Chapter 1

Chapter One

It was after the last great war, and the Gods had descended from heaven, cursing the earth with souls. Like a disease, it spread unhindered, and the consequences weren't known for generations…

Lark Duport stood alongside his two men, with fifty or so members of this small town in north Montana as they watched the two soulbrothers engage in a soulbattle to the death. The town was much like many scattered across the country; a few neighborhoods of houses in disrepair, and a school, a post office, and a bar. There was a grocery store, and a police station of course, that had to keep order among the masses. No real industry existed, aside from what the citizens could provide for each other in services like small farms or crafts. No one here was making good money, but they were surviving mostly because of the rations that the government provided.

Government rations were given in the form of bank credits, linked to the chip that was implanted in every registered baby when they were born. The right wrist could be scanned, and it would show the person's status and the number of ration credits they had. It was a great way for the government to keep track of where everyone was, and for business owners to discriminate. They could scan you and kick you out for not having the available rations they saw fit to be in their establishment or, more likely, for being a halfling, despite the possibility of being able to pay in cash, which was still an acceptable way to pay for things.

People around him were whispering with excitement at what they were about to witness; one of their own had a chance at a full soul. Looking around he saw a lot of dull eyes meaning most of these people were halflings themselves. Today's battle might motivate some of them to go looking for their own other half, if they were lucky enough to have one out there. Not every soul's other half was ever born.

The pair circled each other, sizing the other up. They were unmatched physically, there was a clear favorite to win and it wasn't the man Lark had brought here. It didn't matter to Lark who won, he'd done what he had been paid for without any guarantees about the result. He had found the client's other half and brought his client here for this battle. Only one of them would survive, and that one would gain the other half of their soul. In this world of halfsouls, fullsouls and very unfortunate nosouls, nothing mattered more to a halfling than the chance at finding the other part of their soul and to join through the death of one; becoming a whole person in the eyes of the government and society. Lark wondered for the millionth time what the end of all this would be, was this all just a slow descent into hell for the world or was there actually some redemption for them all somewhere? He was inclined to think the former, but he knew plenty of people who had hope.

"That was a rough trek. The amount of dead space through Utah and Wyoming has gotten worse, don't you think?" Stone said.

"Yeah, I remember a few more settlements there that were mainly halflings," Granger agreed. "I hate to think anything is ever right about what the government says, but we know that halfling settlements often lead to nosoul issues, could be what is driving a lot of those halflings back to the city settlements, it's a little safer."

"Or the government went in and moved them out forcefully," Lark grumbled. He wouldn't put it past them to break up a halfling settlement that was surviving well. It was harder to control people when they weren't dependent on government rations.

Granger nodded agreement.

Lark looked at the two men who were still circling each other and posturing for attack and wondered why they weren't just getting to it already. It didn't surprise Lark that the smaller man was hesitating, perhaps rethinking what a great idea this whole journey was. Lark had learned a lot about the man on their search. He was a halfling who had grown up with a single mom, common for halflings, and currently worked at a tire shop his fullsoul grandfather owned. He was lucky by halfling standards, many were completely abandoned by their families, unwed mothers forced to raise children with no support or give them up to the orphanage. This guy didn't know how lucky he was to have a good paying and respectable job. He just wanted more, wanted a wife and family and the only way to get those things was to get the other half of his soul. Now he was staring down a man twice his size and almost guaranteed to lose everything. Lark shook his head, sometimes he almost wished he failed to find his clients' soulsiblings for them.

"I wasn't sure we'd find the soulbrother this time, honestly," Lark said. It had felt like they'd already exhausted all their usual methods and then they'd heard of this place tucked up so far north it was almost in Canada. It reportedly had a large population of unregistered halflings living off the land in a fairly self-contained town.

"We rarely fail," Stone said, clapping Lark on the back. "That's why we can charge so much," he added with a laugh and Granger grunted nearby.

It was true, they'd learned how to track when they'd left the orphanage in LA as young men, barely adults. They had worked together to find their own soulsiblings and all of them had been victorious, claiming the other half of their souls. It had been the only goal they'd had growing up. The only thing three orphans could imagine wanting to do with their lives after living in such destitute conditions with so many other unwanted halfling children. One good thing that had come from growing up like that was they'd found each other and now considered each other brothers; something they never would have had otherwise. Lark was sure he'd never heard of a fullsoul woman having more than one halfling child, the regret after the first was enough to stop any further mistakes.

Lark had connected with Stone first, he'd been so easy to make friends with, a happy kid with blond hair, he was big and muscled now but had been just a tall, scrawny kid once upon a time. Lark had to step in more than once to save his ass, growing up, which is how they'd initially become friends, Stone decided hanging out with one of the physically stronger kids who didn't seem to be annoyed with his constant chatter was a safe bet. Lark hadn't minded the company. Then they'd met Granger. He had always been intimidating, the only orphan of obviously Native American heritage that they'd grown up with. He had dark eyes and long dark hair which had given him a mysterious air that none of the other boys had wanted to mess with, especially combined with his quiet demeanor. Granger had been drawn to Lark and Stone because of their bond against the other assholes in the orphanage. By the time they were all seven years old they'd been inseparable. Now they were all big and muscled, Granger still had the long hair and had added tattoos that covered everywhere except for his face. He was good for intimidating silently, while Stone tended to try charm first and was a whiz with the computer, doing a lot of the research for their jobs.

In front of them, fists finally started to fly as the two soulbrothers engaged in their fight. It was all Lark needed to see; this job was done. "Let's go," Lark told his brothers and started to walk away.

He couldn't help remembering his own soulbattle, always did when they were at the end of a search like this. His own search had taken seven months, they'd searched and traveled, following the small spark inside of himself that indicated he had a soulsibling, Granger and Stone by his side the entire time. When he'd taken the man's life Lark had felt the partial soul surround them both, searching for where to go. If Lark hadn't been close enough to touch the man, the soul would have just drifted away, to wherever souls that weren't claimed went, but he was there. He had his hands on the man's bleeding and limp body and the soul had clung to him and soaked into him and he'd felt it through every cell in his body, a burning that turned to a tingle and then a new strength. And then the memories came, a high-speed slideshow in his mind of what this man's life had been, now stopped, cut short by Lark.

Lark was pulled from the memory by a small boy, maybe nine years of age running up to them as they passed by a row of dilapidated shacks.

"Hey, sir," the boy said with a confidence that came from being too young to know better. "Is it true what they say? Will Big Jim get a full ration after this?"

Lark's stomach twisted at the big, dull eyes staring out of the child's dirty face. His cheeks were hollow and his lips pale. Lark squatted down so he was eye level with the boy. Lark ran a hand through his own dark hair as he considered his answer, and the boy's eyes widened a bit when they spotted the deep scar that started at Lark's right ear and disappeared below his shirt line below his collarbone.

"If Big Jim wins, then yes, he can get a full ration from the government," Lark said.

"Wow," the boy said, licking his lips. "I hope he keeps coming to visit my mom at night, maybe he'll want to share his rations," the boy said and ran off to join the crowd around the fighting pair.

Lark stood with a grimace and pushed down the urge to give the child and whoever his mother was some cash. It wouldn't solve their problems, but neither would Big Jim having his full soul. The man was more likely to leave the small town and try to find his soulmate than to stay and share his newly-gained ration status with the woman he was sleeping with, and her halfling child.

Everyone thought gaining a soul would fix everything for themselves and the people around them, but Lark knew better. It just presented them with a new set of problems, a new set of expectations and rules. It presented them with a new goal they thought attainable; a soulmate and fullsoul children, the new American dream.

What people didn't realize until it was too late was there was no way to win in this new world they were cursed into. There was only survival, and Lark was skilled at that.

It helped that he had access to records and files that no one outside the government was supposed to have because the government needed people like him to do their dirty work. Ever since discovering that the only way to heal the destitute halflings was to unite soulsiblings in a soulbattle, it had become the government's main goal. They wanted to strengthen the country and stay on top as a world power, which was hard to do when most of your population was weak and dying. Death was such a touchy subject for the upper class, the born fullsouls in charge, so it opened an opportunity for men like Lark, Stone, and Granger. And they made a great living doing it without the need for Government rations.

"Raise the prices when we get back," Lark said as they reached their vehicle. They'd been so busy lately, it was a sign that they could charge more, do a little less and still profit. "As always we can send those who can't pay the new price over to Stan and Terri." Lark and his men weren't the only ones in the business, but they were the best. "I wouldn't mind a couple weeks off," Lark admitted as he slid into the driver's seat. This search had taken three months and they'd been to some of the deepest, darkest pods of humanity that the country held. If you were a halfling and you weren't in a government-subsidized encampment within a city, there was almost no chance of living in safety, or any kind of sanitary conditions.

Lark didn't understand why the halflings would choose life in the run-down towns over the alternative, but he did know that the government-established districts within cities were barely better.

And even worse, was being a kid growing up in a halfling orphanage like they had been.

"A break sounds nice, I need to get my dick wet," Stone said with a groan. "Even taking suppressants on these trips isn't enough to keep my man down."

"Maybe if you took them more than once a week while we were on a job," Granger pointed out.

"No way. That shit will fuck you up. Last time I took it as prescribed I couldn't get it up for a week after I stopped. Wasted a whole week of not satisfying the ladies of LA"

"You're ridiculous," Granger said, and closed his eyes in the backseat, obviously done with the conversation.

Lark knew Granger didn't take the suppressants no matter what. Lark didn't either. But neither of them complained as much as Stone when they weren't jumping from willing bed to willing bed. When they were in LA and surrounded by other willing non-suppressant-takers, suppressants weren't a consideration for any of them because despite what the government would like people to believe, sex wasn't going to be the downfall of society.

The government didn't want anyone having sex outside of sanctioned fullsoul marriage, so they encouraged suppressants for their citizens and outlawed sex outside of marriage. Problem was, it was a voluntary program to take the suppressants. It hadn't started that way, but the uproar and near-toppling of the government over it had the president at the time backing off quickly with lots of propaganda about the evils and risks of having sex outside of fullsoul marriage. After that there was an increase in the halfling population and nosouls, proof that people were still fucking, despite the risks. It was nearly impossible to convince the poor and depressed that free entertainment wasn't worth taking a chance on.

Lark drove away from the small town in Northern Montana, his thoughts already on the next possible job. Even though he planned to take a break, he knew that as soon as Stone checked the business email, there would be a list of people pleading for assistance.

At least the desperate halflings' desire for a better life gave him a purpose, because the Gods knew he wasn't going to take on the duty of finding his soulwife and having fullsoul babies as his purpose on this hellscape of earth.

They drove for a day without passing another town large enough to have a hotel. Most of the dwindling United States population had crowded into a few main cities after the initial cursing and civil uproar had settled down. The small places scattered about beyond them were usually nothing more than a few homes and farms. Enough to keep those that lived there alive, barely. But the farms provided a necessary service to the rest of the country, food production.

It was eerie, some of the places they drove through looked like the earth was trying to reclaim the territory after a nuclear war. Destroyed buildings, abandoned cars and everywhere nature was crawling over it. Plants and animals encroaching back where they had once thrived before modern humans decided to pave and plow and build over it. Lark liked the idea of the earth gaining some of its power back in these places, even if it was a reminder that their world had been forcefully changed and had yet to really settle since. There wasn't civil war currently, at least not here in the United States, but there wasn't a lot of freedom and choice most places.

Around the world, things were worse in a lot of countries. Places where the governments hadn't been able to quash rebellions as quickly, hadn't been able to give out suppressants and get their citizens in line with the new rule of law to keep the nosouls from becoming rampant.

When two halfsouls chose to chuck caution to the wind and indulge their base desires, a pregnancy was disastrous. A child with no soul was born, an evil that the world wasn't equipped to handle.

Pulling into Boise, Idaho, they all sighed with relief to see signs for businesses. This was the second largest city in the northwestern United States next to Seattle, which had continued to thrive because of its port which still received many things that got shipped off all over the country for use. Lark had heard stories of before, when every store and every town was so full of things that it was impossible to even choose sometimes. Now you were lucky to go in the store and have two options for anything you might need, from batteries to shampoo, choice was limited. Lark didn't mind, he wasn't sure that having to glance over a hundred different soaps would in any way make his life better.

It was the same for food. Mostly you could get a good selection of things grown locally but anything that wasn't manufactured in your town or nearby, was limited in supply and limited in choice. It was one reason most people congregated in large cities, the ability to grow, manufacture and support the population was better. Partially because the government helped fund a lot more infrastructure for large cities, keeping the trains and trucks moving things from one to another with all the comforts its citizens demanded.

Lark couldn't help feeling it was just another way to control the population, making it seem so good and comfortable to be where the government had a good watch over them, and hard to survive outside of it. But people made it work somehow, he'd been to plenty of small towns that survived with very little.

"Looks like we can take a shower and sleep in a bed tonight," Stone said happily.

"Good, I am tired of smelling you two," Granger grumbled.

Boise being the largest city left in Idaho had a sectioned-off halfling district, not allowing them to mix freely with the fullsouls who lived in the medium-sized city. It was surrounded by farmlands and also had a large industrial portion, making it a popular location. Halflings could often get jobs at those farms and factories doing the work fullsouls wouldn't do, hard work picking and planting. A job like that could get a halfling a small house outside of the government funded housing neighborhoods.

They'd stopped here often, looking for soulsiblings and knew of a good hotel where they could get a bed and a shower.

When they were settled into a small room with two beds and a pull-out couch, Stone got to work on the laptop looking for their next job. Lark knew he'd start by deleting anything that started with pleading for free help, they didn't do that. Stone would then narrow down the possibilities of clients to a few that sounded like they had cash ready and send them to Lark. Lark opened one and read a short and to-the-point paragraph from a woman stating she had cash and wanted to find her soulsister ASAP.

Women on the search always intrigued him more. It was usually harder for them to be bloodthirsty enough to kill another person and it was also easier for them to find ways to make money to live well, outside of the government rations. Highly-illegal prostitution was big business in this new society of illegal sex. He replied to her email with a date and time to meet at his office. Maybe she'd be the last client before the price increase went into effect.