I cringed upon hearing the inhuman voice. I had made the cardinal mistake. I dropped my guard for one second. For all I knew it could be my last. I had to think quick.

I spun around, tossing the now-extended umbrella in the direction of the voice and firing off a round. As I ducked for cover behind a concrete pillar, I heard the Someone laugh, an almost eery disembodied cackle.

“You are special Mr. Mortimer, but you are incomplete. Stop cowering behind that pillar and embrace your destiny. Join us and together we will rule this city. Or keep cowering behind that precious concrete slab like the mongrel that you are.”

If there is one advantage to not being one of them, it’s that I have more than reason at my beckon call. The Someones are a highly evolved, super-human race. Their brains are like microprocessors that predict reasonable outcomes to the .000001%. I have found through my training that the only way to defeat my enemy is to throw reason out with the bath water.

“What will it be, Mr. Mortimer?”