’t. Once done, we set up our inflated tents and arrange our rations at the center of the small camp.

With the adrenaline out of my system, I sit next to a campfire and eat my canned food.

“Good shooting,”

Dara says between bites, the flames dancing over her pretty face.

“You too.”

Footsteps approach from behind. “With me, Private.”

I tense. I’ve been angry at him for a long time, and he knows it.

“Did I stutter, Private?”

I sigh and rise to my feet. As I turn, Caden is already walking toward a nearby hill. I catch up to him, and we don’t speak as we walk. He’s still half a head taller than me, broader while I’m on the leaner side. We climb the hill and stop at the peak, sitting on a flat rock. I scan our surroundings, though it’s hard to see much in the dark. To the west, I notice the tip of a tall structure peeking above the trees. It looks like an old purifier, built by the Semi-Humans to purify our radioactive air. The Semis were engineered for that purpose, and when they completed their mission, war broke out between them and the three Hives of Colorado. Those of them who survived disappeared, and though we have no idea where they are—or even if they still exist—we don’t fool ourselves into thinking they won’t ever come back to retaliate.

It’s anyone’s guess whether they are still stronger than any human or whether they can still communicate telepathically. And even more concerning—whether they are still controlled by the AIs that were strangely named Mother and Father.

At times I wonder if those old stories weren't just meant to scare us.

“Did you fire the first shot, Joshy?”

He never stopped calling me that, though not in front of other Defenders. He was furious when I enlisted, even though he’d enlisted a few years prior, which made him a hypocrite. When he had no choice but to accept my decision, he asked me to be a sniper. It was clear he was trying to keep me away from close combat, but I didn't want to fight anymore, so I agreed.

“Yeah, I fired the first shot.”

He taps my knee. “Good boy.”

“Don’t.”

“What did I do now?”

“You know what you did.”

“I was out there fighting.”

“No shit? Me too, but there are still ways to keep in touch. Messages go across the lines all the time.”

I hold his gaze, daring him to claim otherwise.

He sighs, the moonlight giving his beautiful face a silvery glow. “I had over forty men and women with me until a few weeks ago, and now I have barely twenty. The last thing I wanted—or needed—was to send you a message only to hear back that you were dead.”

I hate that I can relate, but it has been the same damn story for the last three years, and I’m sick of it.

“If I don’t know if you’re okay, I can’t help but assume that you’re not,” I say.

“It’s the opposite for me, Joshy. I choose to believe that you’re fine unless I hear otherwise.”

I can’t dismiss his logic, but my mind is wired differently, hence my frustration with him.

With his hand still on my knee, he says, “I have two weeks off once we’re back. We’ll make up for lost time.”

“They won’t let me have two weeks.”

“They will.”

“I don’t want you pulling strings for me.”

“If I really wanted to pull strings, I’d have your ass back in the Hive where it belongs.”

I shove his hand off my knee. “It’s not for you to decide where I belong, Lieutenant.”

“First Lieutenant, and if you call me that again when we’re in private, I’ll slap your pretty face.”

“Sexual harassment much?”

“Nah, that wasn’t sexual harassment—this is.”

He sinks to his knees.

I gasp when he reaches for the fly of my pants. “Someone could see us. We’re on a freaking hill.”

“It’s too dark.”

My heart beats loudly in my ears. I can’t believe he’s willing to do this out here, but he’s taking a bigger risk than I am, being a higher rank. “I stink,”

I say as he pulls down my pants and underwear.

He leans down between my legs and inhales. “You’re good.”

He takes my balls into his mouth. I lean back with my palms on the cold rock, gazing at the countless stars and trying not to think of getting caught.

Caden starts sucking my cock; the warmth of his mouth versus the night’s chill is heavenly. His hands climb beneath my shirt and bulletproof vest to find my nipples. He pinches hard, knowing my body well enough to use the right amount of pressure. I’ve never been intimate with anyone but him, but becoming a couple isn’t in our cards. I wanted for us to try back in the day, but Caden only had enlisting to the Defenders in mind.

I don’t last long inside his mouth. When I tell him I’m close, he sucks harder until I shoot down his throat, biting my fist to keep my moans from echoing between the hills.

Caden rises to his feet and wipes his lips. “You taste better than canned food.”

“Thanks, but I’m still angry at you.”

I pull up my underwear and pants, my heartbeat gradually subsiding.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ll work harder on keeping in touch.”

Not sure if I believe him, I decide to let it go. He sits back next to me and says, “Last time I was home, I went to visit the orphanage. Guess what I found in the backyard.”

“What?”

“A red ball with green stars.”

“No way it’s the same one we used to play with.”

“It sure is. Smells like shit but still bounces. Made me remember the first time you came to speak with Ruben and me. Remember?”

Hearing Ruben’s name after all this time makes my heart ache. “Vaguely.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders. “Ruben and I were tossing the ball in the yard a few weeks after we plague kids started arriving at the Depths. One moment we were tossing the ball between us, then you stepped in the middle and asked, Can I play? I was about to tell you to piss off, but Ruben agreed before I got a chance. We tossed you the ball, and you didn’t catch it. Then we tossed it again, and you did. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier kid.”

I smile as the memory becomes vivid in my mind. I didn’t expect them to let me join, and I was terrified when I walked over to ask. I look down at my hands, feeling echoes of that rubber ball against my palms. I was so proud to have caught it in front of two older kids.

“Then it was Ruben who was fine with me joining.”

Caden nods. “He was the nicest of us.”

We haven’t talked about him in years. I still wonder what could’ve happened if Caden had been holding his brother’s hand instead of mine during that horrible day. I have no doubt he sometimes wonders the same thing, thinking of how different his life could have been if he still had his brother. That what if? question will always float between us, yet here we are, years later on this treacherous land, and Caden is still my home.