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Isan Dawn

Oberon Snowcat

Prologue

In the early part of the 21st century a radical realignment of the world population took place. The cause for this change was a geneticist who created a pair of viruses that he believed would spawn a new species on earth.

The species in question was Isan species. They were feline species and they carried most of the most highly evolved features of their less developed cousins.

The second virus that caused the appearance of the Isans was, and is still considered one of the most devastating plagues in the history of the world. By the time virus had finished its initial sweep through the world's population roughly half had died.

However, there are some who say that Chimera, the second virus's name, was a blessing in disguise. They say this because by the year 2012 the world's population had ballooned to over 7 billion and the supply of finite resources was being steadily depleted. After Chimera though things changed substantially, and the Isans played a big role in those changes.

'A new Dawn,' Jarome Lang, Royal Ottawa City Press, 474 N.E.Y

Chapter I

I slowly opened my eyes looking around my current apartment, I had this place as temporary home for the summer while I worked here to make a little money for the coming year at school, as well as other family concerns in Calgary.

"Come on get your sorry tail out of bed." I told myself as I sat up and looked at my alarm clock, a Nexus 7 with an alarm clock app, and tapped the icon to get the device to quit its infernal racket.

Damn I feel like I been hit by a bus, but I needed to get my ass to work. Although most of the big bills that I had to deal with were indeed dealt with, through a trust fund, I still liked to have money besides that to use on incidentals. The trust fund was one of the few things that my parents had left behind for my sister and I.

They had been killed more than five years ago in an idiotic accident when some person decided to drive when he was clearly too intoxicated to walk, let alone drive. The only saving grace to that was we didn't have to live through the agony of a trial since the impact had given him a Darwin Award as well.

Ever since then my twin sister and I had survived decently together with occasional visits from our aunt, my father's older sister. That was when she'd decided to be responsible and sober for the day. Most of the time she would leave us to our own devices and spend her time frequenting some of the less than savory establishments in the lower east end of Calgary where she could drown herself in cheap rye.

As it was that was the way that Helen and I preferred things since our personal situation was... complicated to say the least. Neither of us had a real full-time boyfriend or girlfriend, indeed I had neither even though I was confirmed bi-sexual who enjoyed both males and females equally.

In my last year in high-school some of the school's most homophobic bullies had tried to take me on, but like bullies everywhere they'd not really thought about their target, and I'd managed to take care of them in rather quick order.

After fifteen minutes I was ingesting, coffee, cold medicine, and cereal in equal measures when my phone rang in its belt case.

"Hi Helen how are you this morning?" I answered with a slight smile.

"I could be doing better love. I've got a cold to beat all colds dragging me down."

"Sorry to hear that sis, but you aren't alone. I feel pretty much the same way."

"Well you don't have morning sickness on top of a cold Matt."

"Is it my fault that you stopped using birth control last month?"

"Love it was time, we've been doing it for nine years, and I felt that we're ready for it now."

"Helen how are we going to explain who the father is?"

"I have a few ideas Matt, it shouldn't be too much of an issue."

I chuckled recalling our last weekend together. Like every other time since we were twelve it had been a mixture of tenderness and passion.

The night we discovered physical pleasure came after a particularly bad day at a summer camp where we'd been teased about how close we were to each other as well as split up and forced to do 'gender appropriate' activities apart. To further compound things there'd been a thunderstorm that night and when we were twelve Helen was still deathly afraid of thunder.

I don't know what the councilors had been thinking but they'd allowed us to improve our personal bond with each other to the point where we'd been able to survive our parents' untimely demise without breaking down. In a way, I am sad to say, the death of our parents almost came as a relief because it reduced the stress that Helen and I were under. We no longer were faced with the constant threat that the depth of our special relationship would be discovered.

"Matt, view this wonderful thing as our ultimate gift that our love has allowed to happen."

"Helen I have never viewed it as anything else. Our baby will have the most loving parents in the world."

"Now get going slowcoach or you're going to be late for your job."

"Yes hon, I better get going, or Don's gonna wonder where his best rider and guide is. Ok" I replied with a chuckle, which turned into a hacking cough.

"Matt get something for that cough please... it really sounds nasty."

"Yes hon, I'll take care of it before work, I have some Fisherman's Friends that I can take till then." I said while I popped on of the strong lozenges into my mouth.

"Okay, love you Matt, looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday." There was a soft kissing sound from her end before she ended the call and I tidied up the table before heading outside to my car.

Twenty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the tourist ranch in Banff where I worked for the summer. "Hi John where's Thunderstar?"

The other man looked at me and chuckled, "Matt I don't know how you can ride that stallion, he's half wild."

"He's also the smartest trail horse here, as well as the largest." I replied with a knowing smile as I grabbed my riding gloves and hat from the passenger's seat of my 2013 Subaru Impreza WRX STi Sedan.

"You say you're a techno-geek and yet you've got a great eye for a good horse."

"Can't a person be both John?" I answered him with a question.

He shook his head with a wry smile and nodded as I walked around him, dodging a semi-fresh pile of dung on the ground. "You do seem to have a good understanding of both, hell we're gonna lose a darned fine guide when you go back to uni in the fall."

I nodded as I locked my car and headed to the stables where some of the guides kept their personal mounts recalling a conversation with my boss the week before concerning Thunderstar and his future here. The problem was that Thunder, a three-year old mixed breed stallion, refused to let anyone but me handle him. We'd ended up agreeing that at the end of the summer I'd take ownership of Thunder, at a reduced price, and take him to the stable that my sister and I jointly owned in Cochrane, just outside of Calgary.

I stepped up to the door to the stall and a soft black nose poked over the barrier as the large black horse nickered at me.

"Hi boy." I responded stepping into the stall to hug his finely arched neck. He smelled of fresh hay, and clean healthy horse.

I spent the next fifteen minutes getting him ready for the day by getting his tack on and checking his hooves for health before mounting his back and walking him out of the stable. Usually by the end of this morning ritual I felt good about my day, and myself, but this time if anything, I was feeling worse than before with a skull-splitting headache and profoundly clogged sinuses.

"Matt you look like death warmed over." I heard John's voice say to me from a distance that seemed like a thousand yards before I felt myself falling forwards in the saddle against Thunder's warm neck, embracing the painless darkness of sweet unconsciousness as I felt myself supported by the strong neck of my faithfully steed.