Run, run fast, X-2 134 thought to himself as he dodged behind another tree and sprinted on all fours through the forest. His long tongue fell almost to his chin as he panted for air in mid-sprint. All four of his appendages were working over time as the scenery around him blurred together. He mentally decided to take a break when he made it to his rest point. It never occurred to him that there was no one to assign him a rest point but himself. After nearly twenty minutes of outright running in fear he dove over a mossy hill and into a small creek that barely dampened his padded palms.

He let the water congeal in his heated hands and swirled it around to cool them off before lapping the water up with his tongue. Suddenly his long ears picked up a sound in the distance. He perked up and looked around smelling the air cautiously. He could scarcely comprehend that they had caught up to him already. X-2 134 waited silently but heard nothing more in the still air and that began to bother him. There was no sound of birds or crickets, even the soft trickling of water running over his thickly padded feet seemed to echo and reverberate around the trees. Without a second thought he pulled his tongue into his mouth and dashed through the water, his hind legs kicking up water and the soft mud on the bottom of the creek.

There was still silence no matter where he ran and it frightened him even further that the unfeeling ones were all around him. They had begun hunting him early that morning and they always seemed faster and smarter than he was. Never in his life had he felt this type of fear and he would have just as happily never had to feel it again. Suddenly the water just in front of him splashed up at a very small point. He didn't know it at the time but this curious occurrence was a sphere of lead that had sped after him from four hundred and fifty yards behind him.

"Damn it," Freedon cursed as he shouldered his silenced rifle and took back to running along the creek. His heavy military boots scraped along the rock and caused him to slip several times on the slimy creek stones. He could imagine the gloating Caine would be initiating if he killed this one before him like the last two. The adrenaline gland in his brain began pumping over time as Freedon pushed himself harder to catch up to his prey. It was only a few minutes before he burst through a set of bushes to a point where the creek split into two and there between the two creeks X-2 134 laid face first in the mud and Caine stepped carefully across the creek to where the body rested.

Freedon slowed down and waited for his lecture as they both walked up onto the body. "Well, this is where you gloat and give hunting tips, right?"
"Awwww," Caine sarcastically whined as he leapt the last puddle of mud onto the rock outcrop separating the two creeks, "it's not my fault you can't keep up."
"I had a clean shot back there. I don't know how he dodged it."
"Tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Whatever Caine. I'd still like to know how long before this White starts hunting us down like these mistakes," Freedon complained halfheartedly as he pleaded his conscious for forgiveness of the lost life before him. He softly nudged the anomaly with his steel toe boot but the wolf hybrid mistake didn't move.

"Do we need the body?" Caine asked hoping the answer was no.
"Nah, no one knows how many of these there are so our words just as good as evidence. No way to know when the last of them are gone."
"Renfro would have wanted evidence. Even Lydecker would have."
Freedon shook his head hopelessly, "Don't start this again. What's it matter who we get orders from? No matter who dies or turns traitor there will always be someone to give us orders."
"Ever think that we should change that?" Caine asked in fake apprehension but left a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
"Go ahead and make jokes. Let that NSA bastard hear you talk like that and he'll have you bagged and in turn you into a human popsicle just like Madame bitch."

Freedon turned away and walked off after motioning for Caine to follow him. They walked down the creek bed and continued to talk on the way back to report their statistics. "How do you think Terrence is doing?" Freedon asked almost as if he were worried.
"I think you know the answer. It's a hopeless cause and yet he keeps on at it. He brought in two anomalies this morning tied together with his rifle strap and White had them shot right there," Caine lamented. He kicked at a stone before continuing, "I can't say I don't feel the same but I'd rather have these beasts dead then roaming the streets and killing the innocent. If we could just lock them up then that'd be great but whether we do it or bring them in they're still dead."
Sadly, Freedon nodded, "It still worries me. What's to say he won't have us taken out?"
"Let's just stay useful and worry about it when it comes."
"And if it does?" Freedon pursued.
"Then we'll find someone else to be useful for."
"And Terrence?"
"I don't know. He's reprogrammed but I don't think it'd take much to convert him. Maybe send him off into the world or something," Caine stated doubtfully.
"No, we'd have to take him with us. He's got nobody in the world now with the X-6's barely a memory. Soon the few that were kept in the holding cells will be taken out too."

Caine and Freedon continued talking and after almost an hour they broke into a clearing filled with men in military fatigues bustling about with their orders. They were on their way to report to White when a loud scraping sound could be heard on the asphalt and then the screeching of tires. A group of young Manticore kids went running from a group of soldiers who were about to execute them. Freedon tapped Caine on the shoulder and pointed to a woman riding a motorcycle dodging bullets and racing away with pieces of asphalt flying up in her wake. The kids seemed ran until they were out of sight and several soldiers jogged after them but it was obvious they didn't want to come in close contact with them.

"Let's stow away somewhere before Mr. Suit sends us after them. I don't want to kill any kids. They're not like the anomalies," Freedon spoke as he watched where the kids had been and shook his head sorrowfully.
"Yeah, I saw an outcrop by the side of the road about a half mile up. We can grab our rations and keep out of sight. Just say we bagged another one of the beasties after wolfie."

They started to walk away when a man standing nearly six and a half feet came up beside them causing them to nearly jump but they tried to hide that they had been startled. "What's going on guys?" Terrence asked.

Freedon tried not to stare at Terrence but he was one of the largest people to come out of Manticore. Up and down his arms were white scars contrasting with his darkly tanned skin. Freedon knew that under his military fatigue shirt were a dozen more scars from when he had thrown his body over his two sisters to protect them. Even with his size several bullets broke through his frame and had killed them. With reindoctrination it was something that Terrence only knew of in the recesses of a thoughtless nightmare. Freedon knew only too well as it had been his shot who had finally taken Terrence down. It was a miraculous thing that he had survived.

"We're not here. Just getting our rations so we can still be out in the forest," Caine said layering the sentence with suggestive hints.
"I get it," Terrence sighed. They were still treating him as if he was different from them. Terrence knew that there were things in his past that he couldn't remember and that they saw those memories when looking at him. It had worn him down over the past year that there were pieces of his life that belonged to everyone but him. The thought was made worse that Terrence felt that these pieces would have changed the puzzle of his life dramatically into something he might have loved.

The three of them walked swiftly and with purpose out of the camp and no one stopped to bother or question them through either fear or lack of caring. As they sat down and made sure they weren't visible from the road Terrence was the first to break the silence, "The woman on the motorcycle. I get the strange feeling that I've known her from somewhere. Like in a dream or something."
"I didn't really get a good look at her," Caine replied honestly.
Freedon shrugged, "It's not our concern until Captain NSA makes it our concern."

Terrence winced at their insults in fear that for some impossible reason White would over hear them. Still, he logged the woman riding the black Ninja into his mind to bring up at a later date. Caine and Freedon were talking but Terrence could feel something resurfacing about the woman on the bike and he couldn't verbalize it or even comprehend it. He felt around and picked a rock up off the ground and scratched onto the smooth stone that made up the outcrop. The scratching didn't alarm Caine or Freedon who were too busy digging into their rations to notice. When he was done Terrence shook himself from his daze and looked at what he had carved, 332960013452. It was a barcode.

Deeper in the woods all that could be heard were the sounds of the water rippling around the body of X-2 134. Even the birds didn't dare make a sound as the water pooled and ran over the anomalies body. Slowly and achingly X-2 134 pulled himself out of the water and without a second thought sprinted deeper into whatever lay ahead of him.