Earthborn

Quentin

I stood before the doors of the interrogation room and took a deep breath. Before me was a tablet containing the list of everyone who boarded the colony ship here. Scarlett looked at the tablet and nodded. There was a silent agreement between us. I pushed the cold metal door open, revealing a very bright room with white and gray walls and three wooden chairs. Scarlett and I took a sea on the same side of the table. The clock on the wall slowly ticked as we waited.

After a few minutes, one of the cops escorted the inexperienced male vulpine into the interrogation room. He was placed opposite us. I looked over him and came to some conclusions. First, he was young. Second, he seemed skittish. Getting him to admit what he did wouldn't be the hard part, it was extracting information without him breaking down and crying. I took a deep breath and placed a tablet on the table. "You're not in trouble. At least, not if you answer the questions," I said as I looked at him.

He nodded quickly, holding back tears.

I picked up the stylus. Looking him in the eyes, I asked, "What is your name?"

"Kyle," he answered. "Kyle Anderson." He looked around nervously, tapping his foot quickly as he probably feared what to do next.

I looked at the next item on the list. "What role did you play in the break-in?"

"I was a trainee. I came along to learn what to do. All I knew was that the Council wanted me to help my superior gather information on the only known survivor of the Qarri Mutation Experiments," Kyle said as he looked at the desk. "I'm not a criminal or anything. I took what offer I got. I had not skills, no education, and no prospects. My only fate was to be a test subject or join the military. So I decided to become a vulpine to help my military prospects and earn some days of leave."

The mention of Qarri Mutation Experiments set me on edge. What I just heard confirmed that whoever sent him was someone in the government, or at least someone with knowledge of the experiments. That excluded corporations without government contracts, strongmen, or any other group that wouldn't have a link. I leaned forward and asked, "Who is this Council? What group formed them? What do you know?"

Kyle threw his hands in the air and quickly shouted in fear, "I don't know, sir! I'm just a lowly soldier without any say in anything! The only thing I know is that the Progress and Prosperity Council is an unelected council of scientists and engineers tasked with building a society of the future, a place where the unlearned masses get told by their betters what to do."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. This rhetoric reminded me of the Scientist faction of the Qarri, who believed everyone else to be too stupid to rule themselves and whose relentless drive for progress led to horrific experiments. It was disheartening to see that among humans, the ideology found a home.

After a few moments of silence, I cleared my throat and asked, "Would you be willing to join us in exchange for having your charges dropped?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Kyle nodded his head. "Yes, sir. I would love clemency for my actions."

I stood up and held out my hand. "If that's the case, welcome to the team. We could use all the help we can get." With that, Kyle walked into the hallway as the next vulpine entered.

She was not much different from Kyle. She was perhaps no older than her early twenties and looked out of her depth. Much like Kyle, I had the feeling that she also reached a dead-end. She sat down in the chair and sighed. "I didn't want things to get to this." She sniffled. "I took any opportunity I could."

I leaned back in my chair and steepled my fingers. "Already with the excuses. I already got the sob story from your buddy, Kyle, so let's cut to the chase. If you want to avoid going to prison, you will provide your name, what you know, and vow your allegiance to our cause."

She nodded fervently and cleared her throat. After a beat, she explained, "My name is Chloe Steele. As for why I took this position, it was actually because I thought it'd be cool to be some human-fox hybrid thing. I mean, other than using a lot more shampoo and getting overheated quicker, it's actually quite nice with few downsides. For my backstory, I was a recent college grad. I actually used my overdrawn student loans to purchase a seat on the spaceship to get here as I wanted to escape Earth before it blew up and I was always interested in space. Unfortunately, I crash-landed with the Progress and Prosperity Council."

I smiled and handed over a bottle of water. As she drank from it, I leaned forwards and asked, "Do you have any information on what the goals of the Progress and Prosperity Council and their methods?"

Chloe closed her water bottle and rested her arms on the table. "While I don't have insider knowledge, I do know that they intend to scout out the area to find other settlements from the survivors and to attempt to covertly take them over. Besides that, they are mutating as many people as they can to be vulpines and even some experimental mutants. In fact, there is a lupine mutant out there and she's quite the menace. But that's not exactly relevant to this conversation."

"Let's stay on topic. What else did they attempt to do other than collapse information on Scarlett?"

She looked me in the eyes. "You. They wanted to gather information on you, sir."

That sentence sent a shiver through my spine. I sat up straight. "You can't be serious. I'm a mere twenty-seven year old who is just settling down with his wife."

Chloe crossed her arms. "No disrespect, but that's a rather misleading description. There is a reason they are interested in you. You are Quentin Alexander Smith, the man who traveled across the galaxy to return home, fighting aliens along the way. If anything, you were also a primary target. Whichever power laid claim over you would be seen as holding the savior of humanity's loyalty. That has a major effect on morale and legitimacy."

I frowned as I processed it. It was clear that Scarlett and I were going to be the targets of political intrigue even as we tried to just live our lives. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do about it. Scratching my stubble, I pondered what to do with this information. It was clear I couldn't just disappear into the background. I looked at Chloe and said, "You are dismissed. Go join Kyle at the break room and talk to the captain."

Once Chloe left the room, Scarlett reentered with a radio in hand. She set it on the table and set the dial to the army's frequency. Once ambient chatter filled the room, she looked at me and said, "This feels kind of pointless. As far as we know, these two only know the basics their superiors told them."

"It seems so. However, I did take notes." Holding up my notes, I looked over them. "Apparently, they were sent by the Progress and Prosperity Council. This is some technocratic government-like organization that seems to be sending out vulpine scouts to infiltrate and carry out secret missions."

Scarlett swished her tail in frustration as she scowled. "Figures. I couldn't be the only vulpine for long and it seems that they're going to have a bad reputation now. But I can't complain too much since I do have my business that's going well."

"That and there aren't that many vulpines and you're the only one most people know. But yeah, I hope it doesn't get worse."

As we sat in silence, our hands finding each other, the radio got quiet for a moment. It lasted a minute before we heard one of the soldiers shout into it. "This is Charlie Squadron! There is a large army of Corvids headed for Eastlake! Can we get reinforcements for Eastlake!" The soldier went on, but Scarlett lowered the volume, her ears flicking. She looked at me with a frown and sighed.

As for myself, I slowly got up and walked to the door. It seemed that the first major battle on this new planet has begun and that the history of it will be written in blood despite our best hopes.