The Government (Part 5)

The Government (Part 5)

Carla was tired from searching some of the lower-grade options for the group to have hidden in. She would have loved to have reduced fatigue like Victor and Olivia, though her shapeshifting was possibly more useful for the situation she was in. And yet, she had to stop at some point in the night, unable to continue through her sleepiness. At least, she knew it wasn’t wise. She couldn’t stay sharp for the three nights and two days Max would be stuck in hiding if she didn’t sleep.

Her searches inevitably brought back memories. The hunt always did, for her. She had learned to embrace them. Being the hunter could only be made easier with the memories of being hunted. Twice, really. Carla was very good at being on this end, though. She was in charge of her region for a reason. She intended, eventually, to rise even further in the ranks. She was unique, she was good at her job, and she would put in the work to deserve it.

Even if she was limited by sleep, she would make quick work of this case. She was good at her job.

-:-

After the game, they mingled for a bit longer, and then attended a dance. Unfortunately, after the dance, the event was over for the night, and everyone had to leave. There were places in nearby hotels blocked out for the convention-goers, but they were too late to manage to get in one of those, so they had to make their way out into the open-space park again.

They went towards the far end of the park, away from the parking lot with Jake’s car. That way, if his car was found, they wouldn’t be immediately found. There weren’t many areas to sleep, and it wasn’t exactly like camping, but they found a space between some trees and a short rock outcropping. They were hidden from sight, and would be protected from any wind, but it was still cold outside. They had jackets, but they didn’t have anything like a tent.

“Are you guys going to be warm enough?” Max asked.

“You’re not worried about yourself?” Ethan asked.

“No, I’ve got a fur coat on. And then another coat. I feel fine. But I don’t know about you two.”

“I bought something as we were leaving,” Jake said. He unrolled a blanket which had a picture of a cartoon wolf face on it. Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not like they were selling many plaid blankets,” Jake said. Ethan seemed to accept that. When Jake unfurled it, it was large enough for the three of them, and once they were all under it, they were much warmer.

“One of us has to keep watch,” Ethan said.

“I’ll do that, since I don’t really have to sleep much,” Max said.

“You need at least a little sleep,” Jake said. “Wake up Ethan once it gets close to morning, then get a bit of rest.”

“Alright, I will,” Max relented.

Jake and Ethan managed to fall asleep despite the somewhat uncomfortable ground. The night still wasn’t exactly warm, but it was bearable in the circumstances. When Jake woke up, Max had just woken up also, and Ethan pointed out that the sun was starting to lighten the sky. They dusted themselves off as well as they could and made their way back to the convention.

The morning started off much less busy than the evenings were, which felt like a mixed bag. Without as much of a crowd, they would be more visible, but there were also fewer people to worry about. There were still panels and events and games throughout the day, and they each went to some of them, with varying degrees of enjoyment. As the day went on, though, their enjoyment waned as a group. Jake did his best to mitigate it, but he was also seeing the end of the safety period that he had found for Max. After the conference ended, they still had most of two nights and one day that they would have to remain hidden. If someone were to investigate the small park while they were safely in the convention, perhaps they would have been safely passed over. But if not, the park was small enough that it would be relatively quick to search, and offered few solid hiding places.

In an effort to keep their mind off of it, Jake did enter Max in the contest, which meant that the judges spent some time evaluating him as he went across a stage in a sequence with many others. Of the costumes, Max’s was the most realistic, to be sure, but not the most creative or impressive, depending on the criteria. As such, Max only won second place. Jake was still satisfied with that, though he did have to wonder whether Adrian might have gotten first with his slightly more classic werewolf build.

Thinking of Adrian, Jake texted him to make sure he wasn’t being swarmed by agents himself. In response, Adrian explained that, though he couldn’t really leave his house, he wasn’t being singled out at all. The same agents that had been asking questions occasionally popped in to ask the neighbors other questions or just to take a look, but he had been lucky enough to avoid them.

The knowledge that Adrian was doing better than they were was heartening, and Jake got a second wind, dragging the others around to events with renewed energy. The final event of the convention was a dance called the Dead Dog Dance, and though that was a horrible vibe in the context, it eventually included a lowering of the lights. Better yet, it went until midnight, so they would have a decent chunk of the night spent safely inside. It was the last moments of the full moon that they wouldn’t need to be constantly on guard.

-:-

Carla was hoping that her target was in one of the original two locations she had found. After all, she was having no luck with any of the areas she’d searched, and she knew by then that she wouldn’t be able to get to them all. They might have evaded Victor and Olivia so far, but if they were in either of the areas with one of them, they would be found, Carla had every confidence. But she was limited in manpower and options by the secretive nature of her organization, and the trio seemed to have outthought her, somehow.

It didn’t make any sense to her. The city had more and more large swaths of nearly- unoccupied land further out, but they would only have been able to get so far in the time they had allotted themselves, and they hadn’t been seen anywhere. Further into the city made no sense. More people, smaller parks, and to top it all off, a wall keeping them in – or a giant lake, really, but in the circumstances, it was acting like a wall. No rational person would go further into the city, and yet she’d been having no luck outside it.

She remembered being hunted again, what it felt like to prepare for every scenario, to try to think through every way that something could go wrong and mitigate every danger. And then, in both cases, to fail. She was, after all, much better at this than she had been.

But then she remembered the feeling just when you’ve spotted your hunter. The moment you try to shake them off. The moment these three did manage to shake off the agents tailing them, setting everything backwards and threatening to bring the hunt into a second month. That moment when fear took over and propelled you forward, towards something that didn’t always make sense.

A moment when you weren’t really all that rational, after all.

Of course, she had been assuming they had stuck to preparations, done things the way they ought to be done. In that case, they were less and less likely to be successful the better their attempt. So, really, the best case scenario for them was some degree of randomness, or perhaps something that wasn’t a good idea at all. Like going towards a wall.

This was a great moment for the hunter. When the prey, in trying to evade the hunter, makes a trap for themselves.

Carla began tracing the basic direction Olivia had been following them before they had lost her, which trended somewhat North. Not only did that align with her theory about where they might have gone, but it also restricted the possibilities even further, had they continued the trend. She checked all of the possibilities, figuring that they wouldn’t have chosen any tiny park that wouldn’t offer any options to escape. That left several options.

However, they had spent enough time on their original route, in nearly the opposite direction, that they would have had to backtrack significantly, leaving little time for them to get further from their starting point. Based on the time they had last been seen, even taking the most direct route, they would have had only one option, if they were to have enough time to comfortably get away from the eyes of the public. Ironically, right next to a method of escape they would be incapable of using until the moon waned: an airport.

Carla was very good at her job.

-:-

After the dance ended, they stayed as long as they could before they were politely asked to leave so they could clean up. Even then, it was significantly in to the night, to the point that the full moon was almost directly overhead. That marked about the halfway point in the danger zone.

They made their way back into the park, trying to get as far as possible from paths and roads to minimize their chances of being spotted by random civilians. They expected none, this late into the night, so they were perhaps a bit more lax in their observation than they could have been. Still, they could only prepare so much for what happened – which was, almost not at all.

“Ethan?” came a voice off to the side of the path they were on. It seemed slightly faint, perhaps far enough off that the person hadn’t seen them all, or might decide they hadn’t seen what they did, but Ethan hadn’t been expecting to hear his name.

“That sounded like Andrew,” Ethan whispered, standing still.

“Did you tell Andrew where we are?” Jake asked, similarly quiet.

“No, I didn’t,” Ethan said.

“Then let’s move away from the false-Andrew,” Jake suggested, altering course.

They didn’t hear the voice again for nearly fifteen minutes, giving them ample time to calm themselves and to think they might have lost the false-Andrew. However, just as they had fallen into a false sense of security, they heard it again, coming from a different direction.

“I need to talk to you,” false-Andrew said. It sounded almost sincere, which made Jake even more wary. They altered course again, trying to speed up a bit without making too much noise. They could see well enough with the full moon, but that also allowed them little opportunity to hide at any point, so they kept moving.

This time around, they kept moving for half an hour. Jake knew that the park went north to south for some distance, but wasn’t very wide, so he was wary of hitting one of the edges and being trapped, but he couldn’t tell where they were, exactly, and with the moon so directly overhead, he also couldn’t tell what direction was what.

Even with the disorientated half hour of silence, they couldn’t get comfortable the same way they had the first time, so they kept on. They listened hard for any indication of the false-Andrew as they moved, and they heard him again.

“There you are,” the false-Andrew said, only about a hundred feet away. “I need to talk to you, Ethan, and I guess you couldn’t hear me, but I didn’t want to be too loud.” False-Andrew moved closer to them, being rather careful not to make too much noise. Though there was no way for Andrew to know where they had gone, the false-Andrew was good enough that it otherwise could have fooled Jake. Even the mannerisms seemed to be similar. However, rather than being comforting, the similarities raised their hackles – somewhat literally, for Max.

“Talk about what?” Ethan said cautiously, standing still as the false-Andrew got close enough to be within comfortable speaking distance.

“I needed to warn you about some people who found out where you are. It’s not safe here,” he said.

“I just have to say, Andrew,” Ethan said, getting a good look at the false-Andrew for the first time, “What big teeth you have.”

Even Jake had to cringe at the delivery of the line, though he was proud of the effort. Indeed, false-Andrew had teeth that were somewhat too large and sharp to be natural. That fact was only intensified when false-Andrew smiled, showing off more of those sharp teeth.

“The better to eat you with, I suppose,” false-Andrew said. “Better run.”

They did. Of course they did. Jake thought they might have some small hope of making their way back to his car, or else back to the event center and breaking in, or finding some other place to escape. Max likely would be able to outpace them, Jake supposed, given his wolf form, but before he could tell Max not to stop on their account, he realized that it wouldn’t matter. They found themselves trapped on one side by a pond of unknown depth. It shined brightly in the moonlight, almost threateningly. A glance back showed another glint, silver like the moon, though it wasn’t really silver. It was steel, the steel of a pistol.

They stopped where they were, turning to face the false-Andrew.

“I want to talk, Ethan,” said false-Andrew as his face and body morphed into a woman, taller, stronger, and more threatening. Less skinny, though still holding the gun. “Actually, Ethan, I want to talk to Max. If I had my other agents, we would trap him and talk in private, but I can’t touch silver, so my only options – and yours – are the gun or talking. I assume we’d both prefer talking, yes?”

Max nodded, rightfully afraid of the woman.

“Good. Well, since I already know your name and what you are, I’ll put us on the same level, though any of this conversation the other two leak will be silenced. Perhaps along with them. Now, My name is Carla. I am referred to as a false-changeling.”

“Not a real changeling?” Max asked.

“No. See, werewolves always get hunted, and then they have two options. The same as you. One, you are taken in, willingly, to be experimented on. A werewolf is never allowed to remain that way due to the danger of transmission, so you have to be something else if you want to live. Typically, that means that one aspect of werewolf-ism is strengthened to the exclusion of all others. Many agents need no sleep, or retain extreme strength, or other traits, some rare ones even retain the wolf form but can change any time, though they require sleep and aren’t much stronger. I am a one-of-a-kind case. For me, they played with the ability to change shape to recreate a version of an extinct supernatural creature.

“There are a few differences. A changeling changes at will, for however long they wish to. They often had no true form. I am limited in how long I can retain any form by the phase of the moon. I have this true form. And, as you may have noticed, the teeth ritual is permanent. And it only affects werewolves, so a changeling would never have had this problem.”

“So you don’t kill them, you experiment on them and let them go?” Max said.

“Not quite. You only get to take that option if you decide to join my organization. After the rituals and science-y stuff has concluded, and you are no longer a proper werewolf, you must work with us to capture the rest. That lasts the rest of your life.”

“What if someone doesn’t want to be an agent?”

“Then they find out what it feels like to be shot with a silver bullet. Often metaphorically, but for you, it’s literal.”

“So you were captured, too?”

“Yes. I managed to evade it for six years, but I was captured. And then I joined the cause. Never looked back.”

“But why do you hunt werewolves?”

“Because they’re dangerous, and they can infect others. It’s a combination that can’t be ignored. Just because they don’t go mindless, doesn’t mean they can’t be malicious.”

“Well then, why don’t you only go after the malicious ones?”

“As if we could predict that. Any that aren’t malicious may as well join the cause of hunting the others, so we do provide a way to prove your intentions, more or less.”

“It’s not much of a choice. I take it you didn’t choose to become a werewolf in the first place?”

“Of course not. I was essentially hunted by one, turned intentionally, and given no help in figuring it all out. So the choice to hunt werewolves was obvious, for me.”

“It sounds like you didn’t get much of a choice in any of it. You were forced to be a werewolf, which forced you to hide that, and then when you were finally captured, your only choices were death or being a slave to a cause? It didn’t have to be like that. Not everyone is turned by some malicious awful werewolf, not everyone has to go it alone afterwards. And if it weren’t for your organization, not everyone would be constantly on the run after they turned. Wouldn’t you have preferred being able to talk about what happened? Wouldn’t you have liked to navigate being a werewolf without a constant threat of being hunted?”

“I’m not a slave to a cause. I chose this, like I said.”

“It’s not a choice if it was that or death. You can never leave?”

“Of course not. Post-werewolves are still dangerous. Can you imagine someone like me, someone who can look like anyone on earth, being left alone, without being monitored? That’s why the original changelings went extinct. They bred so much fear and distrust by their existence that they couldn’t make any place their home. If people like me aren’t turned to some good cause, then who knows what kind of mess we could make?”

“None of us are any more dangerous than we were before. People who want to do awful things shouldn’t have all that extra power, but people who just want to live their life will still just live their life if they can. You could have just kept on living your life if it weren’t for your organization.”

“I couldn’t have just ignored the werewolf that turned me.”

“If you hadn’t been worried about being hunted, maybe you would have reported them. That’s kind of a problem with the system, don’t you think? If someone does get turned, they are very unlikely to report it because they’d also be reporting themselves. Either way, if I know there’s even one decent werewolf around, I can’t join an organization that’s hunting them.”

“You understand that I have silver bullets, right? They are designed to stay inside your body. For either of us, whose bodies are supernatural on a very basic level to facilitate shifting forms, silver is like poison. Being restrained by silver saps supernatural strength, things like that, but for us, it’s attacking the nature of our bodies. The bullet will destroy your body from the inside out.”

“I know what silver feels like, but I can’t hunt decent people just to save myself.”

Ethan and Jake were quiet through the whole exchange. There seemed to be nothing they could do, no way they could improve the situation. They just watched her resolve, steady until partway through the conversation with Max, when it flagged. She had her gun in hand the whole time, and at Max’s decision, she replaced the magazine, switching out the ammunition.

“I have silver bullets for werewolves, and I have copper bullets for the rest of you, to save on the silver. If I were to shoot you with a copper bullet, Max, it would hurt, but you’d be fine. Especially in wolf form, you would heal very quickly. But if it were silver, you would have to get immediate medical attention even to try and survive it.”

“I understand. I have a choice, and I made it. You have a choice, too. So make it.”

“I already have,” Carla said. She raised the gun, pointed it at Max. “This will hurt. Don’t scream. It will complicate the paperwork.”

Carla shot, and Max fell. Max did, in fact, scream.

I have typically just ridden the wave and remembered that this is a cycle that happens, so it isn't that my work has gotten worse, I'm just in that stage of the cycle. Would love to know if there are better ways, though

Okay, Tumblr writers.

We all know how many, even most, of us periodically get maudlin about our work and our skills as writers and whether or not anyone even likes our work and what they like about it and whatever.

I am trying very hard to be less maudlin all over other people all the time, especially on social media.

So what are y'all's coping mechanisms for these periods? I'm in need.

I definitely don't have like at least 7 of these kinds of pairings in my current WIP...

hey bro can we like adopt paralleling themes and symbolize opposites but in a two sides of the same coin kind of way? it doesn’t have to be weird. wait what do you mean thats gay

The Funeral

It was the following Friday when Ethan and Jake attended Max's funeral. They had met many of Max's family members, though they didn't know them well. The arrangements were partly made by Carla, who required a high level of secrecy about the events that had taken place. She had arranged for the body to be placed in a closed casket without anyone seeing anything, and even bypassed the coroner so that no one would see what had become of Max. Ethan and Jake were trying their hardest not to think about that, though, as they couldn’t talk about it with anyone else at the funeral.

“It's so sad, what happened. I suppose a person wouldn't know they had some heart condition at his age,” a woman was saying. Jake wasn't actually sure who she was, but he acted like he did to prevent having to go through that awkward conversation when he really didn't want to.

“Yeah, it was pretty sudden,” he said. That much was true, even though the heart condition was fabricated.

“You and that other boy were his roommates, right? Is it hard, now that he's not in the house anymore?”

“Yeah, it is. It just keeps reminding us of him, so we’re having a rough time of it. Actually, we're planning to move. Everything here just is a bit of a painful reminder, you know?”

“Yes, I can understand that. Well, if you boys need anything, don't suffer in silence, okay?”

“Alright, thank you.”

Adrian was not at the funeral. He would have come, but he had decided to move away due to all the activity in trying to catch the original werewolf, which, unknown to the agents for now, was him. He didn't want to have any risk of being caught the next full moon. He was also Ethan and Jake's new roommate, so when they moved, they'd be moving in with him. They had all agreed that, under the circumstances, it would be best to live where Adrian went to college, that strange place where supernatural creatures were so commonplace they weren't even reported.

They continued interacting with the others at the funeral until nearly everyone had left, and the casket was lowered into the grave. Then they went home, packing their things. They had both put in their two weeks notice soon after Max had been shot, which meant they had to stay a bit longer still, but their landlord had been very understanding of their situation, so they were free to exit their lease agreement early – they only had to finish out the month.

Both of them were restless throughout the last week of work, not wanting to wait before leaving that place. Ethan had one last meetup with Andrew, who apologized again for his involvement in the whole thing. He gave Ethan a copy of his paper, which he had decided to write in an attempt at exposing the reality of the situation, and drew from early history to show that the modern conception of werewolves as dangerous was inaccurate.

“This is well-written, at least,” Ethan said. “I’m sorry we can't tell you any more about the organization, but I think it's better for everyone if we don't.”

“I understand. I don't think it would have helped all that much, anyway,” Andrew said. “The paper didn't do that well. The professor thought I didn't have enough modern sources to support the idea that werewolves were benign, and I couldn't exactly say ‘my cousin knows a werewolf'. Or knew, sorry.”

“I appreciate the thought, though,” Ethan said. They continued talking a bit more before Andrew ended up leaving.

Finally, the time came for them to take their packed cars to the road. Ethan was driving a moving truck with his car being pulled behind, actually, but Jake was driving his packed car. Ethan didn't trust Jake to drive a moving truck, and Jake didn't question him on it.

The trip was two days in total, the first consisting of about ten hours and the second eight hours before they crossed into their new home state. It wasn't immediate, but as they got a bit further in, they saw several supernatural creatures in the open. When they arrived at their new address, Adrian came out to greet them in a t shirt and jeans, and since it was part of the full moon cycle, he was in wolf form. It was odd to see him openly like that, but Jake noticed a woman with snake hair walking nearby, so clearly it was commonplace.

“Welcome, welcome,” Adrian said. “And again, thanks so much for letting me live with you guys. It'll be a nice change, I think.”

At that point, their fourth roommate came out of the front door, wearing a tank top and jean shorts, blond fur sticking out, and tail wagging behind him, though he seemed not to notice. He had the biggest, toothiest grin anyone had ever had as he ran towards them and hugged them before stepping back for a moment to greet them verbally.

“Welcome to Florida!” Max said. “How was my funeral?”

Read Alice in Wonderland for the first time the other day. The thing that surprised me most was at the very beginning, Alice talks (somewhat metaphorically) about death for a minute. She is shrinking and worries that she will continue to shrink until she is snuffed out, like a candle flame. She says she doesn't know what would happen to a snuffed candle flame, since she's never seen such a thing.

What an interesting metaphor for a child not fully understanding what death is

My own experience to add on the walking front: On relatively level ground, especially with proper pathways or roads, the walking distances hold true. Walking through craggy mountains without trails, the max is about 15. Helping along someone who is not doing incredibly well healthwise (say, extremely dehydrated, somewhat older or unfit in some way) while you're in the craggy mountains without trails, drop that to about 6 or 7 max. Basically, factor in the conditions of the paths being traversed and the people traversing them - marathon runners will be able to go further than 68 year olds, or a group which has normal people and someone injured or sick.

As an addition, biking can massively expand your range, given you have trails and are in decent shape - 10 miles an hour isn't too crazy, and 50 miles in a day isn't impossible either, depending on how much biking you're used to. If you're very fit, it can go up quite a bit more. However, weather plays a big part in speed and range, as headwinds slow you down and tire you out, and it's harder to keep rain off as you bike than it is when you're walking.