Chapter One
Word received from the Feline Breed compound reports that Major Dash Sinclair of theUnited States Army has tested positive as a Wolf Breed. Major Sinclair is the first known Wolf Breed to survive the extermination when word first broke of their creation a year ago. American Military and Science communities are quick to assure the press and government alike that there could be very few of these missing Breeds, and that the odds of such escape were so astronomical at the time, that if there were others, it would indeed be a miracle. Labs around the world that were creating and raising the Wolf Breed soldiers, eradicated their creations on executive order of the head of the Genetics Council, none other than former Vice President, Douglas Finnell. Investigations into the Council members through computers and records seized during a coordinated strike against discovered labs revealed a cruelty and complete lack of human morality in the creation and training of these unique individuals. The atrocities performed by the Genetics Council, their guards and scientists has been labeled by many as one of the most horrific crimes committed against living beings.
Operation Indifference was a major strike that crossed international boundaries and borders, and threw light on the depth of moral depravity that created, trained and murdered men women and children who were being trained as killers and advanced soldiers to use against the general population in coming years. A private army that would know no mercy.
But as scientists around the world are now claiming, the Breeds rescued from the concentration camplike conditions are showing an instinctive, pre-selective inner honor, or law of nature. Records and training logs clearly prove that the Genetics Council was failing in their directive. They created the perfect soldier, but one who refused to kill innocents, and one who would, in the face of great pain, uphold the personal honor that had somehow been established. In all Breeds but one. The Coyote Breeds. Jailors, in some cases trainers and executors, the Coyote was the Council’s eventual triumph, some sources report. Unfortunately, as Operation Indifference commenced and these heavily fortified labs were attacked, their creations were slaughtered; men, women and children murdered to prevent the freedom of these unique, genetically altered humans.
Major Sinclair’s story of escape from the compound at a mere ten years of age, and his subsequent journey through social services as an orphan and ward of the state has raised many questions about the survival of other hidden Breeds, though. Breeds who escaped the initial destruction through sheer determination and luck.
The Genetics Council was dismantled with the help of Merinus Tyler, wife and proclaimed mate to Callan Lyons, leader of the Feline Breeds who escaped from a New Mexico compound more than a decade ago. Since revealing themselves to the world, the Feline Breeds have worked exclusively, around the world, towards finding those of their brethren still being held captive in the labs that created them. Smaller, secretive labs that still work to perfect the genetic selection that will create the bloodthirsty, logical, cold-blooded killers the Council sought.
To date, more than a hundred Feline Breeds now occupy the former Council compound in Virginia and are making inroads in creating a comfortable atmosphere for the former captives who make their way there.
The Pure Blood societies are on the rise now, though. What we once called white supremacists are now becoming blood supremacists and demanding the incarceration of the Breeds to keep the genetic alterations the Breeds carry, out of the general population. Newly elected President,VernonMarion, has scoffed at such demands, proclaiming the Breeds to be no more a risk than Native American, Irish or other foreign nationalities were centuries before. But the fight isn’t over. As reported, attacks on Breeds and the Breed compound have been escalating over the months and this new development, a Breed living among us, unknown, as familiar to the men he fought with as the guy next door, has raised complications President Marion will have face. Adopted children and known orphans have arrived in vast numbers to doctors’ offices around the world, demanding genetic testing to prove they aren’t carrying the Breed DNA. Supremacists groups are now demanding this test become required in all doctors’ offices, hospitals, and health facilities. It also raises the question that if Wolf and Feline escapees are now roaming the world, what of the Coyotes that were bred to be their jailors? Reports state the Coyote Breeds were bred, raised and trained to enhance the DNA that many Native American scholars have indicated could exclude them from what is being called Breed Honor, the instinctive code of nature all Breeds so far claim. If the Coyote, in its natural state, truly has no soul, then will the man created from that DNA, have a conscience?
With Breed Law now in the Senate, scheduled for vote within weeks, the questions being raised are becoming more than just the Right to Life. Breed Law, in effect, will give Breeds autonomy. It will allow for the creation of a Breed offensive titled Strike and Defend where specially selected groups will, in effect, have full government approval to kill, without prejudice, any group or groups that strike against the Breed Compound or selected Breed reserves. One of the laws presently on the table also allows for the execution of any government employed or private citizen found to have knowingly and/or willingly played a part in the death or attack of such Breed facilities as well. It also includes a law that many Senators are currently debating even more heavily than the Strike and Defend statute. A law simply titled, Right to Mate. This law, Senators are stating, is much too vague for clear understanding. As stated in the statute, a Breed Mate, defined as any male or female considered mated by the Breed Ruling Table, will, in effect, be under Breed Law, and under the jurisdiction of any and all Breed sanctions that may be imposed.
This law, if voted in, will give a Breed society complete jurisdiction over itself, with no governmental influence for the period of fifty years. The Breed Ruling Table will be comprised of several Breed leaders, including Callan Lyons, who will head the lawmaking body, Kane Tyler, brother to Merinus Tyler and the driving force behind the strike against the labs, and Senator Sam Tyler, a proponent of Breed Law, as well as several scientists who have already become permanent additions to the Breed compound in Virginia since the birth of Callan and Merinus’s son, David Lyons, last year. Proponents of the Law are assuring the public and the press alike that all countermeasures are in place with the Law to ensure that both the genetically altered Breeds and the normal population can live in harmony. They state they are aware of the fears of the general population and are striving to alleviate them.
But, have we, mankind, evolved yet to a point where such differences can be accepted and lived with?
Can a Breed move amongst us, free of the prejudice that we’ve shown to other races in the past?
Scholars and historians alike are questioning the possibility…
Chapter Two
Halloween. Trick or Treat. Parties, ghosts and goblins. Amanda loved it. She laughed as she stood at the door and gave out the treats to the pint-sized little masqueraders, remarked on costumes and complimented cherub-cheeked little monsters on the creations their parents had come up with for them.
The air was crisp and fresh, the fall evening invigorating and cheery. There was nothing about Halloween that she didn’t love. It was the one event that she wasn’t required to show up at her father’s home and play nice as she conversed with boring politicians and aged lotharios. She could relax at home, watch a movie and see the joy in the eyes of the children who visited her front stoop for the treats she had to give out.
Dressed in the long, red demoness outfit, she drew her fair amount of interested glances from the men, but was still well covered enough to allow for the mothers to socialize with her comfortably. The red, long dress was thin, but not transparent, flowing from her waist to her hips in a cloud of red perfection. The snug bodice laced beneath her breasts, while the voile material cupped and hugged her breasts. Her long, brown hair was left loose and falling to her waist, and small red horns sat atop her head. It was her standard Halloween treat-giving costume. She felt sexy, alive, independent. Especially this year. Her first official year away from the strictures of her family. At least, almost away from it.
“Hi, Ms. Marion.” Kylie Brock bounced up the steps, her little devil costume displayed as the little girl gave her a gap-toothed smile. “I look just like you.”
Amanda glanced at her mother. Tammy Brock was a slender, up-and-coming young lawyer who lived several houses down. With laughing blue eyes and a wry sense of humor, the older woman rolled her eyes at her daughter.
“Well you sure do, Kylie.” Amanda bent her knees, bringing herself down to the level of the child as she placed a handful of treats in the little girl’s opened bag. “Have you been scaring everyone out of candy tonight?”
The little girl glanced at the top of Amanda’s head. She sighed deeply.
“Oh yes. I have lots of candy. But Mommy couldn’t find me horns like yours.”
The children had loved her outfit when she wore it to school the day before for the Halloween party. The horns especially.
“She couldn’t?” Amanda reach up to straighten the specially made horns she had found in a unique little gift store while shopping with her sister inNew York.
“I looked everywhere,” Tammy Brock laughed. “Even the costume supply stores. They must think I’m a madwoman.”
Amanda chuckled with her.
“Tell you what, I bought several pairs.” She lifted the horns from her head and secured the small combs that anchored them in place in the red wig Kylie wore.
Her eyes rounded as her pale face flushed in pleasure.
“They’re mine?” she asked in amazement, her gray eyes shining with happiness. “Just mine?”
“Just yours.” Amanda smiled, accepting the little girl’s excited hug as the mother stared back at her thankfully.
“Thank you, Amanda” she whispered as Kylie bounced down the steps to show off her treasure to her friends. “You just made her night.”
“How has she been doing?” Kylie had been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder the year before, and it had been a hard journey for her and her parents.
“Good days, bad days,” Tammy sighed. “I almost didn’t bring her out tonight, but she was so looking forward to it.”
Amanda nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.” She hugged the other woman tightly, her heart breaking at the pressure she knew her new friend must be under.
“I will,” Tammy nodded. “And you take care too. I imagine being the President’s daughter right now is coming with more downs than ups?”
Amanda drew back, her lips twisting with the irony of the other woman’s comment.
“It has its days,” she admitted with a laugh, plying more candy into open bags as several more children approached her.
After the mess of the Presidential election, the protests of Breed Law, Breed Rights, and Breed everything else, she was due a break. Her own job had become a joke in the past year. Where she had once been a well-respected member of the community, she was now a sounding board for political rhetoric from the school principal down to her sixth grade students and their parents.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the Secret Service agents who accompanied her to work and back were really starting to bug her. She wasn’t the damned President, and she was getting just slightly frustrated with the problems it was beginning to cause her. They acted like rabid guard dogs.
“Amanda, could I use your little girls’ room?” Tammy suddenly asked quietly, a tense smile twisting her lips. “I’m about to die and I don’t want have to take Kylie home. I’ll just be a moment.”
“Sure.” Amanda glanced back in the house. “Down the hall on the left.”
“I’ll be right back.” She moved quickly past her and headed into the house. “Kylie should be just fine with her friends for a second if you’ll watch her.”