Trial X6

Steelheads Smell

  Silently getting off my sleeping bag, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness since I had awoken to the front door opening and some footsteps that followed. Crouching down, I grabbed my hat and put it over my ears while cautiously going to the stairs. When I was halfway up, I felt my muscles relax when I heard who it was up there.

  "Joshua?" Max called out. Pulling off my hat, I stuffed it into my back pocket and went the rest of the way up the stairs.

  "Hey, Max." She jumped, not expecting me to be there. Max looked surprised as well as confused.

  "What are you doing here, Shadow?" She asked, calming down and letting her shoulders droop.

  "I'm sleeping here for the night." I said.

  "Why? What happened to your place?"

  "It got torn down for wood and pipes that could be repurposed." I answered her, and she nodded when I was done talking. With a sigh, she crossed her arms.

  "Have you seen Joshua by the way?"

  "No, I've been asleep since a little after I got here." Looking at her, I spoke with sincerity. "I seem to enjoy sleeping, I can do it more often than I have to, now." Max smiled.

  "Yeah? Well, that's great to hear." She said. "Just out of curiosity, how often do you 'need' to sleep?" One of her brows raised.

  "Approximately once a month or once every four to five weeks. However, sleeping more often seems to make me feel more....functional." I replied. She nodded again, and for the next few hours, we sat in the dark asking questions about each other's abilities. Some we had in common while others differed.

  Apparently, Max was one of the chimeras who had shark DNA, so she didn't ever need sleep, and I found that somewhat interesting. She wasn't the first with shark DNA I'd encountered, but she was the first to have both fish and feline in her 'cocktail', as Max put it, that I had met. She also agreed that even if she didn't need sleep, it still felt better to do so.

  The next day, I went to visit Max and Original Cindy at Jam Pony. When I got there, I saw the man called Sketchy covered in bruises, dirt, and blood. My original objective was completely lost as I walked over to the human.

  From my understanding, this man was a friend of Max and Original Cindy. His wounds were obviously not from an accident, but from someone's fist based on their shape and coloration. Actually, from the varied shapes and sizes of his bruises, there had to have been multiple people.

  "Who did that?" I asked bluntly, and Sketchy turned around to look down at me.

  "What?"

  "Who did that?" I repeated my question and a half-smile formed on his face.

  "Well, some Steelheads, why are you asking?" He leaned against the wall while crossing his arms.

  "I need to know who I am terminating. Who are these Steelheads?" Sketchy chuckled.

  "Now I see why you and Max are friends. You got a real sense of humor. I guess under that emotionless facade you got going on, you're a real comedian." He pointed at me. "You had me going there for a second." He then sighed. "Anyways, the Steelheads are some gang that's really into bio-mechanics and synthetic hormone stuff. Nasty group, they are." He shrugged. "I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "I don't understand what you're saying. I don't joke. Where are these Steelheads?" I planned on taking down whoever it was that harmed Max's human friend. She was like an Alpha to me, so this man's safety was of high importance to me, as was Original Cindy's. To tell the truth, I even patrolled the area around Original Cindy's home on nights I didn't sleep and had already caught a thief or two trying to sneak into the building.