- Dear citizens of the European Metropolis, it is my duty as your president, to disseminate truthful information about the most recent rumors that have been circulating the last weeks ... - That man dressed in suit and with emblems on his lapel, named Aron Novak , returns the view to the stand that had of front, analyzing for the last time the pages in which he had written his speech. - According to multiple alarming calls to public safety from many citizens of the Metropolis, it is believed that there is a group of wandering hybrids roaming the Southern Neutral Zone, the rumors warn that they may be... - His voice was interspersed for a few moments, takes a good breath of air and clears his throat- ... it is believed... that they can be Vortex.-

The barely audible murmurs are subtly noted upon hearing the dreaded word. "Vortex" is just another name for hybrids that are not exactly... friendly with humans; dangerous, aggressive, with terrible management of anger and an insatiable thirst for killing, especially if it is their favorite prey: humans.

Seeing the clear disenchantment of his audience, President Novak again takes the control of the microphone that lay before him, the same one who has witnessed his messages of support and solidarity towards the citizens of the European Metropolis when it was in its worst and darkest days, which have been popularly called (and not for nothing) "Vortex Accident". Nobody expected it, without any warning the hybrids began to reveal themselves against their creators, the humans, rejecting all their fury and discontent towards us in the most horrible ways that anyone can imagine. They attacked houses, hospitals, businesses, schools, murdering in cold blood anyone who was in the street, young people on their way to school, women ... children ... they did not even show mercy towards them. Many say that the Vortex had reasons to carry out their massacre, that the human being used them as if they were animals ... as if they were things, and it was more than obvious that any day they would choose to become independent at once, without caring much about the true price of freedom. Novak looks up, and tries to calm his compatriots a little.

-Yes brothers and sisters, I know that that particular word brings back terrible memories, but as your president, the man responsible for securing our future as a free nation, I can assure you that I will get to the origin of all this, and I will not rest until see that these hybrids have received their just punishment according to the laws dictated in the agreements of Cilt ... We will not suffer the consequences of a second Vortex Accident, that is a promise. - His words receive a great ovation from journalists and other general public that was around the presidential stand, while it is appreciated how his personal security body escorts him to one of the side entrances.

Tall, with a slender build, platinum blonde hair, green eyes, and without many marks that reveal his age, Aron Novak can easily be the most attractive president of the E.M. since its inception as an independent nation, but has also been the one that has shown its true courage to have to drag a country in ruin, hungry, and hurt by the revolution of hybrids, who left the national fund in the bones, mainly due to the withdrawal of foreign companies faced with the threat of Vortex. A person worthy of admiration for many... but for me, it's just someone else who has judged the unfortunate family name.

The projector in the classroom in which we saw the presidential message shows as the last image the shield of the European Metropolis, which, although it has extreme resemblance to the emblem of the European Union (now extinct) is still attractive to the eye. The lights come on suddenly, my classmates and I cannot avoid giving a stern look to the teacher who had just pulled us out of our trance. I turn around and barely notice that we are less than half of the class, the rest must have left the classroom, because presidential messages are not mandatory to see, but they give you a miserable score at the end of the semester on your lowest note. I stare at the wall infront of me, still a little blind at the sudden change of light, while my arm felt slightly numb to rest my face on it.

Ricciardo was our last teacher of the day, and we did not see the time for school Friday to end at once, only to arrive home exhausted, eat something, sleep for the next two days and wake up early in the morning in a new and boring Monday. My goals as a student were certainly ambitious.

The sixth sense of my classmates to detect the precise moment in which the class is about to end is manifested by seeing them carry their things, I did the same without hesitation, and using the little scape opportunity given by doing the same as the rest of my colleagues without the teacher's look, I take my things and start to follow my classmates to the exit of the classroom as if it were any other day, trying to come off as natural and carefree as possible.

- ... thank goodness, at least I will not have to...- I think for myself, but a second voice ends my strategy.

-Not so fast Mr. Hopper...- The professor's routine and calm tone stops me in my tracks, while I carefully turn to him- ... if I'm not mistaken, you have a pending summons to give me, right? -

- ... yes, that's true professor...- I say trying to appear calm, but it was obvious that the situation was not the most comfortable.

-Then ...- He stands a few meters away from me, while he joined both palms of his hands in a gesture of waiting - ... where is your summons signed by your mother? –

-Yes ... that summons ...- I say trying to imitate the teacher's pose a little, without success.- ... well ... I hope you remember that my mother is working right now in America, and ... as to be expected ... she can not attend the summons, much less sign it ... so I think this has been a really unfair punishment ... professor.-

- An unfair punishment? ... mmh ... it's interesting now that you say that Tyler, because if I'm not wrong in the school rules it says clearly, that any action that incites the feeling of appreciation or admiration towards the Vortex cause will be penalized with a summons to the student's parent or tutor. - He goes to his desk and opens one of his drawers, which takes out some of my unmistakable drawings, he takes them in his hands and shows me one of them- ... Does this not denote certain ... inclination towards the Vortex cause? - The drawing I drew at that time was the product of the frustration generated by the routine insults of my colleagues, it shows them running down the street ... being pursued by an hybrid of black skin and bright blue eyes. A hungry Vortex chasing my abusers, a masterpiece for my darker desires towards them. A small chuckle escapes from my mouth, irritating the teacher a little. -What? ... Do you find this funny, Mr. Hopper? - Says doing an annoying emphasis on my last name.

- No sir ... absolutely not. - I center again and try not to see him in the eyes, because I simply can not hold it.

- Well, I'll have to take bigger measures, I'll call your mother and I'll tell her what you've been doing Tyler ... don't think this will stay like this. - Puts the drawings back in the drawer of the desk- ... you know I don'tt like to do this, but you don't leave me another option. You're the best in my physics class, but I can not allow you to waste your talent doing this ... scenes. - He gives me a look at what I might call "paternal", even if that was just a simple school sermon, although I admit that Professor Ricciardo has taken me out of many troubles, and that's why I have some appreciation on him. He puts a hand on my shoulder while he continues to look me in the eyes. - You have it in your blood Tyler, I know you can do many things ... just like your father did. -

Those last words were practically the only thing that made me "famous." Tyler, the son of Marcus Hopper, the creator of the hybrids and, for many others, the misery of the E.M.

Being the son of the most recognized scientist and also the most hated by the population in general results in a greater trouble than it could be beneficial. I never got to know him well, at least not as much as I would wish to, he and my mother got divorced when I was three years old. After that I kept seeing him again and again, every two weeks he would come home and take me to his laboratory, it was a whole adventure to go through the corridors flanked by different rooms, each of them destined to different fields of hybrid research, and each and every one of them was led by my father, whom everyone came to recognize as the brightest mind in all of Europe. Months passed, and he was absent more and more. If our meetings were already scarce in themselves, at that time they had become the object of a miracle. He stopped coming to my birthdays and school events. I remember very well the last time I saw him, I was six years old and I was in my room, when my mother's sudden hubbub caught my attention, causing curiosity to take me down the stairs, only to find a careless man, addicted to his work and alcohol, the same man I used to call a father without thinking twice. He had been with his colleagues as usual, and the night intended to be a meeting to share their progress in the different projects that each of them had, became an uncontrolled party that ended up getting my mother upset. She was simply tired of him giving more attention to his hybrids and colleagues than to his own family. The last thing I knew about him, was that he had possibly died from the attack of one of his hybrids, leaving me and my mother with the curse of his last name "Hopper", which has persecuted for a long time and continues to affect me today.

- My father is dead, professor ... and I believe that he didn,t made much good for our community, isn't that correct? - I see him with a serious look, although I tried to make my words not so rude as possible towards him.

- ... What do you mean, Tyler? Your father was a great scientist, no one has any doubt about that, you should be proud of everything he has done.- Ricciardo was a bit nervous, although he kept a careful tone towards me.

- ... That's not what you think.- I pull the teacher's hand away from my shoulder with some resentment towards him.- ... I read your last column in the school newspaper ... "Ruin, massacre, destruction and an increasing economic crisis because of the beloved creatures of Professor Marcus Hopper, now known as the "mad scientist" of our era ... - Ricciardo's incredulous gesture showed that I had caught him in his own game of hypocrisy, while I just finished carrying my things and put the backpack in my shoulders .- ... I know what the hybrids did to your family professor, and I know it was horrible ... but my father has no blame for those deaths, it was his "beloved creatures" that went out of control. Everyone trusted in them too much ... that's all.- I take out the blank summons without my mother's signing and I give it to him anyways.- Here ... do what you need, my mother will never return to the European Metropolis anyways.-

Without a reason to continue the uncomfortable and tense conversation, I put the handles of my backpack on my shoulders and covered my head with the hat of my hoodie by the simple habit of having covered my hair, because it always had a tendency to take any form it wanted. Outside the school the atmosphere was already somewhat humid and it was cloudy, it was possible that it rained tonight, something that would make me happy a little if it is not because it is usually acid rain, an aberration that happens during the first summer rains. That acid rain did not represent a danger for people, although they generate a somewhat uncomfortable itching, difficult to calm.

Outside the view was not too impressive, except for the dozens of abandoned or destroyed buildings that were only five streets away from my school, being delimited only by a tiny plastic tape marking a dangerous zone, that was ripped off and almost been taken away by the wind. Ahead of thet tape, begins what is called "Northeast Neutral Zone", a dangerous area for any human who dares to cross, because the neutral zones that are found around the entire metropolis are places where errant hybrids ( or Vortex) are allowed to wander while there are no humans nearby. Patrollers usually went here to watch these borders three times a day, but that surveillance has drastically decreased due to the increasingly scarce sightings of hybrids in this particular area.

My house is not far from the school, so the walk back sometimes becomes pleasant for me. I walk just over the border between the Metropolis and the neutral zone, seeing certain astonishment and nostalgia at those buildings that had to be evacuated and abandoned because of the Vortex accident, whose rooms were not inhabited again by the fear of a second attack. Everything had lost the color and the noise that had before that fateful day.

Those were good times, or so my mother told me. The third great war was over, the world had once again been at peace and it was time to rebuild what had been left in ruins. Many foreigners who found a refuge here in Europe were able to start a new life, making the population grow, the market to resume the production, and the economy begin to move forward again. Soon, the goverment began to give funds to science with the main objective of creating a vehicle that did not depend on the now extinct oil reserves, a vehicle with the same performance as a functional gasoline. Electric cars were a good option, although the energy crisis made them too expensive to maintain. The hydrogen functional ones gave great performance and were easy to repair and maintain, but their fuel was too difficult to obtain and market properly. My father was one of those brilliant minds who would be in charge of giving the world the ultimate vehicle ... but it was not easy.

After abandoning for a time the idea of ​​designing the vehicle of the future and instead of that dedicating himself to medicine, he achieved the much-dreamed tissue printing machine, an invention that continues to save human and animal lives until today. He participated in dozens of researches on the human body and how to perfect it to make it's immune system more resistant, raising the average life expectancy of the population of the E.M. (European Metropolis) two more years.

Just when the world believed that my father, the great Marcus Hopper, had nothing else to do for science because of his incredible contributions ... the hybrids arrived.

His dream of creating the ultimate vehicle had become a reality, although he no longer used the term "vehicle" in them, because they simply did not deserve to continue being called machines.

At first everyone believed that hybrids were a kind of robotic cars, gifted with an artificial intelligence capable of imitating feelings and reacting to various stimulation, and with a fearsome live appearance, mainly by the presence of eyes and mouth in their front, where they should locate the headlights and the front bumper. Well, they had not been mistaken in the matter of appearing "alive", because in fact they were. Marcus' invention shocked the whole world by revealing that there was not a network of cables and mechanical components inside, but a complex biological anatomy composed of flesh and bone that made hybrids a new species of living beings on the planet.

The world went crazy, several scientific journals criticized my father's creations as a selfish and insensitive act on the part of the human being to give life to an "aberration" like that, since hybrids having no hands could not survive on their own . Other scientists cheered my father for having done such a feat, and it was not for less, it was the first time in the history of mankind in which we had created a being capable of feeling and understanding human behavior that was not an artificial intelligence or a supercomputer. It was a living being, and it was beginning to take its first steps on earth.

The hybrids proved to be much smarter than expected, as their behavior was thought not to exceed the intelligence of a well-trained dog, but time did taught hybrids how to communicate with their masters, judge the art, define what they liked and what not, and start dreaming. Once the hybrids had full knowledge of what surrounded them, a strange feeling invaded them, they wondered why they should continue obeying in such a way the orders of the humans and why they did not have a Declaration of Universal rights. Even though there were already international agreements on the good treatment of hybrids, they did not enjoy the same human rights, because no nation wanted to lose the new burden beasts because of a few papers in which it was ruled that they were not obliged to obey humans.

As expected, the moment of a revolution on the part of the hybrids was predictable, and left a great ruin in the E.M. Not only because of the destruction and deaths they produced, but because of the withdrawal of the big companies that brought the majority of their income to the Metropolis. These companies feared that their employees and their merchandise would get affected by the disturbances caused by the hybrids, leaving definitively of the Metropolis and leaving the arks in the bones. This revolution was named "Vortex Accident" because of the rumor that hybrids in which laboratory tests were performed on them (which scientists called them Vortex to classify them) had escaped from their laboratory where humans held them captive, spreading the spark of hatred towards humans for the mistreatment that those hybrids received. By that time, it was rumored that my father had died in that same laboratory.

Currently things have improved a lot, the E.M. was forced to exhile all the hybrids and although not all of them caused havoc to the population, they had to leave anyway. Many humans who did not wanted to abandon their beloved hybrids fled with them, dividing the total population of the European Metropolis into three large and separate blocks; Vortex, the European Metropolis, and Cilt. Cilt is formed by hybrids and neutral humans who did not participate in the Vortex accident and who do not consider the distinction between both species to be correct. It is said that the Cilt had formed a prosperous city with a stable government formed by hybrids and humans alike, a growing population and high quality of life and security, or at least that's what the rumors say, because everyone who has embarked on the journey of reaching Cilt never comes back. Possibly because the blissful neutral city is something very similar to paradise, or because that unfortunate person has ended up as the dinner of some Vortex, one of those two options. But what is certain is that every year Cilt representatives (hybrids and humans) come to recruit people who wish to join their pacifist cause.

- Here everything is about taking a side... - I say to myself as I continue my way, distracted for a moment by a medium-sized stone that distracted me by kicking it along the way, until an external noise takes me out of my trance.-... –

The constant pounding on the ground that barely recognized that it was the rain that had begun to fall already makes me speed up, and pray to get at least a little dry to my house. There was not much track, less than four streets separated me from my home, but the faster I went the denser it seemed to be the rain, until it finally beated me, and it ended up drenching me in a matter of seconds. I start to run desperately towards my house. Maybe the dryness of my clothes is no longer a priority now, but the effects of being in contact with acid rain in this amount.

When finally arriving at the metal gate of my house I put the key that I had prepared in the slot and I turned it, entering in a coordinated movement towards the inside and locked it once I found myself sheltered inside my house. In this moment my legs start to shake because of the long race and my breathing becomes ridiculously agitated. I did not have great stamina, and a simple race like that is capable of making me dizzy for a few minutes.

Before waiting for the rain to dry on my skin and make a mess, I decide to take a quick shower to relax a bit. As I got my breath again and headed for the door that led to the room, being clearly exhausted from the hectic day I had had today, a strange sound coming from far away keeps me alert, alarmed by its resemblance to the fearsome roar of an hybrid.

-No... that is not possible ... they can't get this close to the city ... - I say to myself, begging for it to be so, because at this moment I was doubting a lot of my senses.

I return the view to the interior of my house, and that sound intensifies notoriously, there was no doubt that those were roars, true cries of pain towards the acid rain that unfortunate hybrid was stuck in. But fortunately, the noise was very distant, although the fact that it was the first time I heard it in my own flesh made me feel uncomfortable.

Not even the sound of the falling water on my bath obscured the desperate cries of that creature, who suffered every second It continued on the street ... or ... in the worst case scenario ... outside my house.

Hybrid-Kira (2018)