FIVE HYENAS
Begging. I loathe begging, it makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. But here I am, begging. When you have a gun aimed at your head you learn a lot about yourself. Some men accept that death is certain at this point. Others, well, they cling to some silly notion of hope. Beggars.
I’m a fucking beggar. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. It’s undignified. Snot. Tears. “Die with some pride,” I tell myself right before I put a bullet in my head.
It’s an odd thing, killing yourself.
When I joined HELO, short for, human engineered living organisms, a mouthful, I know. I was supposed to be the first in a new wave of cloned soldiers. The goal was to hand pick the best soldiers and clone them so they could lead their own elite squads on top secret missions. A unified way of thinking never seen before. It’s YOU leading YOU. What could go wrong?
Everything.
My clones, five in all, evolved way beyond what the scientist had predicted. They looked like me. Sounded like me. They even ran like me. My physical attributes held strong. The mental aspect of me, not so much.
The clones did everything together. Eat, sleep, workout, sometimes you’d look over and catch them chewing in unison. Eventually the clones separated themselves from the rest of us. They began to think they were superior to everyone else, even me. They started calling themselves the Five Hyenas. They would spend hours reading up on men like Genghis Khan and Julius Caesar. At night you’d pass their room and catch them huddled up talking but the moment you stepped foot inside they’d go silent. They’d stare at you with this deep cold look. Shit was creepy. While they were working out one morning a few of us searched their room and found a journal. In it they wrote about overthrowing the government, starting a new revolution, a whole new system to govern by. Which was very archaic in its methodology. Too much Khan and Caesar, I suppose. They’re plan was to build an army. An army of them. Which in essence would have been an army of me. I like myself, obviously, I got cloned. But five of me turned out to be bad apples. Could you imagine an army?
They escaped, minus the army. We didn’t let them get to the clone machine but they did leave a few things behind for us to find. In their room were three dead bodies. Two guards and a scientist. And on the wall was a note written in blood.
YOU WILL BEG FOR MERCY
YOU SHALL NOT GET IT
FIVE HYENAS
When I was told I had to partner up with a techie I gagged. Tech people are great behind a computer but are terrible in the field and tend to be squeamish when it comes to blood. Once the gagging stopped I just hoped for the best in this case that was a redhead who fancied high heels, tight clothes, wore glasses and had a name with three syllables, like Ameena.
Realistically, I figured I’d get a guy who dressed in beige and wore glasses with a one syllable name, like Paul. What I got was Smitty. A computer genius. A sloppy, out of shape, foul mouthed, computer genius. And Smitty, isn’t even his real name.
Smitty talks in computer lingo. It’s annoying, mainly because I don’t understand shit he’s saying. But he’s damn good on that machine. He was able to hack into every security camera located within 30 miles from our base where the Five Hyenas escaped. He searched every single frame of footage until he found them. Then he tracked their movements by hacking into any camera system that was within 15 miles of the route they were headed on.
He figured out their route by cross analyzing data comprised of major highways, side roads, available transportation, population index and a psychological review I took when entering the HELO program. He found them in a run down motel in West Virginia.
It was seven of us including Smitty and myself. I convinced the Secretary of Defense, who’s the head of the HELO program, that a smaller team would be more efficient. I went on about how we’d be able to move faster and make quicker adjustments. I’m sure I tossed in a few more enticing word bites but I can’t remember half the conversation, the truth is, I was high as shit.
The only reason I wanted a small team is because it be less people I had to lie too. The Secretary wanted me to bring the Five Hyenas back alive. I didn’t. What the Secretary or anyone for that matter doesn’t know is there’s a dark side of me. A side that fantasizes about violence. A side that enjoys the thought of killing people and I’ve spent my entire life controlling that darkness.
The Five Hyenas are me with no control, the darkness free to roam. And it scares the shit out of me.
We had the jump on them but they are me. Which means a simple situation quickly turned into a shoot out. I took two agents and we covered the back. I figured that be their first move. They figured that I know that so they shot their way through the front killing an agent in the process. They ran into a field of high grass across from the motel. Me and three agents handled pursuit. I had Smitty, who gets tired walking up a flight of fucking stairs, stay back with another agent encase they doubled back for their vehicle. When I got to the edge of the field I caught up with one of the Hyenas who was about to set the field on fire.
The best thing about being the clone maker and not the clone is you have a slight edge in anticipating your own moves. It’s like being a parent, you know when your kid has that crayon in hand and eyeballs the wall what’s coming next. I anticipated a hell of a fight considering I hold myself in high regard in the art of ass whopperie. And here I was about to go toe to toe with myself. But that wasn’t the case. He went down pretty easily which for a second had me re-evaluating my status as an ass whopper. Was I more Karate Kid than Jean-Claude Van Damme?
He was probably the weakest of the clones.
That’s what I told myself as I watched me turn into a sniveling pile of pathetic. A fucking beggar.
It’s an odd thing, killing yourself.
It’s even odder watching yourself die.
There are four Hyenas left and I hope to God none of them are fucking beggars.
