Entanglement

The first two chapters of Book 1.

Chapter 1

Year 2050 

It’s been a week now, tracking the woman through the woods, over streams, up gravelly trails and into the low mountains. But she ain’t no woman, ain’t no human either, the old hunter thinks. That word – what’d the scientist call em? 

He can hear the boys up ahead. Wading through a patch of tall grass, the hunter curses, a clutch of woody thorns tearing the back of his hand. Mock! They’re called Mocks. Someone shouts, “Over here!”, and a thin grin spreads over his leathered face. 

He makes it out of the forest and stops to catch his breath. The climb was hard. His pants are stiff and sticky. Georgia heat is one sonofabitch. He joins two young men waiting in the clearing. The big one looks up, a man with a shaggy beard and stained teeth. He picks at the gritty blood crusted on his hunting knife. 

“Gimme some of that,” the old hunter says, motioning to the big guy’s rusty canteen. The hunter takes a swig, swishing water in his mouth then spits. He gives Big Guy a hard look over but before he can say anything, the dumbass opens his mouth. 

“Freak’s down there, the greenhouse.” 

“They’re called Mocks,” the hunter growls. 

Big Guy laughs. “You’re gonna listen to that nut? That scientist was out of his goddamn mind!”

The hunter grips his assault rifle and spits again. The two young men start laughing and the skinnier one, a scrawny college dropout, swipes a finger over his throat with dramatic effect. 

“Well, he ain’t around to call ‘em nuthin’ no more!”

The hunter glares at the kid who joined the fight a few days ago. He keeps laughing and it pisses him off. “Shut up!” 

The two men go silent and look down at the dirt.

“God rest his soul,” the hunter says. “The Revelation’ll make a man tear the truth out of his own mother, if he has to.” And he meant it. Why, last night, the old hunter had somewhat of an epiphany. It was his first sacrifice of the Revelation. The great almighty purge. There he was, gripping the top of the scientist’s head, dunking his face into the river — it came so easy the guy was as limp as a fish — and he came to the realization as clear as crystal. 

“They’re not clones!” the scientist said, sputtering between gulps of the cold Chattahoochee.

“Then what are they?” the hunter asked, hissing into the man’s ear. “We’re gonna kill all your science experiments, we’re gonna –” 

“Mocks,” the scientist said, gasping for breath. “And they’re just people, like you and me.”

“Then where’d they come from, huh? You made these – these Mocks – you grew them –”

The man began to sob. “Please. I can’t tell you. Please!” 

“I bet you can,” the hunter said, laying his knife against the man’s throat. “You’re gonna die anyway.” 

Then the scientist stopped crying and looked up at the hunter, his eyes full of scorn. When he smirked, the hunter took a step back and almost let go. “Alien tech, you backwards hick. By the time your children’s children come around, there’ll be more Mocks than any of you. But you’ll be gone by then. They’re going to drain you, take all your energy, all your Aura.” 

With a hefty yank, the hunter pulled the man's head back, almost snapping his neck. He was inches from his face now. “What do you mean our – Aura?”

“You dumb redneck, even if I drew it out with cartoons you wouldn’t understand. You’re all cattle, you hick. A warm body for their taking. We’re changing everything and there’s so much you don’t know cause you’re not the chosen ones, not like us, you dumb redneck, not like –” 

The hunter’s eyes go hazy, remembering how the man’s throat sliced easy like wet tissue.

“Probably for his own good, anyway,” Big Guy says. “You put him outta his misery. Blaming this shit on aliens. Told you he was a lunatic.” 

The old hunter mulls on this for a while — as if that fat dumbass even knows what he’s talking about. When the hunter was a kid, there was all this hysteria about UAPs and those triangle ships in the sky. Mindless, senseless fake news. But see, that was just a coverup. He’s always known that. Just distractions from the real threats. The cloning in China, the neural chips made by billionaires, the generative AI that’s gone sentient, the energy weapons that could melt satellites, and the mind rays that could intercept your thoughts. 

“We have to take matters into our own hands,” the hunter finally says. “Find the traitors — human or not — and kill ‘em.” 

He reaches into his pocket and keeps his hand there, palming the scientist’s small notebook. He looks over half expecting the two to be picking their noses, thumbs up their asses, but instead they’re quiet, waiting for him to speak. With a sigh, he swings his rifle over his shoulder and takes out the notebook. He holds it out for everyone to see. 

“It’s always been the government, boys. Nothing else.”

He turns the blood-stained pages, some ripped and the ink smeared. They crowd around. 

“Well, what’s it mean?” Big Guy asks, squinting and pointing at a blurry diagram.  

A bunch of squares, neatly arranged. To the hunter it looks like a game of  –

The kid snatches it out of his hands, laughing. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He flips through the pages, strutting in the dirt like a goddamn rooster. 

The hunter draws his rifle. “Give it back.” But the kid ignores him, his nose buried in the pages. He begins to read, slowly. 

“Mock Sapiens look indistinguishable from people and are genetically, Homo Sapiens. Mocks can only be birthed from a Mock Farm and cannot reproduce on their own…” 

The kid’s face blanches and he begins to lower his arms. The hunter grabs the notebook and slaps the kid on the head with it. He reads the rest.

“To prevent a null birth, Mock Sapiens require a complete quad of four powered stakes imbued with –” and for this, the hunter has to sound it out – “cal-icks-site,” he says. The rest of the words are smeared, but he tries to make them out. “A generative protein used to promote and control differentiable cell growth. Controlled by the algorithm.” 

Everything else looks technical, jargon he can’t pronounce. But at the bottom of the page, words in sloppy cursive catch his eye. Big Guy seems to notice. “What is it?” 

The hunter reads it again, completely aware of the chill in his bones. The words come out like a whisper, slow and dry. “Mocks collect Aura for the great shape shift. The Morfyk invasion.” He pauses. “Entanglement.” 

Big Guy grabs the hunter’s forearm. “What’d you say?” 

The hunter is frozen, unaware of the man’s grip. “What the hell is a Morfyk,” he mutters under his breath. 

“That’s what I’m asking! What’s that mean, invasion? And tangled what?”

Big Guy snatches the notebook and this time, the hunter doesn’t resist. Maybe that scientist wasn’t a loon, after all. 

“Hey what’s this mean?” Big Guy asks, showing him the back of the notebook. Tiny raised letters that spell ‘GLIACORP’. The same thing was on the scientist’s shirt.

The old hunter narrows his eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t fucking care. My whole goddamn family’s been in these parts since the Civil War, I’ll damn well die than let my country — no, my planet — be infested by these Mocks.”

Big Guy speaks up. “But the more-fik, thing, ain’t it –”

“It doesn’t matter, you idiot. Scientific jargon. Propaganda to keep us meek and blind.”

“You’re not the chosen ones, not like us, you dumb redneck.”

The hunter wraps his fingers around the cold steel of his Remington. Drawing the scope to his eye, he studies the greenhouse. “You said she’s down there?”

The college kid raises his rifle. “She ain’t alone.” 

Big Guy lunges forward. “Then what the hell’re we waiting for?”

“Wait,” says the hunter. “Who’s with her?” 

“Some man,” the kid says. “Real tall and fast.” 

“He got any weapons on him?” 

“I didn’t see any. But who cares?” 

The hunter lowers his scope. Lost in thought, he takes the edge of his shirt and slowly wipes down the barrel. “Never thought I’d see the end of days in my lifetime.” With a heavy grunt, he loads a magazine into the stock.  “No one’s gonna fight for us, boys. Gotta cleanse the Earth ourselves. Destroy every Mock before we die.” 

Chapter 2

Yarek

Yarek reaches a clearing and spies a large greenhouse in the distance. For a moment, it looks beautiful. Rays from the orange setting sun shine through the glass walls like fire. Frantically, he runs towards it, carrying Harin in his arms. With each stride of his lanky legs, her arms flail against his chest. As he clenches her tighter, blood pours from the wounds of her stomach onto his hands. He wades through rows of plants, painting the leaves red. 

The door is flimsy, an aluminum frame that rattles. Yarek flings it open with a blood-smeared hand, cradling Harin with one arm. It snaps shut behind him making the greenhouse walls shake. His jeans stick to his thighs in the sweltering Georgia heat, every step a walk in muddy papier-mache. He moves behind a row of shelves and sets Harin down onto a bed of gravel. Her glassy eyes stare into the sky as he pulls off his shirt, tearing it into pieces, stuffing fabric into the wound. Swiftly, he packs the gash and wraps her torso tightly with the sleeve of his ripped shirt. 

“Yarek…,” she says, reaching for the silver pendant hung around her neck. He thinks back to their last night together. Crouched in the ravaged dining room of an expensive mansion, he melted a heap of silverware in a steel pot. Mixing the molten metal, he fashioned the necklace. A large ring with a smaller one nested in the center. 

Men shout in the distance. There’s three, he counts. Cradling the back of her head, he caresses Harin’s cheek then turns away, moving into the shadows. 

A heavyset man is the first to enter. 

Yarek watches, amused at the size of the man’s hunting knife. The man lumbers about, orienting himself in the fading daylight. It's a clumsy grip. His palm subtly shakes. 

Silently, Yarek creeps up behind him. Before the man can turn, Yarek grabs the hunter's knife and slits his throat. The man lets out a gurgle as Yarek quietly settles his large body onto the ground. 

The rickety door swings open, popping against the brick. Now it's a younger man. He enters, squaring up his shoulders, pressing his cheek into the stock of his rifle. Under the branches of an overgrown tree, Yarek wipes the dead man’s knife on his pants, watching. 

“Come out, Mock! Your girlfriend’s good as dead,” the man says.

The door creaks open. The last man enters. He's older. Older and experienced. The way he walks, steady and soft gives it away. Yarek narrows his eyes, watching the grizzled hunter scan the room. 

“Where is he?” the old man asks. 

“Hiding,” the young man snickers. 

“You know, Mock. I’ve been hunting your kind for a few weeks now.”

Yarek watches the old hunter following the scope, pointing his chin to the other man. 

“Most of Earth can’t tell you fuckers apart from the Average Joe. But see, I’ve done killed almost a dozen of you freaks in just two days. I’m damn good, Mock. Them other a-holes can purge all they want, but me – I know one when I see one. So come on out here and let’s do this.” 

The old hunter nods and they stride to the back of the greenhouse. In the dimming light, he clicks his tongue and motions towards the shelf where Harin lies. Both men reach the back of the room, their boots crunching gravel, and start laughing. 

“Oh, buddy!” cries the young man, jabbing Harin’s head with the toe of his boot. “You’re too late, she’s —” 

Yarek comes up from behind and grabs the man’s head with both hands. With a grinding snap, he cracks the vertebrae, dropping him to the floor. The old man gasps and steps back, nearly tripping over Harin, and fires. Yarek dodges, sending glass shattering from overhead. Panicking, the man resets the rifle and shoots again. He misses. 

Yarek lunges forward, sending the both of them hurling onto the floor. The man scrambles for the rifle as Yarek grabs the back of the man’s neck. He loses his grip, slick with blood. 

With a grunt, the hunter rams the butt of the rifle into Yarek’s head. Everything spins and Yarek falls to the ground. He opens his eyes and stares into the end of a dark barrel. The old man flashes a twisted grin, his eyes bloodshot and wild. 

“Got you, fucker.” 

He pulls the trigger. The deafening blast echoes in the greenhouse. 

Yarek ricochets backward, his knees unhinging at the joints, staggering like a drunk. The old hunter fires again and again. It's paralyzing, a haze of heat and demolition. Everything seems to blur as the bullets rip through his skull. His muscles twitch and his limbs drop, thick like pudding. Searing heat shreds his nerves into raw fiber until all sensation is lost.

And then, all is silent. He stops to sniff the air — gritty and burnt, smokey and charred with the acrid scent of his own blackish blood. 

As his sight returns, he senses a familiar pressure behind his eyes. With sinister delight, he welcomes the transmutation into the alien beast that the old hunter will regret ever seeing. Yarek’s pupils contract into viperous slits as his mouth fills with saliva. He runs his black tongue over incisors lengthening inside his jaws. For a moment, he indulges himself in the freedom of his hard exoskeleton, slithering his tail across the gravel. 

He draws his long black fingers to his face. The reflection from his talons shines brilliantly against his black carapace. Knives, he thinks. They look like knives. Fresh and sharp. He catches his reflection and stares at it with some surprise — a half shot off face with only one bulbous red eye staring back. 

“You’re no Mock!” the hunter screams, cowering on the ground with his veiny hands shielding his face. “Oh God, you’re the Morf –” 

Yarek steps forward, his tail flicking up dirt, his dark claws by his side. He looks down at the man, his body reeking of urine. And before savage fury can tempt him, he reconsiders killing the wretch. 

From the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Harin’s wispy frame. All the life gone, drained from her body. White fingertips and black hair. Then he hears the distant shouts, hollering and clamor in the field. More men.

He turns back to the hunter and raises a talon in the air. The tip is shiny, catching the last gleam of bloody sunlight. He aims his claw at the old man, swiftly pulling him up like a fish on a hook. The hunter wails, pedaling his feet in the air. With a single wave of his hand, Yarek thrusts him through the aluminum door. The frame bends and snaps shut. He can hear a mob of men on the other side. 

"Not me! No! The alien! The Morfyk — it's in there! It’s –” 

The door sputters as the angry men kick the hunter into submission. 

Yarek sprints back to Harin and kneels to the ground. Head low, he sniffs her — still, the faint smell of roses. She feels tiny and fragile against his massive frame. He hangs his head, long talons resting on her stomach. For several seconds, he studies her face. He picks at the pendant around her neck, losing himself in the tap-tap of metal to metal. Unable to take it, he raises his head to the sky and bellows out a shriek so piercing and shrill, the men outside notice. 

The door springs squeak and he can hear muffled whispers and the thunk of an engaged shotgun. 

He never thought it would come to this. Harin is dead. What else is left? Yarek opens his gnarled palm, revealing a lustrous black cube. The Onnic. The top face glows, burnished in a fiery white ring. He tosses it to the ground. It rolls slowly like a die, each tilt unraveling the gossamer of spacetime.  

The Onnic throws up a gleaming blue pyramid. With Harin in his arms, Yarek steps into the portal in a rain of gunfire.