Pivoting at her hips, Kirsten slashed out with her leg in a high arc, slamming the heel of her speeding foot into the face of the soldier. The flesh muffled crack of bone sounded and a sudden flare of pain erupted in her joint. With a violent throw the burly private was catapulted backwards, trailing flecks of red from his broken nose before being prematurely stopped by a tall trunk. The rough connection drove the wind from his lungs in a croaking exhale, further dazing the armoured warrior, his assault rifle falling from his loose fingers and vanishing into the tall grasses that sprung up amidst the roots of the tree.

How she loathed the uniform upon him. It had become a symbol of all she despised and feared and it felt good to exorcise some of her choler in the persecution of such a bigoted murderer. The attire responsible for her maenad fury was akin to standard military dress - loose combat trousers, boots, flak vest and jacket, webbing adorned with pouches and several grenades and a snug fitting helmet with incorporated radio - but the usual camouflage patchwork of greens and browns had been turned to a stark matt black, the hated heraldry of the KGP applied freely across the garb, the lightning bolt symbol over a cross announcing his allegiance boldly and proudly.

Airing a silent hiss she ran forward, her feet stamping lightly across the soft grasses of the woodland floor, gathering momentum and adding further virulence to a sweeping knee into his groin. With a gurgling cry the soldier doubled up, the cruel blow throwing him from his dazed stupor and dropping his face into her upsweeping open handed strike. The rising blow and diving head met with a loud snap that wrenched his head back, throwing him into a rigid stance before his consciousness trickled away upon the back of the trauma. Gradually he went slack, slowly slipping down against the supporting bark, eyes glazed and rolled upward to stare into his sockets.

Clapping a hand to the brow of the sagging helmet she stopped his descend, and listened to the chin strap groaning as it fought to hold the weight wilting upon it. The man’s face was indolent, flushed with purple from the contusions she had wrought, flows of crimson weaving from his wounds as he lay helpless before her. Pondering for a moment, she found her conscience pawing at her resolve, picking at her motives as though they were scabs, trying to stop her from finishing him. All regret and reserve vanished as she deliberately conjured up the acts she had seen these zealots perpetrating, because she was intent on doing this deed for her own safety as much as a thirst for vengeance. The engrams were drenched in rancour and had her screwing up her face with the flavour of this rising bitterness. Suppressing her tears, she launched her knuckles into the exposed throat with an atrabilious growl. The massive displacement of flesh parted the vertebrae cleanly, unleashing a brief spasm and a distant snap of moist tissues from the subdued frame before it went slack, a soft croaking exhale slipping from his parted lips as his life ebbed before her very eyes.

Savouring her victory, Kirsten dwelt on how this crime had started her on a very lethal road, that by acting in her own defence she was opened to the maelstrom of perpetual existence as a hunted fugitive. If the option had existed, she would have denied this vicissitude and continued her life of hiding, for she had prepared such a lifestyle with sterling precision when Kessler’s rise to power had begun. Having left little to chance, she had proved herself more fortunate than others of her kind by managing to remain lost from the eyes of the authorities and she was loathe to forsake what she had so perfectly sculpted.

Grabbing the cadaver, she dumped it into the smothering arms of a bush, straightening the branches about the crooked form to conceal it prior to shouldering his deserted rifle. Shovelling extra leaves onto the grave site to hide the proof of her revenge as best she could, she listened intently for signs of his fellows.

The era of her peaceful existence had now been terminated after years spent in solitary isolation, locked away in her basement, etching her living as a computer programmer through the unbiased medium of the Internet, ordering in her food, running her accounts from afar, never needing to leave her abode and open herself to the scrutiny of the scanner teams. When house to house enquiries threatened her sanctuary, she risked hacking into the mainframe network and inserting a negative response to their tests, so that, deeming her already cleared by their own flawless records, she had remained safe from their persecution.

But gradually she had started to go crazy from such fortified segregation. The need to go out into the sun, to walk the streets and mingle with other people had become too pressing to deny. Television taunted her endlessly, especially round the holidays, for Christmas and other festivals offered blissful happiness to be spent with others, yet she was trapped and alone, afraid to leave lest she end up in the Sanctuary camps. She knew they existed, as almost everyone did, but it was easy to delude oneself that it was not so, for the media had been placed under rigid control and now voiced only the anti-mutant propaganda required of it, while routinely obliterating all mention of the excesses perpetrated by the government and their pernicious stormtroopers.

The rising tide of genetic abnormalities amongst the population had been building for decades now and although most used their new powers and abilities benignly, or hid them, others of a less stable or civic minded mentality were often less inclined to be so reserved and it was they who had ignited the powder keg of oppression.

Finding her victim satisfactorily hidden, she started to regulate her speeding breath and check her surroundings, its beauty lost to her terror saturated stare.

The halcyon scene buzzed with the soft hum of insects and the chirp of birds. Golden sunlight poured from an unblemished vault and streamed through the interlocked canopy of foliage, the bright beams spotlighting various areas of the woods. A slight breeze trickled through the winding maze of trunks and caressed the wild grasses, sending undulating waves across the carpet as the trees and fallen leaves rustled seductively. The smoggy haze of pollution that brooded over the city like some ethereal spectre marked its direction and showed her the route she had to take. Trotting off through the vegetation and away from the sprawling metropolis, she reached up in mid dash and took firm hold of an overhead branch. With a hiss of exertion she strained and hauled herself up, dragging her swinging body into the upper reaches for a better vantage point.

The sounds of the patrol had slackened off considerably, suggesting that they had moved on, hopefully following a false trail, or even more useful would be their giving up on finding her.

What would she do now? She could not risk going home. When the wandering street patrol had detected her they were sure to have gained a picture, and it would only be a matter of time before they had tracked her to her hidden lair. Yet she had nothing with her. Dressed only in jeans, trainers, and a loose shirt, she had declined even a jacket on this mild day, leaving her vulnerable to exposure and woefully ill prepared for sudden relocation to the wilds.

She had known that KGP Stalker units still walked the streets with portable sensors. Such devices had feeble ranges, but they were a hazard none the less. By avoiding such brazenly distinctive units when she saw them, she believed she could detour long before she entered their effective range of detection.

Turning a corner and coming face to face with a patrol had been terrible luck and as the sensor lit up at her affirmed corrupted genetic strands, she was exposed and had to flee. The milling crowds aided her flight, slowing the Stalkers as they fought to break through and capture her. The dogged chase had driven her out of the city and into the surrounding woodland, the vengeful foe calling in more and more of their forces to apprehend her. The ferocity with which they were seeking her revealed just how effective the campaign of elimination had been. To martial such resources against one person meant that there was little else occupying them, therefore the city had to be virtually devoid of all mutants.

The rhythmic chatter of a helicopter threatened to draw close, making her clamp herself to the branch and swing beneath it, using the stout tree limb to hide her heat pattern from any thermic imaging. The minutes continued to trail slowly by, arms and legs gathering a prickling heat as they fought to hold her to the perch. Small beads of perspiration began to well across her features as she held tight, waiting for the sound to vanish, the salty dew conjured by fear as much as toil.

Gradually the eerie disruption of the quiet dwindled, leaving only the silence. Perhaps it would be wise to move deeper into the wilds, beyond the scope of the paramilitary zealots to scan or randomly venture. Rumour accorded the depths of the woodlands with mutant bands, resistance cells and refugees, hiding together for mutual protection, using their powers and stealth devices to scramble the organic sensors of their foes and keep themselves hidden.

Perhaps she could try and locate one such fabled band. She knew nothing of surviving in the wilderness, her life had revolved solely around that of a city dweller. Her career, her existence, all of it was based in civilised society. What would she do in the forests? She had never even gone camping, preferring locations in the city’s heart and foreign hotels to the vapid delights of the world’s nature spots.

Dropping from her lofty bastion she fell into a tensed crouch, her eyes scrutinising the lush greenery for trace of her enemy. Finding the scene safe, she removed the rifle from her back and looked it over. Unfamiliar with firearms, she barely knew enough to fire one, but she felt safer facing a patrol with a hap hazard and rudimentary skill and an assault rifle, rather than just her capital unarmed abilities - the result of a hobby that had risen to an obsessive devotion once the attacks on her kind started to escalate.

Cocking the weapon, she cradled it in her grasp and began to jog away from the city.

It seemed so unfair that she was being condemned to the same fate as most mutant kind. Those with a warped gene pool were often twisted aberrations, their contorted flesh grotesque and to be reviled. It was this trait of physical monstrosity that had made them such easy scapegoats. The mistake of all previous tyrants had been the genocide of peoples, faiths and creeds that the populous could sympathise with, who looked just like everyone else, who could have been their neighbours and friends, leaving only the most fanatic to tolerate their utter eradication, whereas everyone else could only stomach singling them out for segregation or imprisonment, wholesale slaughter offending them to the point of rebellion.

But mutants disturbed the eye with their deformities, and if there was one thing humans found it easy to find abhorrent, it was deformity or difference. Thus Mary Kessler had managed to sweep into parliament and power upon a prejudice tidal wave of anti-mutant policies. Her charisma and heartfelt rallies against letting corrupted genes continue to infect the purity of the human race, and with the exaggerating of any act of mutant uprising or crime, she gathered more and more support. The population were hesitant to fall in behind a patriotic figurehead that promoted racism, but it was easier on the palette when the targets were so alien, and regarding them as non-humans became readily more acceptable, and it was this viewpoint that seemed to condone the removal and ill-treatment of this slice of society. With a true and highly visible group to blame for all of life’s troubles, everything from unemployment, to crime, to the lateness of the train to work, all of it was readily heaped upon the defenceless shoulders of mutant kind. But Kirsten was like many of her breed, her outward appearance untouched - slender, shapely, with a wreath of neck length brown hair, she was considered attractive, yet the application of the word mutant turned her salacious form into that of a hideous monstrosity to be found utterly repellent.

Continuing the stroll through the fertile sea of tranquil vegetation, Kirsten stopped as she thought she heard movement. Stopping to listen in, the crack and rustle of a carefree march was faint, and issuing from her left. Normal ears would not have heard it, but her senses were considerably sharper - one of the meagre compensations of her mutant power.

The minutiae of the sounds suggested that there was an individual, moving well ahead of a larger group, their booted feet undoubtedly those of a patrol. But the lead form was moving adeptly, near silently, with a caution never seen in the brash and defiant soldiers. Turning from her path she lowered into the arms of a large bush, lifted the rifle to her shoulder, drew rough aim and waited to see who the rambler was, intrigued as to who it might be.

From the depths of the treeline emerged a surreal form. It had the contours and attributes of a man, his entire body encased in a layer of opaque black that lacked wrinkle, seam, or visible zip. It incorporated gloves, feet, and a hood with no apertures save acute eyeslits. Sections of armour touched his body, affixed to the all encompassing sheath. Small guards held his shoulders, while vambrace and greave covered shin and forearm with sculpted black, each with an articulated piece to cover the joint. Bands encircled each palm, fully coating the back of his hand, and each fingertip was adorned with a hooked black claw, the curved metal ascending to a wicked point. A thick collar wound around his neck, the dark steel studded viciously, just as similar dark spikes ran along the midnight skin, flowing along arm and leg, up the side of his torso, down the centre of his hood, with a triangle impressed upon his groin to throw lines up and around his waist.

She paused in bafflement, for about this mysterious form could be seen the flowing aura of a mutant, her eyes able to pierce the normal spectrum and examine the variety of energies a living being produced. A fairly useless quirk, it had one great advantage in that the signatures of a mutant were always corrupted by the wild variants within them, their altered cells releasing distorted frequencies and amounts, betraying their origin, just like the one she now bore witness to.

Could this be another renegade, pursued by a patrol, the presence of another mutant helping justify the massive deployment of forces? His outlandish attire was clearly some mode of covert dress, indicating a possible resistance terrorist. If this man had been engaged in acts of violence upon the hateful powers, it more than explained the vast influx of KGP, because it meant that they were seeking him, her own hounding being secondary to this guerrilla fighter.

The restricted gaze of the stranger whirled and locked on her position before he unexpectedly stormed forward towards it, moving with incredible speed. As she wondered how he had so easily discerned her presence, he burst through her cover. One hand snatched the barrel of the rifle, the other opened hot trenches along her right bicep with a swipe of the artificial nails, the capricious flick making her hand desert the grip and trigger before clenching and returning as a backhanded punch. The knuckles danced across her features and hurled her into the air with their unnatural ferocity. Kirsten’s scrambled senses returned in mid flight, her dazed eyes focusing a hazy blur into a pane of greenery whirling beneath her. Dropping to the ground with a jarring thud she bounced twice and then rolled into an indolent heap.

Tasting the warmth of blood in her mouth, she fought to regain her dizzy balance, shoving up with her arms to acquire some semblance of a stance. Her legs wilted and wobbled beneath her, causing her to sway unsteadily, her balled fists serving as crutches because giddiness ruled her mind and nausea held regnant in her torso.

Turning her head, she regarded her assailant as he threw the rifle aside, treating it as though it were of little consequence before assessing her with a crooked glance.

Shaking her head to banish the fogginess that still lingered, she felt the pain in her mouth fading, her enhanced metabolism already sealing the injury, her flesh possessed of a recuperative factor that had been instrumental in classifying her as a mutant, and her attacker would soon be learning what the other factors were.

With a springing skip the black form commenced his approach at an ascending speed, launching an arm out to dice her upon his hardened talons. Kirsten’s legs thrust simultaneously, hurling her up as she whirled, the mysterious enemy being carried past on his impetuous haste to receive a spinning circle kick to his shoulder blade. Her augmented strength and speed shattered the bone with a brittle signal, striping him from his feet and dropping him to the floor as waves of debilitating pain rolled throughout his body. Landing nimbly, she danced forward to finish him, throwing up an elbow to shatter his throat. A bolt of shock rocked her abdomen, the sole of her opponent’s foot jerking up to counter her advance and lift her from her feet upon the galvanic kick.

Winded by the tempestuous might of his attack she staggered back, cradling her stomach with one arm, holding the other out to try and parry the offensive her obviously fully recovered opponent was sure to mount.

Flipping to his feet with a cavorting leap, he span upon one foot, the other held up to his torso like a wound spring, delaying his attack as he build momentum and first tried to distract her keen awareness. Without warning, a punch flew out at her features. Blocking it with her forearm she declined the opportunity to respond and held her defensive posture to refuse the imminent kick.

An opaque leg lanced out from within the whirlwind of dark hide, targeting her flank in the wake of the punch that had tried to fully occupied her senses.

Throwing down her arm and casting up her leg, she trapped the foot harshly between knee and elbow, the two joints mashing the extremity, breaking the bones and sending a violent shockwave of trauma up the limb.

Without even a cry against such fierce crippling the man backflipped, brushing the ball of his foot to Kirsten’s chin, snapping her gaze up amidst a white pulse of sudden shock, and repelling her as he dropped onto the assaulting leg, carefully balancing to spare his wounded foot the rigours of his body weight.

Giving him no time to recover, she shrugged off the lethargy of this heated fight and launched forward into a high jump, coiling a leg up to her chest and then stabbing forward into his breast with a shout of maximum effort. The moist snap of ribs crunching like dessicated beetles resounded and the mutant was hurled back, his legs staggering to regain his equilibrium and cease his flailing retreat. A fallen tree stripped them from under him and he dropped heavily onto his shoulders.

A brief sprint metamorphosed into a speeding cartwheel that ended in a nimble flip high over the trunk to land with both feet on the oppressed chest. The parted bones grated on each other with the sudden weight, expelling all breath from his body in a plosive croak. His shout of anguish was cut short with the hacking chop of her hand into his neck, the brutality of her strike shattering his larynx and windpipe.

The dying rattle in his throat accompanied the sound of heavy boots entering line of sight and without caution the patrol levelled their weapons and barked warnings for her to stop. Ignoring their threats she broke and ran, knowing that they intended no easy capture, especially with her slaying of their own. In seconds they would open fire, so she had to put as much distance between herself and the soldiers as possible, and with her heart thumping in her chest, her lungs threatening to burst from excessive use, she sprinted for cover, weaving amongst the trees in a desperate frenzy.

The stuttering chatter of automatic weapons rent the salubrious quiet, and she was chagrin to see the rough skin of nearby trees erupting under the wanton stabbing punch of bullets. The blizzard of fire filled the air with the shrill whistling of their passage as she ducked and wove, praying that she not be hit, but the sheer number of projectiles being unleashed made such an occurrence almost impossible.

There was a dull thump and a sharp impact afflicted her shoulder, knocking her into a reckless, lopsided somersault as a tremendous cramp shot outward from the affected spot, her chest exploding with tidal waves of agony that paralysed her entire body, leaving her unable to effect her reckless drop onto the ground. A strobe pulse of agony ripped at her form as she sprawled into the grass, totally immobilised with the pain.

Clutching the wound, she scowled through clenched teeth, riding out the thundering fires, letting their intensity dwindle to a less vibrant pitch before she attempted movement, a steady flow of warmth running through her trembling fingers.

The revelation that the Stalkers were using mutants to hunt mutants was troubling. What incentive could there possibly be to turn on one’s own kind? Of course, reprieve from the camps was the obvious reward. Since Kessler’s party had taken full control of the government and managed to gain a state of emergency declared, the elected tyrant was able to do pretty much what she wanted, and was now far too powerful to resist. Besides, most people supported her and agreed with her plan of segregation, their fear of mutants permitting numerous atrocities. Mutants had simply been harassed and turned out in the beginning, but the bitterness this caused soon prompted mutants into fighting back and retaliating, giving the jaundiced programme the footage and excuse it needed to take its steps further. Incarceration was then deemed the only solution to the mutant problem. Those who resisted entry into specially constructed ‘Sanctuary’ camps were summarily killed and in the camps, behind the barbed wire and guards, the mine fields and machine gun posts, mutants were worked and starved to death.

The Knights of Genetic Purity had initially been a radical civilian force that supported Kessler’s group - ‘the Party for Human Rights’. It had such an innocuous sounding name, and no one would ever have expected it to gather the momentum it had. The Knights began to defend against acts of mutant violence, the carefully orchestrated events fooling the average benighted citizen and inciting widespread civil unrest and indignation. With the total acquisition of democratic power and control, the Knights had become a paramilitary wing, drafting in the willing recruits from the military and police, forming into an independent army, loyal only to Kessler’s cause. With their own bases, augmenting and then replacing the police in mutant hot spots, exclusively regulating the camps, they helped hide the true savagery of Kessler’s rule, and suppressed all resistance and dissension to her goal.

Clawing at the soil, Kirsten dragged herself onwards, her body pounding with its own excruciating pulse. Her sight swam as she fought to continue, stubbornly fighting off unconsciousness as her arm trailed lazily, marking her passage with a sporadic ruddy path.

A spitting hiss of compressed air preceded a light sting in her thigh and Kirsten jerked her gaze over her shoulder to see the bright red tail feathers of a tranquilliser dart jutting like a fiery plume from her flesh. Lifting her stare she took in a figure brooding over her, the officer having made her approach by exploiting Kirsten’s maimed senses. The woman was tall, her frame bore athletic muscles honed for use, not for show, with blonde hair tied back into a stern plait. The attire upon this generously sculpted physique had more than a fleeting kinship with the uniforms of the troops, for she wore black combat trousers tied about the top of heavy boots, a utility belt with pouches, and a holstered sidearm, but here the apparel deviated and turned to a lycra halter neck top and short leather gloves. Some manner of KGP identification badge lay at her breast, the notion of her being a commissioned aid proven erroneous by the appearance of the Knight’s emblem as a tattoo upon her bared arm, the mark ensuring that her visage fully explained her devout allegiance.

The woman looked down upon Kirsten with disdain, lifting the pistol she had been aiming at her and watching as her victim began to slip into a drugged stupor, all sight dissolving, and her mind going blank.

What desperate fate awaited her as a prisoner? She had been deliberately taken alive and she feared what life might be like for her in the Sanctuary camps. As she dwelt on the possibilities, she felt her limbs being taken up and all recollection ceased as she swam in a dreamless void.