kissthatgoodbye | |: Scrapbook :|

you did what you had to do
and then you did your best to forget

||| | | SCRAPBOOK | | |||

|| | ALEC MCDOWELL| | ||

and if you couldn't forget
they had ways of making you not care

coding @

▦	Manticore	Other
Good:	- Game Night : Shila, Jer, Teek - First Engagement : Rhys - Playing Favorites : Rhys - Advice : Rhys - What's in a Name : Max Guevera	- I Love You : Rachel Berrisford - Lessons : Rachel Berrisford - Ambush : Magneto, Anya Lehnsherr - Conditions : Lark Tennant - Pleasant Fiction : Lark Tennant
Bad:	- Flawless : Renfro - Let It Sting : Shila - Reprieve : Rhys - Last Goodbye : Renfro - Recourse : Rhys - Product Review : Renfro - Resistance : Renfro, Sandoval	- Mercy : Ames White
Neutral:	- Weapons Finals - Standing Watch : Shila, Teek - Role Call : Shila	- Cleanup Crew : Max Guevera, Bullet, Ralph - Payback - Stragey : The Iron Bull - Refugee : Lark Tennant

PLEASE BE AWARE that Alec's memories include CWs of institutionalized child abuse, abuse of power, child soldiers, brain washing, abuse, violence, blood, nonconsensual everything, dubious consensual everything, sex, and language. Specific instances will be marked in individual comments as best as I can but be aware these may come up throughout the comments on this post.

coding @

trustme_imthe.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's night, in a long room made of cinderblock walls painted white, poured cement floors, and thick metal grates over the ceiling-high windows with signs between them that read black on white: Duty, Mission, Discipline. Several metal cots are lined up neatly, small trunks at the foot of them, and every bed contains a child with the same short-shorn hair that appears at first glance to be asleep. You don't have to look to know all their eyes are open, watching you.

Because you're the one watching the door, standing at the foot of your bed and watching Teek shake and tremble and cry - quietly, all of you cry too quietly to be heard if you do at all - while Shila leans over him and tries to pin him to the bed, to get him to meet her eyes, all from the corner of your own. You're angry. You think there's more you should be doing, or less, or anything but this which isn't working and hasn't worked yet. But you don't know what else to do.

And you're scared; your heart is beating triple time but you can't let the others see it, so you don't. Teek isn't stopping. Shila's voice is getting too loud, too insistent. They'll draw the guards, but what else are you going to do? You stand watch.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 12:16 am (UTC)

Your eyes are closed because it hurts to open them; but closed, it's easy to become disoriented, to feel nauseous, lightheaded, to fall prey to vertigo so you open them a moment later and just accept the pain that lances through your eyes with the light, straight into your head it feels like, which feels empty.

Just that: empty. You don't know where you are, who you are, when. You know in the vague way that you know you are alive that this isn't how it normally is, but there's no traction, no memory at all to hang onto. The inside of your skull feels hollowed out, not neatly, but scraped out like you'll learn later to scrape out a Halloween pumpkin, deep gouges in the walls and nothing in the center. Nothing at all.

"494." Someone relatively nearby - walls between you, you think, but echoing and strange, maybe reflected back into the cell from the hallway. "494. Answer me." You think you should recognize her voice, you think you almost do, but then you should probably recognize the numbers too. You don't. You swallow and close your eyes again, because the light hurts, but the dark behind your eyelids pulls you down and casts you deep, and you give in to vertigo again until you can't anymore.

Edited Date: 2016-02-28 09:06 am (UTC)

Your hands are shaking, but not from fear, or at least not the kind you're used to. You feel vaguely sick, too, but for some reason it's not entirely unpleasant.

There's a girl standing across from you, pretty in a way you didn't know existed before you met her, trusting. She has long dark hair curled gently around her face and calm, blue eyes. She's just told you she loves you, and she's still holding your hands in hers.

Your throat is too dry to speak, and your chest too tight to breathe. Concern is already clouding her features, she's going to ask in a moment, but you still don't have anything to say.

Maybe it is fear like you've known before. You know you'll only hurt her. She doesn't. She doesn't know she's the job.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 01:43 am (UTC)

You're in the quietest cafeteria that can be expected to exist with this many children in it: the white painted cinder block walls and poured cement floor echo what little sound there is, the constant low hum of furtive voices and eating. There are about fifty children aged between about seven and fifteen years old, all with identically short shorn hair, unisex grey shifts, and barcodes on the back of their necks. There are white metal signs on the walls with Manticore's logo and big black block letters that read Duty, Mission, Discipline.

This is louder than it usually is. Everyone is daring to talk about the twelve X5s that escaped last night, even your brothers and sisters at the table with you, though everyone is almost whispering. You're young, and you're more afraid than anything, not joining in. Shila is watching you, but you're watching the armed guards at the door while you eat.

This is why: someone from the hallway opens one of the doors long enough to say something to the guard and hand him a list. The man says something back, glances at it, and then calls for attention. The room goes silent, and your heart speeds up.

"If I call your designation, form an orderly line at the front. 453, 456, 593, 597, 491, 494..."

You don't hear the others after yours because you've already noticed the pattern: all the X5s getting up from their tables match the models that escaped. You don't look at the other 490 in the room. You look at Shila.

She's the only one at the table that looks back at you.

You're running. Not out of fear or desperation, but rather the rhythmic, measured jog of an exercise run, one you'll keep up for another hour or so before the PT block is up. It's nice outside, a warm and bright autumn day, so your unit has been released onto the compound to exercise and you're old enough now that the guards are stationed only at checkpoints along the way instead of running with you in shifts. As long as you don't take too long between, no one cares where you go or what you're doing. It's as close to freedom and privacy as you get, and you intend to make the most of it.

There's another X5 pacing you, a year older at maybe nineteen or twenty years old and broader across the shoulders but a few inches shorter, hair still crewcut short but dark black, clearly some Italian somewhere in his genetic code. You're both laughing at something he just said, and he's grinning.

"Do you have a deployment date yet?" he's asking you, but you're shaking your head.

"I have to clear the prep lessons first, and they're allowing a week for that," you reply, snorting derisively. You've already promised yourself it won't take you a week. Not this close to your first deep cover assignment. "But immediately after that. Target's spooky, I guess, so they want a rush on it but want it right."

"Then why the hell did they give it to you?" he teases, shoving at you with an elbow around a curve, but you're ready for it and shove him back. Neither of you miss a stride.

"Because it's deep cover, not a mass casualty op?"

"Very funny." You both fall silent as you pass the next checkpoint, wave to the guard who waves you past without looking up from his book; neither of you pays him much more mind than he does you beyond acting as though you haven't been talking and laughing this whole time. By the time he speaks up again, he's more serious: "Remember that they watch you on your first time out. Don't try anything, don't mess up, and you're home free. But only if you rate high."

"Do I look like an idiot to you? Don't answer that, I don't want a disorderly mark this close to prep time. I've been working too hard to get out of here."

"Just stay focused on the job. Just remember that."

He's worried, you realize with a jolt, but all you can think of to say in reply is, "I will."

You're ten years old, and you're strapped to a chair, thick bands of industrial grade fabric across your forehead, your chest, holding your arms at your sides, holding your wrists to the armrests, your hips to the back of the seat, your knees together and your ankles snug in the footrest. There's a bright light shining in your eyes, bright enough to hurt, and a machine poised over you, currently dormant, but you are terrified of it in a mindless way that you fear nothing else. You can't stop shaking, lightheaded and weak, dehydrated but still sweating through your shirt, and everything about your body aches; for the past week you've either been in this chair or in your cell in solitary, and you want nothing more than to not be here, but of course you don't get a choice. You barely know who you are. You barely know anything.

"No backtalk now, I see. This is much, much better," a rough, rich female voice beside you asks, and you flinch as much from it as from the well of hatred that pushes against the back of your throat. "What is your designation?"

"X5-494, ma'am."

"What are your directives?"

"Duty, mission, discipline, ma'am."

"What is your designation?"

"X5-494. Ma'am."

You don't mean to leave the last ma'am off, but it's difficult to focus, and your heart stops the moment you realize what you've done. You tag it on quickly, hope she didn't notice, hope it was only a moment and maybe she'll think you were breathing, or she'll be distracted, something. She's silent, and you realize you're shaking harder, and you can't stop the anger and the terror that are rising neck and neck in you, and all you can think about is how much you want to kill her, and how afraid you are of what will happen if you do.

"So a little resistance left in you yet, 494. You're a strong one," she comments, clucking her tongue in disappointment even as she sounds satisfied, somehow. "One more round do you think?"

You can't say no. You can't say yes. You swallow and swallow to find your voice but can't answer either way because no is disobedience but yes means another round and you don't know what, if anything, will even be left of your mind after another round.

The red light on the machine comes on, and you forget everything but the pain searing into your skull, and there's your voice because now you're screaming and you don't know that you'll ever stop.

You're in a classroom, poured cement floor and white-painted cinder block walls and bars over the windows, no decorations. There are fourteen other children here, evenly split between boys and girls and all between six and seven years old, all with shortshorn hair and unisex grey shifts, and barcodes on the backs of their necks. None of them are talking or even moving, sitting with ramrod straight spines and eyes forward. Each of them has a handgun sitting on the desk in front of them, including you, and you're listening to the adult at the front of the room dressed in fatigues.

"You have twenty seconds to disassemble your weapons, check for damage, and reassemble them to working order without blurring. This is the final test for this block, and anyone unable to complete the task will be brought up for disciplinary measures," he's saying, and he sounds bored but serious, but your pulse picks up slightly at the mention of disciplinary measures. You don't let yourself think about it, keeping your mind focused. You've never seen the model of handgun in front of you before now. Your unit only started handling firearms this week, and you've been using a Beretta 9mm. This is a Smith and Wesson according to the marks on the side, and you're just hoping they're similar enough to make it through. Twenty seconds is plenty of time, if they are.

No one talks or moves or shifts. You're all waiting, and the moment the man finally says go, everyone snaps into motion basically at once.

You're standing at a correct, crisp attention just as you have been for the past hour and just as you will for as long as it takes for the Director to finish her presentation. There's one other male X5 beside you and two female X5s in front of you, staggered so the small group of men in military uniforms and expensive suits facing you can see all of you, all standing identically and equally motionless save your slow, steady breathing and the occasional blink. The barcodes on the back of their necks tell you their designations - 423, 534, and 587 - but you don't know their names. That's not a thing any of you knows about the others by this point, somewhere in your late teens.

The woman at the podium is older, with short, spiky blonde hair and too much makeup in a tailored business suit; she's speaking on the perks of a private military program, and you four are her props. She pays you as much mind, despite the stiff pride she injects into her voice every time she hits a highlight: zero loss of human, civilian life, a highly trained military force ready to hand at all times, specialization training available. Still in development for extreme environment, of course, but what you see before you gentlemen is the cream of the crop, proof that the program is a success.

Some of the men are examining the four of you at closer range, and you aren't allowed to react without an order, even when they prod at your arms, your stomach, tip your head forcefully side to side, lift your chin.

"I've heard rumors that you enhance their DNA with that of animals," the balding man in front of you asks the woman presenting. She looks annoyed. He had fajitas for lunch. He looks at you. "Open your mouth, let's see your teeth."

You have to comply, of course. That's all you're supposed to be: obedient. Your expression doesn't change as you open your mouth as instructed, but you hate him, you hate the woman, you hate and you hate and you hate and swear to yourself that someday you'll kill every human in this room.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 01:36 am (UTC)

You've been sitting cross-legged on the cot in this cell - identical in every way to the one Alec has aboard the Barge, at least to those who didn't grow up in them - for almost an hour now, listening to the sounds filtering up through the tunnel dug under it. You can hear 452 talking, doesn't really matter to who; she doesn't seem to think anything of a cell with a single cinder block wall that opens into all the basement tunnels. You're a little annoyed that she's making it this easy, but hey. She's been out of the game for ten years. You haven't, and as long as you're assigned this mission, you get out of having an actual breeding partner that Renfro expects results from. That's what you focus on. It's 452's business how thorough she is with her escape efforts as long as she makes them workable without you having to play complete idiot. Not yours.

You hear her coming and clear your mind, smirking already when she slides out from under the bed and, seeing you, freezes with panic clear on her face in the moment before she shuts it down. You raise an eyebrow, and after a moment, she pulls herself the rest of the way out and stands up, tense and ready.

"So when do the storm troopers bust in?" she asks, trying to pretend like she doesn't care, she can take on the world if she has to. Unapologetic.

"Don't worry, I didn't send up the alarm," you tell her dismissively. "Not yet."

"What do you want?"

"I'm not looking for trouble. What you do is your own business." You stand up off the cot, let her fold it up so she can put away the metal bar she worked loose, so she can work on sliding the cinder block back into the hole in the wall. You hold the cot up out of her way and make conversation while she does, trying to ease her back down. "Why do you want out of here so much? You've got a roof over your head, plenty to eat. That's more than you can say for most people out there."

"You think Manticore takes care of you out of the goodness of its heart?" she snipes back, contempt in her voice, then more delicate when she looks up at you, self-righteous as ever. "It's using you."

Duh, you think, but don't let anywhere near the surface when you snort. "Nobody's using me."

"That's what you don't get. You're working for the bad guys."

It takes every ounce of willpower you have not to roll your eyes right then and there, with how confident she is that she has some kind of inside track, like no other X5 in the world has any clue how spectacularly hideous Manticore is. She hasn't even been here for the past ten years. You step out of her way just to get yourself moving.

"I'm gonna be out of here in five minutes, go back to my cell, and you'll be rid of me for the night, okay 452?"

"My name is Max." There it is. She's not afraid of you anymore, she's using her name despite insisting to Renfro that she goes by her designation now. You shrug.

"Whatever you say."

"You should have a name too," she adds quickly, eyes narrowing on you. Oh, honey, you think.

"Well, I told you, my designation is 494."

"Doesn't suit you. I'm gonna call you Alec."

"Alec?" That's not your name. You don't correct her - it means she likes you, and that's what you need.

"As in smart alec." She's very proud of herself.

"I can live with that," you say after a moment of obvious consideration, noting with satisfaction that it makes her smirk at you a little gentler. She definitely likes you, which means she's decided that maybe - just maybe - you're really on her side.

"Good," she purrs. "'Cause my second choice was dick."

She's very proud of herself. You don't let yourself think about it as you call for the guard.

It's a beautiful day outside, and you're elbows deep under the hood of a Jeep with Manticore's logo on the doors, one of a dozen that have been pulled out of the motor pool for maintenance. It's a routine job in the center of the compound, one that will be checked over later for errors or sabotage, one that is carefully logged in the event of the former, but not one that is carefully watched. There's nowhere to go and you've passed enough loyalty tests at this point that there are no guards nearby, and won't be unless you fail to report to the showers on time. It's as close to freedom, to privacy as you get, and you don't mind the work and enjoy the sun on the shoulders of your standard issue grey t-shirt, but today you can't quite settle into it.

You're watching the unit of X6s being put through their paces in the field just north of the compound. There are guards there, but they're too far away to see that you're watching them, and your current position is blocked from the main compound so you don't mind pausing periodically to watch, telescoping your vision to see more clearly. It's what you're doing when the other X5 drops the hood of the Jeep he's working on beside you, and startles you into glancing over, your vision snapping back to normal between one blink and the next.

He's shorter than you are but a year older at fifteen, broader in the shoulders, dark hair and eyes and light olive skin; he's grinning at you, but he's already surprised you, so all you do is raise an eyebrow back at him.

"I'm sure if you want to run laps so badly, they'd let you in if you asked," he teases, and you roll your eyes, annoyed by it rather than chided into teasing back.

"Shut up. Don't act like you haven't noticed: we were doing back to back sprints by their age, full gear and no downtime. Endurance, tactical - all of it. But look at them," you point out, glancing over just in time to see one of the X6s go down after finishing her lap. You've been suppressing all your life the way your shoulders want to tense in ready defense of her, of another transgenic, expecting the barking reprimand to come from the officer standing nearby, but it doesn't. You can hear him, just barely, ask if she's still fit for duty; she answers with a crisp yessir, and you feel your anger wind tighter in your gut, too.

"Hey," Rhys says from right beside you, but he's not looking at them, he's looking at you when you glance sidelong at him. "They're just kids. You want them treated the same?"

"...no," you say, honestly but grudgingly. You don't. It doesn't ease the bitterness in your voice. "But what good does this do them? They're still soldiers. Now they'll just be softer soldiers."

"Maybe they'll be stronger," Rhys points out, and you feel the familiar mix of practical exasperation and baffled affection for him that you always do when he gets like this, when he gets in the way of your perfectly legitimate grudge with... whatever it is that lets him look at you like that. "There's already a lower rate of disciplinary incidents with their entire series. Too many of us broke unnecessarily. They adapted, that's all."

You don't answer this time; you can't. After a moment of waiting, Rhys nods and drags his hand over yours on the way past to the next Jeep in the line. "Don't be mad at them," he advises you. "Keep it for the people who deserve it."

You're trying. Today it's just harder than most.

You're standing in a warehouse that hasn't seen any kind of sentient life in several years; it's dark, which doesn't bother you, but it does the unit of a dozen men that are standing around holding a loose perimeter for their boss, a young, unsmiling man with short hair in a business suit who is standing beside you, looking through the small notebook you handed him. You do a quick headcount, but they're all watching you, and they're all armed. Besides it doesn't matter: even if you get past them, you're hyper-aware of the lingering but ultimately mundane ache of a puncture at the back of your neck, forgettable except for the implanted bomb you know left it behind. Every second you stand here watching Ames ho-hum is another one wasted, ticking by on the watch on your hand, unless you can convince him to extend the time.

"So I got two," you prompt him finally, but he doesn't look up from the scraps of skin on their bloody pages, one flesh-colored with a black barcode apparently tattooed onto it, one covered in short, black fur with a white barcode. "I just need more time to get the third."

"We had an agreement," he answers dismissively.

"Just a few hours," you try, taking a breath to continue when he does finally look up.

"That's not what I'm talking about," he tells you. "I told you to kill them."

Your gut drops, but you don't waver, staring him down when you lie blatantly: "Yeah." Of course, you make sure your tone says. Duh.

Ames glares at you for a moment, then nods to his assistant standing just behind you, who points a remote up at the small cage you originally woke up in suspended from the ceiling. A body falls, no defensive movement to try to catch itself at all, and you know before it hits the ground heavily that it's going to be the X6. You stare at him, hoping he's just unconscious, but no. He's dead.

Your eyes tick up to Ames, and you hated him before for a lot of reasons, but you feel a fresh layer of it as he talks over your tense silence.

"It seems someone left him outside an emergency room, with a bandage over the back of his neck."

"He was just a kid." Your voice sounds strange even to you: he didn't deserve this. He wasn't a threat, wasn't even in good shape, too soft to be the soldier Manticore wanted and certainly too soft to fight back against the man in front of you. Not like you, who will kill him the second you get a chance.

"You disappoint me," he tells you instead, and you glare back at him, and think you've never heard better praise in your life.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 02:38 am (UTC)

You're standing in a ruined courtyard, the kind that modern businesses put beside their buildings to give crowds a place to congregate, to make them seem welcoming; the building behind you has had almost all of its windows shattered out, the sky is overcast and drab, and the water in the still fountain off to your left somewhere has gone stagnant and slick with algae and god knows what else. The city smells bad, but you barely notice. This is what home smells like for you, and you're used to it, for the most part.

Lark is standing in front of you, difficult to read; and he always is, but just now he's a little more pointedly distant than usual, watching you watching him, neither of you quite sure how much you should be trusting the other with. But he's already shown this hand. He's already as good as told you the input you were just giving him on good kill points for instant death are for use on Rohan, and now you've brought the both of you to a standstill to ask, "Did something else happen?"

"No. What he did isn't enough already? The apathy of his colleagues isn't enough to justify moral outrage?" Lark is asking, perfectly even. "Besides, I think he's a good candidate."

"A good candidate - for demotion?" you ask, and your skin crawls, and you have to push back against how every fiber of your being does not want to be speaking this plainly about something you know is this dangerous, this forbidden. This is mutiny. "What's the plan here?"

"Alec - I'm not here to graduate. I'm not even trying right now. I have nothing to lose with my plan. Nothing they'd dare to take. Do you really want in?"

"You don't think you have anything to lose. That's the problem, isn't it? Because you have no idea what they would dare. What they could get away with on a long enough timeline. I'm not in. I have no idea why you are," you clip back, and you think of PsyOps, and you think of Shila who didn't even know you when she looked at you, and you think of the fact that no one ever came no matter how loud you screamed. It's the same here. And for what? For nothing. To kill a warden, to kill Rohan when it won't change anything. "Graduate, don't, fine. Whatever. But you know killing anyone here won't solve anything; they come back. And risking that kind of attention on yourself? Daring them to try something while knowing you're trapped in a corner and they control all the exits? You are not this stupid, Lark."

"I know my warden. And you know it's not about killing him. To get what I actually want out of this he has to come back," Lark tries again, with that infuriating entitlement, that confidence you've seen in almost every inmate here, that this is the worst it can possibly get. That being trapped here is some kind of unforgivable violation. He's already lost his ability to go home any time he wants, so why shouldn't he give up everything and go for broke? It's bullshit, and it angers you, and it worries you, and you should walk away right now to avoid getting caught up in it.

But. "To get what you want out of this there can't be a possibility of provocation on your part. Especially nothing that blatant." You try logic first. Logic always gets the most traction with Lark, but you can't stop yourself from continuing: "Maybe you know Chris. Maybe you don't. But I am telling you that you do not want to make yourself a target while you don't have an exit. Not for no reason. By the time you find out how well you know Chris, how far the other wardens, the inmates, the Admiral will go? It might be too late."

And then what, you hate that your tone implores. You wait, and watch Lark watch you, and feel disgustingly relieved when he finally says, "...Yeah. Maybe you're right."

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 07:57 am (UTC)

You feel like absolute crap, but at least you're not dead. At least it's not the worst you've ever felt in your life, which is what you keep telling yourself even though it doesn't do anything to negate how much your chest and head hurt right now, the former with a ragged hole torn in it, the latter with too much blunt trauma to be comfortable. You knew Bull would be strong going in. You didn't expect him to be able to nearly break even your transgenic spine without even trying to.

You'll remember next time.

For now, though, it isn't exactly the physical damage that's tripping you up the most: it's that you're still baffled by what happened, by the conversations you've had with Eggsy around the entire incident, by what he did. You don't know why a commanding officer - that's how he fits best into your worldview, and you let it happen when you can't be bothered to expend the energy otherwise - would get involved in a fight like that, why he wouldn't just leave you to your just desserts for allowing yourself to be cornered. It's stupid. That on its own would be dismissable, but.

But then he hadn't pressed you about knowing you did it intentionally. He hadn't punished you. He hadn't done anything, not even with as angry as he'd been before. And that makes you actually feel something that you're well aware would be called guilt in anyone else at all.

You don't like it. You don't like feeling like you owe anyone, even as you know now that Eggsy won't demand payback, for some reason. It makes you suspicious, and you can't quantify that at all with the simultaneous certainty that it's true nonetheless. It's just true.

Which is probably why you're here, doing this: a sprig of mistletoe has grown back outside the door of cabin 8-6, and you can just reach it to yank it down, so you do. You put it with the bunch you already have in your pocket from the gym, from the path between this cabin and that room; you're awake anyway, and this is something you can do, remembering your warden's first exasperated cry of what the fuck is wrong with you. You clear out two more sprigs from the middle of the hallway, including one that you have to sniff out to find, and then you stop and you listen.

No one else on the ship is moving, at least not on this level. No one's heard you. Satisfied, you take your haul and you slink back up the hall, and up the staircase.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 04:24 am (UTC)

You've been in this chair so many times by this point in your life, you're disgusted to realize that there's an ingrained response to it conditioned into you: you're already sweating, your heartrate is up, and you feel nauseous. You're already braced for the mindsplitting pain you know the machine poised over you will cause. You already know exactly what to expect, strapped into this chair so tightly not even you can move.

But you hold absolutely still anyway, and you swallow back that fear, and you let go of the razor sharp point your hatred of this room and this place and these people has become, and you don't let yourself think. That's the only way to get through this without giving up anything else: don't show them where to look.

It's harder than usual: you've fought this to the point of making yourself ill, only just returned from the infirmary two days ago, and you're still weak, still dehydrated, but it bought you time. Time to realize exactly how futile fighting that hard is: she's already dead.

You've never wanted to die. The infirmary trip proves that they aren't going to let you, which means there's only one thing left at the end of this road if you keep fighting, and it isn't death.

"X5-494," you hear Renfro call for your attention before you hear the click of her heels, and the muscles along your spine tense involuntarily. You force them to relax again. "Feeling better today?"

You can't answer. There's a rubber wedge between your teeth, which is how you know nothing you have to say will matter anyway. They're already going to turn on the machine.

"We're just going to warm you up a bit first, make sure we're on the same page. Keep that in mind, because then you and I are going to have a little chat about your last mission," she says, exactly like she's said every time before, when she asks where your loyalties lie. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and open them again but you don't fight like you have before.

"...good," she says, watching you a moment. Then over her shoulder: "Let's begin."

A red light turns on at the front of the machine overheard; Renfro leaves the room. You can't stop the way your breathing picks up this time but you've stopped trying. You've let go of everything that doesn't matter and, swallowing against how much it hurts, you remind yourself that Rachel is a part of that now.

Rachel doesn't matter. You barely even remember what she looks like now, her face scorched away from your memory by the laser warming up above you, and if you don't let go of the rest - of her name - of how fragile her hands were in yours - of how it felt when she kissed you - of your anger over not being able to save her - she'll take so much more of you with her. They'll take everything.

So you let her go, too. You decide to let her go, and when the searing, burning pain erupts behind your eyes, when you jerk against the chair and you scream, and you scream, and you scream, you don't think about her at all. You never will again.

Edited Date: 2016-02-12 05:38 am (UTC)

You're not afraid, not really. You'd be more comfortable if you didn't feel exactly like death warmed over, if you felt completely yourself, if you had your strength as well as your speed, but you're a soldier and you're on your feet, and you only need your speed for this. Anya is in the cabin across the hall, ready to back you up, but you won't need her. You don't need anyone, for this.

Magneto is in front of you and he's suspicious, but that doesn't matter either. He can be as suspicious as he likes but he's clearly never run into a transgenic before, and you're not wearing metal, so this will be easy. Relatively easy, anyway, if he'd just give you a clear shot at any bare skin at all.

"Go away," he's saying, too wary to entertain you any longer, so you put out a foot to stop the door from closing and you smile.

"Just one more thing," you say, and maybe you gloat a little on Pietro's behalf, but it's not like it matters. This is when you blur: as fast as you can, all of your muscle behind the sucker punch that you aim at the point of his chin, and your other hand is in your pocket around the tranquilizer dart that Anya gave you. As you thought he didn't see it coming: his head doesn't exactly rock back, but it's enough, and you're already punching the dart forward for the skin of his neck, just visible above the collar of his honest to god armor.

What you didn't see coming is the way the bones of your hand explode, and you yelp in spite of yourself, and yeah you finish your follow through but you're too stunned to stop the way the enraged mutant grabs hold of you and flings you into the wall across the corridor. You grunt and think you hear something else creak, something else snap, but before any of that can pronounce itself more clearly the sedatives are kicking in.

"Clear," you gasp, knocking on the door you ended up beside, and Anya already has it open. Neither of you know how long your window to getting Magneto down to zero is going to be, so you wave off her look as you breathe through the pain of your broken hand, as you pull yourself back to your feet and ignore the alarm of something that should not have happened.

You can deal with that later. For now you curl your broken hand against your body, and you move to help Anya with your good one. You're a soldier. It's what you do.

Everything hurts. Everything, not just on a physical level, although your body is in poor shape as well: you're dehydrated and weak, your joints feel like they're made of sandpaper and water, your temperature won't stabilize. It feels like the weight of your frame is too much to hold up even flat on your back, and you're nauseous in and of yourself as well as from the vertigo that never quite leaves no matter if your eyes are open or closed.

Closed, though, spares you from the light stabbing through straight into your skull, and gives you temporary relief from watching the world spin, but it leaves you wide open to the fact that you don't know anything. You know just enough to know that there should be something here, some sense of self, of time, of place, but there simply isn't. You're detached, with nothing to use to ground yourself except the occasional scrap of memory that blindsides you on its way through: pain that leaves you retching over the side of the cot you're lying on, a gibbering kind of terror that leaves you in a heap against the wall, consuming anger that makes no sense to you at all, and an occasional string of words: duty, mission, discipline, loyalty, manticore; a woman's voice, concerned, your hands are shaking, are you okay; X5-494 pay attention, run it again; you're a traitor, you deserve to die; I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

None of it stays and all you can do is endure it as best you can, uncomprehending, except for one time. One, single time, you hear a sound - "Knox." - in a voice you think you should recognize, a grip on your shoulder. Someone's spoken directly into your ear, close and quiet enough that it's barely more than the breath they used to say it, and you groan in protest as you squint into the light.

"Knox," he says again, more urgently, but you don't know what the sound means, and you almost know who this dark-haired, dark-eyed man crouched next to you is, but not quite. You mumble something, try to get him to leave you alone, you don't know what he wants but you don't have anything left to give, you don't have -

"You idiot - what did you do," the man is muttering, but you don't have an answer; when you try, you feel your gut heaving again, but there's nothing you can do about it except slip into unconsciousness.

You're six years old and in the process of folding down your bed for lights out when a small red plastic ring - the kind from the drink containers in the mess hall - falls out from the blankets and lands between your bare feet. You stare at it for a moment before covering it reflexively with one foot, just in case there's a guard where you weren't expecting one, but one of your unitmates off to your left giggles and you know there's not.

When you look up, Shila - poker faced, severe Shila - is smiling at you just a little, and you're not sure what to do with that any more than the fact that you honestly didn't see anyone put the ring in your bunk. She tips her head ever so slightly towards Jer, three beds down from you and the smallest in the unit, and when you look your little brother has to duck his head to hide his smile; in the next moment Shila has claimed the guard position at the door, the one you usually occupy whenever Tag makes the rounds in your barracks, and then the lights click out. It's been months since anyone has successfully tagged you, but if Jer really did manage it - and it would be a relief if he did, but you suspect Teek helped after the week he's had - you're not going to disappoint.

You and your fourteen brothers and sisters are children, but you're still soldiers: you leap the bed and lunge for the nearest of them, and they roll under the bed to evade you, and then it's a chase on foot around the room with several similar acrobatics, but it's all nearly silent.

Except for the low current of laughter, carefully muted behind hands, but no less pleasing for all that.

Edited Date: 2017-09-22 01:54 am (UTC)

You are grown, and have just been dismissed from afternoon parade by Sergeant Lutz, but that's not where your attention is. Your attention is on a new face in the Manticore fatigues, a new guard standing where Stafford had been posted for as long as you can remember knowing him, and you don't smile but a sharp, dark kind of pleasure warms your chest and makes you want to.

There's another X5 that appears at your side the moment your unit hits the hallway, divides off into males and females; you almost take a shot but then recognize Rhys, and then recognize his voice low and sharp almost in your ear, "What did you do?"

A memory within a memory, just a snapshot: a man over you, behind you, in you, uncomfortable and too harsh to be really enjoyable even if you weren't already detached from it, especially in the small space you've found to be together, where you lead him when you offered. Your cheek has rebounded off the corner of a table just like you let it, and the sharp ache of it is where your mind is focused as you hold still; the ache, anyway, and the passing time, knowing any moment the next perimeter patrol will be along to find you and you wonder if it will be before he finishes.

Back to Rhys's concerned face almost in yours, and the dark bruising - not the only on you, but the only visible, still fresh - pulls at the smile you let through this time when you meet his eyes, and he must not like something he sees because he withdraws ever so slightly.

"What did you do?" he asks again, and you murmur back as you cut left into the showers, "I took care of the problem."

You're sitting in an abandoned barn still full of rusting farming equipment and moldering hay, a child of about six or seven in front of you wearing fatigues and very shortshorn blonde hair, staring out the window; he's an X7, and he's ignoring you entirely, which is fine with you. You're polishing off a bag of pork rinds, when you hear running footsteps and glance up in time to see four out of the five X6s that you followed here piling in through the doorway.

"You were right, sir!" gasps the blonde female as they uncertainly fall into line, half at attention, half too panicked to think straight. Soft. "It was an ambush!"

"They shot at us!" adds the oldest male, baffled, which is sweet really. In an oblivious way.

Before you can answer them you hear the sound of a motorcycle engine, and your vague exasperation sharpens to a heavy, much more deadly point as you come to your feet - "Oh, if you idiots let them follow you -" you start, but then you catch sight of the movement outside and realize you recognize the woman even before she's stopped the bike. "...great."

"Is it them?" asks one of the X6s, and you mutter, "I wish." Worse: it's Max, and she still probably hasn't forgiven you for helping poison her boyfriend. Not that she should, really, but it's still inconvenient. Luckily she's preoccupied with the X6 she has on the back of her motorcycle, half-carrying, half-guiding him into the shelter of the barn.

"Give me something to tie his leg off with!" she's telling the X6s, who look so clueless you wonder how you even share a training program with them, slipping your belt off and sliding up to where they're dumping the kid on a worktable to offer it to Max, who just now notices you. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"I'd kick your ass but we don't have time for that right now," she snaps, but the two of you are working seamlessly together anyway, her looping the belt around the kid's leg, you getting him straightened out and investigating where the blood is coming from.

"Alright, the bullet went right through," you announce a moment later, digging a pocket knife and a lighter out of your pockets. "We're going to have to cauterize."

"I don't understand! Why were they shooting at us?!" The blonde X6 again, still panicking, then, "I think I'm going to be sick."

"He's going into shock," Max cuts across her, handing out orders like she never stopped: "Find something to keep him warm." But the blonde X6 is disappearing deeper into the barn, clearly nauseous.

"Bet that one flunked field med," you mutter, not looking up from where you're heating the knife with the flame. You hand it off to Max, then move up to the kid's shoulders to hold him still.

"Not gonna lie, this is gonna hurt like hell," she tells him, but doesn't hesitate to press the heated blade to the wound. The wounded X6 bucks against your hand and makes a horrible sound, but you've got him pinned tight.

"Hang on, hang on - almost done," you murmur almost absently, wrinkling your nose against the smell.

You learned to play piano in a day and it was one of the easiest things you've ever done, not the least because once you had the basics down, you actually kind of enjoy it. Not in the hopeful way that you'll have anything to do with it after this, but in a passive, nice to be doing something that doesn't hurt you or someone else way. Just nice. You don't get a lot of that at Manticore.

But there's a lot of nice here: the house is more luxurious not only than you've ever seen but than most people even have after the Pulse, with expensive wooden paneling, soft carpets, and it seems like more sunshine through the wide, spotless windows than there is outside; the staff is pleasant and accommodating; and then there's the girl. Then there's Rachel.

She's sitting beside you on the piano bench, softer than anything you ever knew could exist, everything from the graceful, confident way her fingers move over the keys, to the delicate pink of her sweater, to the gentle curls in her glossy hair, to the faintly sweet smell of her perfume, to the warm way she smiles at you when you raise a hand over hers to stop her playing.

"You're rushing through measures 48 through 53," you say, trying to be stern, but you can't quite stop smiling. You have no idea why.

"Because that's when it gets emotional, Simon," she teases back, and when she moves your hands off the keyboard in preparation to raise hers back to it, she doesn't let go.

"Technique must come first, then embellishments," you try, but still smiling. She doesn't seem convinced.

"I always find I do best when I follow my heart." She's smiling, too. She looks like she can't stop, either, even when she leans far enough forward to sneak a look down the hallway. There's no one there, you could tell her, but she already sees that for herself because she turns and kisses you again like she did in the pool. This, too, is soft and warm, like everything else about her, and it makes you feel... happy.

You wonder if this is what she was talking about before, when she said I love you, and wish desperately that you had anyone to ask.

You're twelve years old, and you've walked into the barracks with the third unit you've ever had in your life; the first changeup after you were released from PsyOps, but you know what to expect now because you've already walked into it with your last unit. It's not their fault. You still raise your own pulse sometimes when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror, catch sight of your face and think traitor rat enemy coward. Manticore's PsyOps division does good work. You can't imagine what it's like for them.

So when you walked into the new barracks and the 540 in the corner shot you a warning look - all the clones of the escaped unit are forming a kind of tense alliance - you saw the split in her lip and the bruise on her cheek and knew what you were in for without having to signal each other at all, and you were ready when the two oldest X5s in the room blocked your path. You just started swinging.

And you very quickly ended up on the bottom of the resulting pile and you still didn't stop, because stopping means you're weak, stopping means you're guilty, means everything they've been conditioned to think about you and you're fighting back against the entire weight of Manticore's command as well as their own fear and anger. They might kill you if you stop. You don't know.

And then someone is hauling you out to the side and you slam the 530 in the chest right before he can say anything with an elbow, hard, but he still shoves you behind him.

"Stand down!" he barks, wheezing just a little as he catches his breath, one hand back towards you and one held out to the rest, and you don't know why you react the way you do. Your adrenaline is still firing and you don't need his protection, you don't need anyone's protection, you can stand on your own so you grab the wrist extended towards you and you hip check him into the wall behind you.

The rest of the unit that was just dogpiling you is too stunned to do anything, and you put your back to the wall as you wait for the larger boy to get back up, but he's laughing from where's still sorting himself out on the floor. "Stand down," he says again, and this time - grudgingly - all of you do.

The infirmary is full of smoke, so full that your heightened sense of smell is actually a hindrance as it distracts you with everything that's clogging the air along with the heat; your eyes are continually confused by the sheer amount of motion as Tiffany and Cambridge and eventually Jean are moving around you, as supplies fall off of shelves, as more smoke billows out of the storeroom where you managed to toss the molotov before the flame caught the alcohol. But worst of all you can barely hear anything: your head feels like it's about to split into two, and your ears are ringing from being too close to the blast.

You shut all of it off just like you were trained to do. You focus, because nothing is going to get better until the fire is out, and nothing in you is panicked - angry, yes, just like you always are, but not panicked - but the fear and pain of those around you is setting your teeth on edge.

And then you less hear a voice at the door as see movement and glance over in time to see Scott walking through the door, saying something - Lark needs you. Take him so I can get back out there. - and you forget the fire, gritting your teeth half because that kind of assumptive connection is exactly what you never wanted, half because you feel the anger that never leaves you lashing up into your throat automatically. For just that moment, you could kill someone if they were in front of you, if you knew they were responsible for whatever's just happened.

And what's just happened is that Lark is in worse shape than you've ever seen him, and maybe you can tell at a glance that he won't die, but the injury is a bad one anyway and the smell of burned skin makes you want to cough. You're right in the middle of your element, and so there are two trains of thought constantly running, one keeping track of your surroundings and the changes in them, one processing the questions you have as they occur to you, and now you add a third that makes a list comprised of the injuries you can see, the ones Lark confirms, and what you're going to need to do to correct them. All of it is within your ability and skill, you can see, but the problem is time and supplies. Maybe you should just kill him and let the death toll reset.

"I'm going to kill someone," Lark tells you seriously, and everything else going on in your head becomes background noise as you move to block off that particular disaster. The last thing either of you needs is a pain-crazed werewolf in the middle of the infirmary.

"You're not going to kill anyone," you promise him, both a threat and a reassurance, making certain he knows you're not afraid of him. He could hurt you, you know, have always known, and in this case it wouldn't even be his fault, but you're not afraid of him. You stay unflinchingly close, ready to take whatever he dishes out, as long as you stay close by.

He may not kill anyone, but if anyone crosses you right now, you might. You'll think about what that means later. Right now, you have a werewolf's leg to keep in one piece.

You're injured, but nothing your pain tolerance can't handle at this point, behind the wall of drugs and bedrest; there's the tearing, sharp sensation of the torn muscles in your chest every time you breathe too deeply where Bull stabbed you, several of your ribs are fractured, you know your skull would be too if you were human, your spine is bruised all the way down but luckily not broken. Your face, your body hurts like it was slammed against a wall several times, which is exactly what happened. None of that really bothers you though. It's insistent enough to feel but you've got it shut out of your thoughts, set on the back burner behind all the other thought process you have going. Between the purely physical pain and your thoughts, you feel only numb.

And you've been taking advantage of that, staying small and quiet while you're vulnerable, hiding behind the absence of your usually bright and blaring personality; you've been pretending to sleep when you aren't actually sleeping, which you have to do far more than you would normally as your body burns through energy trying to heal. The end result is that a lot of people walk right past you either without even noticing or without wanting to disturb you, and you've been using that to listen for anyone coming to arrest you, or to take their own revenge.

And then there's Lark, who's just moved his chair closer to your bed, who just told you he'd be more worried if you didn't miss Manticore, who is showing you not only basic consideration - What happened? he asked you, not an order, not an expectation, but a question, to you - but half a dozen unspoken, unnecessary kindnesses. The warming bottle of Sprite you've opted to use as a coldpack. Leaning close so you don't have to speak loudly. Sitting between you and the door. You're tired anyway but it makes you even more tired trying to chase down the thread of your thoughts - one of many - that keeps winding out questions about it that amount to why? Why would he, what does he want?

You sweep it all out of your consideration for now, and focus on tactics instead. Tactics are straightforward. Tactics never change in that regard. You remind yourself firmly of how much you hate Manticore - and you do, you reall do - and that you don't miss anything about it - you don't, you don't, you don't except for how you do - and tell him quietly, "If the wardens figure out what I did and come for me, I don't mind Zero. If it's anything else -" You stop yourself from asking for Furiosa, who has promised to crush for you anyone you need; you're in a good position to be a martyr here, and you're not ready to give up that card. Instead, with confidence in your ability to adapt: "I'll figure it out then. If any of Bull's friends come for me..."

A harder prospect, one which will probably end with you dead and you know it, though you'll fight. You'll fight, and you won't let them take you alive, and that's that.

Except Lark picks it up there for you: "If Iris figures it out, there's a good chance Vic will," he offers, thinking aloud, thinking, thinking, "And if Vic comes while you're still recovering, I guess I'll find out how fast I can eat a man who regenerates."

You're following right along up until that point, and it blindsides you so completely that you open your eyes again, shift to face him a little, utterly baffled as to why Lark would say that. Why he would say he'll stay when obviously it would be an idiotic move at best, a suicidal one at worst. So you speak slowly, carefully, as much to make sure you understand as to try and make sure he does: "If Vic comes while I can't fight him, smart money is on get out of the way. He'll kill me, I'll death toll, he'll feel accomplished, all problems solved." You'll die, but you've accepted that already, it doesn't matter at this point. Doesn't matter here.

"He'll torture you," Lark says, like it matters. Like he isn't going to let that happen. "Over something that needed to happen for a hundred reasons. Besides, if he comes after you for revenge, that's one thing. If he comes after you and attacks me, too, it goes from vengeance to multiple victims and I'll be playing it off as the worried bystander. He'll get locked up, there's more chaos and discussion, but he'll be out of the way without a second death toll and further bed rest for you."

And there are so many things you could say in response to that, that you can't even begin to choose just one. You listen as he goes on with more and more confusion, so much so that you wonder if you would even be able to follow this completely sober, if it would make sense if you were at peak health and intent enough to almost anticipate the next word before it hits the air. You expected a lot of things to come from this, from your move to demote the Iron Bull before he could become another Stafford, before he could hurt Pietro or some softer inmate again. Before he could corner you.

You should refuse this, wary of the debt, except it sounds like Lark means it; you should defend your ability to take care of yourself; you should question it until you understand it; you should point out how pointless parts of this plan are. You should say no. You should say no.

But instead you give in, at last and fully, to the impulse to relax a little with Lark, specifically, at your back; with Lark whom you don't trust, but who you know won't let anyone drag you out of here without a fight, without knowing about it. Who you know would stand with you at least this far, and that isn't anything like you've ever had before. Even the few X5s you have for friends, for what other people would call family back home would let you hang.

"You're impossible," you don't quite realize you're saying before it's out, and you mean it, in every way it can be meant. You fall asleep with Lark's head so close to yours on your pillow, you can feel his breath on your neck.

Edited Date: 2016-02-24 09:16 am (UTC)

You aren't actually claustrophobic, but it's the one blessing you have here; this particular solitary cell has mobile walls and ceiling, and those that have been inside it call it the trash compactor. You can't stand up, can't stretch out, and every muscle you have is cramping as a result. That's the least of your concerns, though: there are no windows, and no light even for your highly powered eyes to pick up, which makes it impossible for you to tell how much time has passed, which way is up or down except where you're laying on the floor, detached and drifting. You haven't eaten or been given water in days, either, so you might be partially delirious from dehydration, or just from all of it.

You hold on to your anger, though, just like you always have. This time you're not letting it go. You focus on it like it's more important than oxygen, and you suffer silently, and you bide your time until you hear the door begin to work, until the one metal wall slides up to show the room on the other side of the plexiglass holding you where you are.

There are two people standing there and like some kind of living creature, your rage boils up into your throat and takes hold of you, flings you forward at the glass blindly, and you collide so hard you hear something pop. You'd do more damage but there's not enough room here to get enough momentum, and you're not strong enough. You end up in a heap on the floor again, glaring up into the painfully blinding light through watering eyes at the blonde woman and the short, balding man in front of you, and hating, and hating, and hating them as you try to catch your breath and feel your lips crack.

"...disappointing," you hear the woman say, shaking her head.

"This happens sometimes on their first missions," the man is saying dispassionately, reporting. "They aren't ready to handle all the obstacles they face, but there's no way to train them before we know how each one reacts."

"494 has had some disciplinary issues in the past, hasn't he?"

"They were resolved. He's always been strong willed, though, which is why we were able to carry out the mission anyway. We were watching for it."

"Rachel," you manage, and your voice is wrecked, dry and cracked as your throat but you push it out anyway, spit it at them. "You killed her. I'll kill you, you killed her, I'll kill you -"

"You were supposed to kill her, soldier," the woman reminds you, patiently, the soldier pointed. "You'll do better next time, won't you?"

"I'll kill you."

"How long has he been in here, Sandoval?" she asks, unmoved, turning to the man instead.

"Five days, Director. A week of the machine before that, but he always came back to this, so we're going to try again this afternoon."

"They can survive how long without food or water?"

"Six days, ma'am."

"Try again in two."

You don't have the energy to say anything else when Renfro reaches to the wall again and pushes the button that will lower the wall again, plunging you back into darkness.

Edited Date: 2016-03-03 07:06 am (UTC)

You're so used to detaching from whatever's happening to you that sometimes you feel like you have to pay attention just to stay in the moment; not always, but sometimes at your lowest, you know that you'll never escape the fact that from the start you were a soldier. No matter where you end, you'll always be a soldier.

You're not lost, you chose to be here, you chose to come fill your time with this now that Lark is off the table and you have a lot of angry energy to work off; you're even enjoying it when you remember to check in, but this still feels almost like one of those times. The Iron Bull is exactly as formidable as you expected him to be - you underestimated his strength, but you let yourself off the hook because he's ridiculously strong, you've never met anyone like him, and you came close - and in any other setting, you'd be all too happy to be here for the pure enjoyment of it. He's good with his hands, with his mouth, with every part of him, and when you showed him there was no need to be careful, he took you up on that too. There's a certain kind of sincere pleasure in knowing you can take some bruising, can take some sore muscles and some blood without losing how good the sex really is, and you can feel that under your skin when you brace yourself against the headboard and the Bull really settles into his rhythm behind you, when you murmur encouragement to him to let him know you're still with him, when he calls you beautiful.

But this isn't any other setting, and that's also when you feel yourself detach, when this becomes less about the sex and more about what it was when you showed up here despite Riley's disapproval: a maneuver that needs executed so you can be in the right tactical position. The bruises on your hips and ribs will fade within the day and you know that to use this, you'll have to be here again, and that's not a bad prospect, but you note it anyway.

You've done it before. You know it works. If you ever need to take Bull down a notch, this is how you'll do it, and that's what you're really focused on as he finishes.

Edited Date: 2016-03-20 03:33 am (UTC)

Spoiler Alert Flood

here or the botched proof of purchase

It's a busy, crowded, dirty street in post-Pulse Seattle: rundown people in rundown buildings, graffiti all over the stonework, broken bottles and trash in the street, broken down cars lining it and rusting where they stopped and their owners didn't have the money for gas to get them going again. Most people in this area are either huddled in the doorways of buildings, gathered on the street corners in groups, or hurrying along their way from one point to another.

A young man - dark hair, olive skin, easy and thoughtless confidence in his movements - hurries down a metal stairway from a bridge to the street it spans across, leaping down several stairs at a time, not even bothering to slow until the cell phone in his pocket rings and he has to focus on getting it out, on answering it.

"Hey," Biggs says after checking the number, slowing to fall in with the other people moving along the street, ever so slightly out of breath. "You won't believe what just happened to me."

"Where are you?" says the voice on the other end, not quite urgent but not quite not, just barely audible as Alec.

"Near your place." He passes by a television over a news stand, one several people are gathered around to watch, not noticing the way they turn to look at him. Not noticing the grainy security footage of his own face on the screen, not seeing the header under it reading DANGEROUS SUBJECT in red, not hearing the female anchorwoman warning the public not to approach this suspected transgenic, who is dangerous, deadly, possibly wounded.

"You need to get back to Terminal City right now, pal," Alec's voice says, pointed.

"Why, what's wrong?" Biggs is asking, as two men fall into step behind him, one of them insisting excuse me in a way indistinguishable from the other self-involved people moving in this crowd, unless one can see that he's staring hard at the back of Biggs' head.

"It's -"

"Excuse me!" the man all but shouts, and Biggs sighs: "Hang on a sec, Alec," and drops the phone, turning to face what is now three men, now four squaring up behind him.

"You wanna help keep the neighborhood tranny safe?" the man asks, smirking in a sharp, bloody way despite the singsong of his voice.

Biggs starts to shake his head, sighing with the kind of resignation that says he's dealt with this man before, with this question before. "Some other time, m-" Which is when he glances over the man's shoulder, sees the television, sees himself on the screen. His expression goes slowly blank, his dark eyes clouding, as he realizes he's been made, as he realizes he's already surrounded.

He starts to turn back, but the man behind him has a crowbar and swings for the fences against the back of Biggs' head. The X5 drops, dazed, and then there's a man with a board, a man with a tire iron, a man with steel toed boots.

"Hey! He's one of 'em!" the leader shouts, drawing still more people from around, people who didn't even notice the violence who are suddenly wide-eyed and startled, dark faced and enraged, scattering or closing.

"Biggs?" Alec's voice calls from the phone, dropped on the pavement. "Biggs!"

He never gets a chance to get up, can't find his training, his speed, his strength. The blows keep falling, knocking him back and forth, driving him down into the pavement, throwing him against a car, tossing him out into the middle of the street until his jacket is red with blood and he's no longer moving.

The clip ends as someone shouts to bring the freak over here, as someone hooks his ankle and starts to drag Biggs' body towards the bridge where someone has thrown a rope down from the handrail. Some human so terrified for their life from the transgenic threat that they're glad to see something pay for it.

Edited Date: 2018-03-20 02:06 am (UTC)

The room is bright under the harsh fluorescent light, making the line of seven preteen boys look pale and colorless against their ashen grey unisex shifts. There are several small tables in neat rows and not much else in the room, each with two chairs facing the front of the room, the boys facing back. They're identical, these boys, and not just in age and dress, but in every physically identifiable way: they are exactly the same height, the same build, the same dark blonde close-cropped hair and hazel eyes and freckle-spattered light skin. They have what may look at a passing glance to be the same set of black lines on the back of their necks, but there's one tiny, almost insignificant difference that isn't insignificant at all.

A man with a pinched, serious face and curly blonde hair is standing with arms folded, staring at them. "Role call," he orders, starting to pace, watching carefully.

"X5-490," the first boy says immediately, crisply, eyes still unfocused and chin raised at attention.

"X5-492," the next one says in the same exact voice.

"X5-493."

"X5-494."

"X5-496."

"X5-497."

"X5-499."

Lydecker nods his approval at the smooth domino effect, but that's simple, like asking a fifth grader to write their name.

"If you have completed your linguistics assignment with higher than 90%, step forward," he orders, and all but X5-497 do so. "If you have completed your physical in the fifth percentile, step forward." Five of them step forward. "If you have completed your weapons training with 95% accuracy or higher, step forward." Six of them move, nothing on their faces. "If you have passed your engineering course with 90% or higher, step forward."

In the end, X5-494 and X5-499 are standing shoulder out front, X5-493 a step behind them, the rest trailing out behind. X5-496 is standing at the back, only two steps from where they started, and Lydecker moves around the group to him.

"Your series has already turned up the seizure flaw twice," he says in 496's face, whose chin is trembling slightly, but otherwise stands as rock steady as any adult soldier. "Your performance is unacceptable. You will train harder, longer, and more often until you aren't standing at the back of the room any more, or I'm finished with you. Do you understand, soldier?"

"Yes, sir," X5-496 says immediately, forcefully, swallowing.

"Good." Lydecker nods to a pair of soldiers flanking a man in a lab coat that have come in by the door. They move up to take 496 by the arms, and he pales even further, every muscle in his body tensing to struggle but he doesn't. He lets them lead him away out the door, the labcoated man scribbling something on a clipboard, the human soldiers unconcerned. Lydecker walks back to the front.

"The rest of you will report to PsyOps for your screenings throughout the day tomorrow. Don't fall behind. Dismissed."

It takes them a moment to unfreeze from their rigid, almost mindless attention stances, but the remaining 490 clones file neatly out the door without so much as a word, or more than a quick, hidden glance between them.

Edited Date: 2018-03-19 12:05 pm (UTC)

rewrite

Alec in the graveyard

If Seattle was ruined by the Pulse, then Los Angeles was nearly leveled by the fallout from it. The few upper crust empires left here are built in like fortresses, clusters of high rises behind walls half as tall as they are, patches of violent green and sickly trees almost as precious as the unbroken sheets of glass and all the comforts inside the buildings that survived. Everything outside those walls is dingy and decaying, either falling apart or knocked apart, coated in poverty and dust and anything the people still skulking here can do to get through another day.

There's a man walking down the street at the fore of the long shot of the city, keeping just to one side of the curb rather than following the sidewalk, careful not to stand up too straight. He fits in: dusty, dirty, tired, and there are ragged-edged holes at the knees of his loose jeans, but he's wearing a familiar motorcycle jacket. He can't hide how light he is on his feet, or how effortlessly wary he is underneath his sunglasses and disenchantment.

He's searching for something, it becomes obvious, his head turning from this side of the street to that, tracking on the buildings as he walks before jumping up to the next. When he finally stops, it's in front of one of the high rise apartment buildings that didn't make it into the protection of a small kingdom, its dark, grimy windows like empty tooth sockets, its lower levels graffiti'd and torn apart by riots or bored hands or both. He checks a list he pulls from his pocket - he has several days worth of stubble, because it's hard to keep to a hygiene regimen on the road in a post-Pulse America, because it helps him blend in, because he doesn't care - and then crumples it in his hand when he's done, although he puts it back in his pocket. He steps carefully, neatly over broken bottles, trash, and the paraphrenalia of a whole lot of bad choices left scattered over the carved marble of the entryway stairs as he walks up to slide through the broken glass doors.

The interior is instantly too dark to really see well, but there's the scuttle and scrape of something large getting out of the way as Alec moves through the lobby, apparently unhindered by the gloom. He moves up the stairs silently but carefully, testing them as he goes, but it's more than that. There's a reluctance to him, a heaviness where he's usually energetic, a recalcitrance where he's always willing.

When he slips into the third floor hallway - bright with the light spilling in through the floor to ceiling window at one end - he calls, "Lark?" and freezes to listen. His voice is rough, but he stands up straighter while he strains to hear anything but the wind in the building. "Lark Tennant!" he calls louder, straightening up, but there's still nothing.

He searches each room down the hall, but finds nothing he wants to see, if the way he stops at the big, jagged window and turns back to look down the hall is any indication. He's taken the sunglasses off and folded them into his pocket, so the searching, dull quality to his eyes is plain now. He's looking for something he knows he's not going to see, not going to find.

Alec sits down on the narrow ledge, utterly ignoring the fact that there's only a jutting shard of glass between him and a sixty foot fall. He scrubs his fingers back through his hair, rubs the back of his neck. He rubs his eyes, and then rubs, and rubs, and rubs.

The skin around them is red by the time he stops and sets his chin in his hand, though it doesn't last long. He draws in a deep breath as if in preparation to stand, or shout, or move, but in the end all he does is hold it.

He's really not sure what to do now.

Edited Date: 2018-03-22 04:45 am (UTC)

Pipe jousting

When X5-494 was four years old, his unit started practicing live spars; it was against each other, which wasn't exactly a cakewalk, but they were learning together. None of them were very effective at first, their first tentative punches taken at each other in the same way as their first steps upright had been taken: shaky, unsteady, uncertain.

When Knox was five years old, he learned how to take a punch from a fully trained adult human. He no longer remembers the details - partially by his own unwillingness to think about it, partially perhaps chipped away by PsyOps and naturally by time - but he remembers how shocked he was by the pain, and how convinced he'd been that something had been broken in him. He cried. As training went on, later, he heaved in the communal bathrooms. He sat upright in his bed all night to keep his spinning head on his shoulders. He pressed his muscles to the cold cement of the walls and floor whenever he could get away with it.

And he learned that the next time would hurt less, and then less after that, and eventually barely at all as he learned what to expect. As he grew stronger, and figured out how to compensate. He learned that in the end, he just had to breathe through it, and even if something did break, he just had to get to the other side of it.

Alec McDowell is twenty-two years old. He reminds himself to breathe.

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