🔖Prologue

Earth. A planet ravaged for its resources, now just a shell of its former self. Once where grand oceans crashed against the rocks, sustaining an ecosystem all on its own, now lays bare and empty. The cracks in the crust spread out in every direction, a truly barren wasteland. In these conditions one could almost be forgiven for the atrocities committed to survive. Almost.

“Wake up” he heard a deep, metallic voice mumble. Pax, prone to sleeping late, brushed aside his dark curly hair and looked up. Towering over him stood Dhuval, a true giant even by Tusk standards.

The Tusks a truly horrific science experiment, elephants so deeply modified they looked more like giant robotic monsters, than anything elephants used to resemble. Their giant ears, heads and tusks so altered it was hard to tell if anything real was left of them. Pax caught himself staring and abruptly looked away. “Get up” Dhuval said clearly agitated. The air hissed from under his mask as it periodically did, only adding to his intimidating figure. Pax felt small as he gathered up his belongings. Looking at the time, panic hit him, he instantly understood the Tusk’s frustration. He hurried out of his room, shuffling by the giant standing in his way. The hiss from his mask, sending chills down the human’s spine. Pax walked outside. The sun's heat instantly made his skin melt. Sweat already accumulated on his brow, he wiped it off with his sleeve, only for it to reappear not even a moment later. His eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the light. The familiar sights of his home, simply called The City came into view. The City housed what was believed to be the last civilized humans left on this damned planet. A dusty miserable outpost, made in the ruins of a once important city. Atleast he thought it was important, the buildings now half covered by sand some fully leaning on their neighbors. He looked around at the familiar sites, people huddling in the shade, trading whatever little scrap they had. Tusks being the only ones able to brave the sun for long, carried massive loads of cargo and trodded through the sand. He sighed, already sick of breathing in the dust, hurried down the center of The City sticking as best he could to the shade provided by the once great buildings. As he walked, zigzagging through the city avoiding the scorching rays from above, his mind wandered to the job he was already late for, a job that he hated, a job that used to disturb him and keep him up at night, but no longer. Now he was just tired, moving decidedly unquick for someone running late. The task on hand weighing on him, wishing he could turn around and go back to sleep in his room buried beneath the sand. He approached a building with a large Red Cross plastered at the top, Dhuval was already standing outside, being able to to walk directly here not avoiding the sun made traveling around the city much faster. Dhuval a tusk bred and trained to be a Guardian Tusk looked at Pax. “You took your time getting here” he said, the light of his right eye’s implant seemed to glow redder than usual. Pax did his best to put on a smile, trying to hide the dread and anxiety eating at him.

“I know I know. Exciting day for you, your sister gives birth today, I promise nothing happened while I wasn’t here” Dhuval grunted, the air hissed from his mask, only adding to Pax’s anxiety. He entered the hospital, made his way to the stairwell and started walking down. The massive sea of sand now above him always made him uneasy. He heard stories of a building collapsing and waves of sand crashing into the poor souls sheltering from the heat below, but all thoughts of this disappeared as the first bits of cool air hit him. Relief. He thought. He turned the corner after walking endlessly down the stairs. Sighed, took a long look at the faded Four F painted on the wall, and opened the door. “Finally here” an old man, hunched over a workbench said impatiently. His white coat glowed dark green from the strips of lights embedded in the walls. The room also glowed a dark green color, all walls, ceilings and floors were reinforced by thick steel plates. A small hope against the sea of sand all around them. Those plates with those green lights running along the walls, like they were guiding the way forward. He hated those lights. “Truly Sorry” Pax replied, a little untruthfully. He looked over at the Tusk with light blue leathery skin laying on the table. A giant blue gem in the center of her trunk caught his eye. “She must work for someone very wealthy” he said mostly to himself. “She must” the old man replied, still hunched over his table, endlessly fidgeting with the cyber mod he was making. “Blue gem embedded in her trunk, see through blue resin that matches right above at the connection, even the metal connector plate is stained blue. No recycled mods on her, all incredibly high quality…” ‘I think her name’s Nastaliya,'' the old man interrupted, pushing the metal arm attached to the work bench against the wall, and turning around. ‘Stop stalling’ he added coldy. “Human2…” Pax replied, the anxiety returning to him in an unrelenting force. He finally glanced over to the one part of the room his eyes were trying desperately to avoid, to the baby tusk lying on a stainless steel table in the center of the room. “Look what they’ve turned into” Human2 said with more hostility than Pax would've liked. “Look what we turned them into” he responded, a lack of emotion in his voice. Pax could already tell a lot of work was needed to keep this baby alive. His left leg and right arm were so shriveled they would never be operational. Those will have to be removed. He thought. Along with the trunk, as with every tusk nowadays. Shifting his eyes over to the curved and bent spine of the curled up and deformed elephant on the table. And as with every Tusk a spinal implant as well. He knew the tusk needed to be operated on within the next couple of hours to survive. “Stop stalling” Human2 replied, staring at him as if reading his thoughts 'It's the third one born, you know what happens to every third one..’ “Yes I know” Pax spat back with a lot more anger than intended. ‘I know what happens to every third Tusk born.’.

“It just doesn’t seem right” he said after a silence that seemed a lot longer than it was. “We are the ones who turned them into this, we experimented on them for years, genetically changed them, so we could survive. We attached chips to their brains, and altered them mechanically, to make our lives easier. Now we force them to gather food for us, trek through this unbearable desert to find the menial amounts of water left on this fucking planet, they guard us, fight for us, they work our construction sites. We wouldn’t be alive without them, and how do we repay them, by killing their fucking babies” He was almost shouting at this point, the rage made it feel like his head was vibrating, he shook for a second. Only to be hit with a wave of exhaustion, he knew it didn’t matter, it was pointless to argue with the older generation. “You know why” Human2 responded with a sigh, he was used to these rants by now. He, too, tired of arguing with those younger than him, felt like he had no need to explain himself. “They almost equal us in number now, we have to slow the growth of their population. They serve us now cause they think they need us, what happens when they wake up and realize we need them. We treat them like tools because that's what we need them to be.” “Cowardice wins again” Pax said under his breath, but loudly enough he could still be heard. “Let us just get this over with” his words shaking. I should have just stayed home, stayed in bed and gone back to sleep. Pax thought walking over to the wall and putting on his white coat. He grabbed his utensils, a scalpel, serrated knife, screwdriver and torch. Walked over to the baby tusk, and grabbed one of the shriveled appendages preparing to cut it off. “I know the drill” he said, answering Human2’s accusing stare. “Make it look like we tried” a terrible hissing sounded through the room. A hiss Pax knew, one that always made him uneasy. He turned, seeing the Tusk Dhuval staring at him.

*

“Make what look like you tried” the giant said, his red eye glaring at Pax. “I….we….just…” Pax couldn’t get his mouth to work, couldn’t even think of the words to say. Dhuval took a step forward, not taking his eye off him. Human2 ran over “Dhuval you misunderstand.” He shouted. Dhuval cocked back his arm and with just a single blow, sent the old man flying against the wall. Human2 just crumpled to the floor, the impact sounded like it broke every bone in his body. He lay there twitching for a few seconds, then nothing. Dhuval turned back to Pax. “Killed our babies! Our young!” He roared, taking another step forward. “Dhuval..” was all Pax managed to say, tripping on his own feet as he stepped backwards. He rolled onto his side, paralyzed by fear, he couldn’t move or think. His thoughts turned towards his exhaustion, his home buried a couple levels below the sand, how he wished he just stayed in bed. He felt a terrible pressure on his head as Dhuval placed his giant foot on his temple. I’m tired. Was the last thought he had. So tired. As Dhuval’s foot crushed his skull, cracking and splintering as he pushed down harder. One final crack then nothing.

*

Dhuval roared with rage, the revelation he just had destroying him. His head spinning, he couldn’t keep it all in. He roared again “They… Murdered… Our… Newborns'' his fist striking the metal plated walls as he yelled each word. Each punch indented the metal further and further in, until the last blow. The last punch ripped through the metal and the masonry wall behind, a few grains of sand followed as he pulled his fist back out of the hole. His index finger and pinky were just dangling by a couple wires, the top of his hand was shredded frayed wires spilling out the gashes. A couple more grains of sand fell from the whole, then a trickle of water flowed down. At that moment he heard his sister, Nastaliya move behind him. She sat up, looked around the room, at Human2’s crumpled body, at Pax, his brains flowing out from the top of his crushed skull, then at her baby. “Don’t worry” he said seeing intense concern on her face “We’re going to save him” the hiss from his mask breaking up his sentence. Nastaliya, still woozy from the drugs, looked over at the hole in the wall, to the small trickle of water flowing down from the hole. She thought she was seeing things, a hallucination, side effects of the drugs used to put her to sleep.

*

Dhuval walked outside, a group of Tusks stood outside the hospital, as if they instinctively knew to meet there. Among them was a Tusk, somewhat on the smaller side, his head would randomly spasm to the side every few seconds. For this reason everyone called him Tick. “Tick” Dhuval said, picking him out from the crowd. “Find all the black market augmenters, and bring them here now, they need to be ready to operate immediately” “Sir.. I don’t know any..” Tick tried to respond, but was quickly interrupted by the giant tusk giving him orders.

“Shut up.. we all know you do, get them, and bring them here. NOW!” Dhuval was done waiting and Tick could tell, he quickly ran off without saying another word. Dhuval briefed the growing crowd of Tusks to the atrocities he learned about at the bottom of the hospital. The Tusks astonished, enraged, and betrayed look at him in disbelief for a second. “What now” a few of them said in unison looking towards the Guardian Tusk for direction. Dhuval just looked down. He pulled his Hatchet from his belt, gripping it with his two working fingers. “We kill them all” he said, forcing his way through the center of the crowd.