Chapter One - Authentic Artificial Smoke

"Civilization is an evolution of Herd Mentality when it meets Intelligence. Like a herd, Civilization is a collective effort for the greater good of the whole, maintained through willing adherence to an agreed upon framework of accepted behaviors. It transcends the herd that came before it by its ability to include other groups to whom one is not directly related. The ability to form bonds with others is essential to the function of Civilization. Without it, Civilization's collapse is inevitable.

Predators are fundamentally incapable of forming these essential bonds. Order can only be maintained among them through force and intimidation. As a consequence, they are inherently incapable of becoming Civilized. Might is the only thing that makes right, and any sign of weakness in a leader results in immediate challenges to authority.

In a way, it is a brutal meritocracy. You own nothing more than you can defend, have no rights but what you can demand, and the idea of personhood is entirely absent. You are Predator, or you are Prey."

--Dr. Weltik D'Jenn, Professor of Xenohistory, class lecture, "The Predator Nature"

***

A building miniature storm of static electricity traced lines across the wrinkled concrete and latched onto the metal walls, their once shining surfaces rendered matte by years of uncleaned grunge and patterned like a tiger's hide by the rusty tracts traced by a decillion drops of condensate. The disruptions the storm created in the air around it caused a light breeze, not enough to disturb the piles of urban detritus gathered like snowdrifts in the alleyway's corners.

The storm increased in time with the air pressure until, were there anyone in the vicinity, their ears would ache to pop. There was a soft thump that went lost amid the sounds of the city after twenty feet and both the storm and the pressure were gone.

In their place was a lanky male humanoid, half crouched like he was ready to bolt and head twitching to glance in every direction. He was dressed simply, in a ratty, half-shredded jumper that looked like it'd been used as a scratching post for a large wildcat, but he barely looked human. His lean arms were too long, he had weirdly thick patches of fur-like hair in spots around the visible portions of his body, his fingers ended in black claws and his teeth were all sharp or pointed. His forehead was sloped backward at an angle, yet bulged into a prominent brow as if a thick plate rested underneath.

Forgah took in his first scent of the area with a deep, long breath that flared the slits along his nostrils, then released it in an angry, rattling hiss. It certainly smelled like the poor part of a Union megacity, bristling with mold that told him tales of rust and excrement. The amount of pollution in the air suggested he was in a factory district.

That made it quite the surprise when three steps took him onto a shopping concourse that was actually in use, a smattering of people making their way up and down the walkway instead of huddling in corners from preds, defenders or just the cold. He couldn't even see the nearest factories. What was wrong with the city's scrubbers that the air was this bad, and why wasn't anyone bothered by it?!

He told himself he wasn't bothered by it, personally. He was accustomed to slumming it. It was the unexpected response from the preys that bothered him. It wasn't natural. And unnaturalness put any sensible being on edge.

Especially when all the preys looked like her. Not exactly, no. If he hadn't been fleeing the Defenders' pet monster, he might have thought he'd come out on an Undpani world, the way they all clung close to one another and chattered incessantly in a tongue his translator took an awkwardly long moment to recognize. But there were ways to tell the monster from one of those monkeys, and these preys all had the same traits.

He pressed himself up against the wall when a pair came near him, but neither of them even registered his existence. They just kept on prattling to one another and walking on by, oblivious to the pred within inches of them. He could have reached out and killed them both, only the surprising observation delaying him too long to do so. They may have looked like her, but they behaved like pure preys.

That realization calmed him down a little. He wasn't surrounded by death world preds, ready to pile on top of him, rip him limb from limb and gnaw his bones to the marrow. Not that he'd ever actually heard of the monster doing that last one, but it made sense as a final step. It's what he would have done. Yes, killing was fun, and that was reason enough to do it, but not eating your kill was just wasteful.

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Forgah's nostrils picked up another scent only a moment after the thought of eating, and he slipped off of the wall to follow it. It smelled delicious. Like when he killed with fire, but with less burnt hair. He knew a pred that liked to throw his kills on an open bonfire just for this very aroma. He'd sampled some of that fireborn meat once and his tongue had remembered the taste ever since. The only reason Forgah hadn't picked up the habit was sheer impatience.

There! A block down and across the road! An entire food stand dedicated to fireborn meat, and it wasn't even manned!

That was more unnaturalness, and it put him on edge again. Why put out meat if it's not a trap? A pred running a food stall wasn't unheard of, but business or no, all preds knew to guard their meat from others. Anyone who couldn't protect their kills would have it taken from them. It was just the natural way of things. The only rational assumption was that it was a trap to catch more meat.

Still, the meat called to him longingly, so he made his way carefully over. The preys still ignored him and the food stand, so he used them for brief stints of moving cover as he closed in on the kiosk. Once there was nothing else between him and the stand, he approached more slowly, turned sideways to minimize his silhouette as his eyes watched for any signs of aggression from the twitchy, primitive robot working the meat. Maybe it had lasers or sonic cannons. It was for putting slabs of meat on a fire, so maybe it would defend its master's prize with monomolecular knives and flamethrowers.

He nearly jumped and ran when it spoke to him instead.

"Welcome, valued customer!" The voice was synthetic and tinny, like something old and damaged, and its plastic carapace was covered in pack markings Forgah couldn't make sense of. It still twitched and jerked its four limbs as it kept the oddly angular chunk of meat turning. Maybe the meat was just a piece of a larger cut. "I see you are interested in our rotisserie meat product, grilled over heat lamps with authentic artificial smoke flavoring! Can I interest you in a cut served in one of two classic traditions? Meaty Meat Co personally guarantees that that is two more than any other dedicated, non Meaty Meat Co brand rotisserie meat product vendor registered on this block!"

... It wasn't stopping him, not yet, so he got a little closer. It didn't speak again until his hand crossed the clear plastic trim along the edge of the stand. Then it wouldn't shut up.

"Valued customer, please keep your hands out of the food preparation area. This is for your own safety and to keep this kiosk in compliance with food preparation safety standards. There are many hot surfaces and sharp objects you may damage yourself on and your blood may cause cross-contamination of foodstuffs."

"Valued customer, please do not attempt to prepare your own rotisserie meat product. We at Meaty Meat Co understand that our rotisserie meat product is irresistible in taste, price and MSG added, but this kiosk is not a self-serve station."

"Valued customer, please return the rotisserie meat product. I have not confirmed your credit transaction and the rotisserie meat product remains the property of Meaty Meat Co until such time as your payment is successfully processed. Theft of product will be reported to relevant authorities and all relevant fees for law enforcement services will be forwarded to your account."

"Valued customer, you are consuming more than your appointed portion. Please place your order through the provided interface so that charges can be applied correctly and appropriate servings may be dispensed."

Once Forgah figured out that the robot was programmed by preys, it quickly devolved from potential threat to intruding annoyance. It may not have had any claws to defend itself with, but his took its head clean off, producing a shower of sparks and a crazed flailing from the body before it collapsed against its own empty grill.

The sudden violence startled one of the passing preys into actually noticing him. A female let out a startled shout that turned into a scream when he turned his gaze toward her to glare over the stolen haunch in his mouth.

His claws shot out again, this time ripping her throat out and rendering her blessedly silent in a crimson spray of lifeblood. Her body slumped to the ground like a cut marionette a moment later. One hand holding the rotisserie meat product, he took hold of one of her limbs with the other and lifted her corpse back up.

Killing the female hadn't just put an end to her shrill, ear-piercing bleating; it had also given him even more meat. Now, he just needed to find a quiet, out of the way place where he could keep his head down, and he could celebrate his escape by eating until his stomach was fit to burst!

"H-Hey, what do you think you're doing?!"

More interruptions ... Forgah turned his gaze to the figure shakily pointing some sort of primitive firearm at him. The male wasn't wearing a Defender uniform, but any pred worth his blood could tell a cop when he saw one. Some sort of local constabulary, maybe? Or perhaps, the thought occurred to him, he wasn't on a Union planet at all.

The mere possibility stretched his mouth into a teeth-baring grin that made the guardsman step back as Forgah turned to face him fully.

"Whoa, you're one ugly sunova--"

The moment the officer let his surprise tip his gun away from Forgah, the Atellian's tongue snapped out across the five feet between them and pierced the male's eye socket. It came back into his mouth with a slightly deflated eyeball and a sampling of gray matter that had him licking his lips after it went down.

Forgah found himself staring down at the lawman's body and feeling like a bit of a hypocrite. He'd just been bemoaning the wasteful abandonment of a kill, but now his hands were full.

After a moment of consideration, he rolled a couple feet of his tongue back out and wrapped it around the haunch before clamping his teeth down on it for good measure, then took a limb from each prey in one of his hands and proceeded to drag them off down the street. If he could find a nice hideaway quickly enough, he wouldn't even need to worry about his tongue cramping.

This was, of course, much more noticeable to the other preys in the concourse, but as was appropriate for preys, the sight of two of their own dead silenced them from doing anything as stupid as the ones he'd already killed had. They stared, slackjawed and silent, as the predator passed through them and out of sight.

Which was good. After all, now he really was out of hands.