A/N: I know, I'm a bad girl for starting another story while I have a bunch of others that are still unfinished, but when I get an idea, I got to go with it. Please be patient, I'll try to update as soon as possible, but being a college student makes it really difficult. Enjoy.

Where We Are

Prologue

"Seattle, Washington has reached day two on what is quickly being known as the Siege on Terminal City. Behind me this warehouse abandoned due to a chemical spill ten years ago has been uninhabited until recently. Now it gives residence to an unknown amount of transgenics, creatures who have literally been made in a lab." The man paused looking up from the radio he was attempting to repair and turned his attention to the television. A woman with shoulder-length wavy brown hair stood addressing the group. Her lips looked put out thanks to their unnatural shade of red and the paleness of her powdered face. Her countenance remained full compared to the slender figure presented under her blue blazer and black slacks. She looked so artificial it made him wonder why women did that to themselves so willingly.

"Earlier this year reports came in of a facility stationed in Gillette, Wyoming known to the public as a V.A. Hospital but in actuality seems to have been a front for a genetic training facility known as Manticore." The man froze. Images suddenly began to come into vision.

He saw kids, dozens of kids marching together. All of them with hair so short their gender remained undistinguishable. They wore plain blue hospital-like gowns that tied in the back, but they all marched together. He could hear their movements thundering in sync. They couldn't have been more then eight or nine.

Suddenly the vision changed and he saw himself yelling at a woman with curly dark brown hair and full lips. Her eyes were a dark brown and her skin almost reminiscent of a perfect tan. Her eyes held a fire of defiance and love at the same time. They looked at him one moment and then turned downwards to the woman in her arms.

The women's hair looked like it originally had been black, but now held grey streaks, premature for her age. Her skin too, held wrinkles unlike those he'd naturally seen before. Her body remained curled up as if she was in pain. He heard himself shout, "Anything's better than going back." Before he could decipher exactly what those words might have meant a new image flashed into his mind.

The same woman who he had just seen with the dark hair in full lips appeared again. He couldn't distinguish where exactly they were talking, but it seemed dark, almost cave-like. She was dressed in black leather this time. Kneeling and facing him as if trying to get him to focus on her words.

"You will. You called me, right? You remembered my number," she insisted. He caught sight of his face. His eyes seemed hallowed out and red as if he had endured many nights without rest.

He shook his head. "It's not the same." Even as those words came out he felt a surge of emotion he couldn't account for.

"Yes, you can do it if you try," she encouraged.

"No, it's different with you." She just didn't get it. She didn't understand.

His attention abruptly switched back to the television screen as the wave of images stopped. "The woman in charge has identified herself only as Max…"

"Max," he repeated. Another fury of images over took him. He saw himself and the dark haired girl sitting in what looked like a wooden cabin. A fire burned in the fireplace in the middle of the far wall. He poured her a glass of wine and then sat on the couch across from her.

"I know I've been hard on you, Max but I'm just trying to keep you safe," he heard himself say.

"I know," she whispers. He watches as he reaches out and moves a piece of hair from her face.

The image changed and he found himself staring down at a man with short sandy blond hair in a wheel chair. A pair of thin glasses rested on his nose. The expression on his own face held a note of anger and maybe jealousy, but he couldn't be sure.

"She should have gotten the hell out of Seattle a long time ago. She knows it's not safe here, but she stayed anyway, because of you." He shuddered at the memory for some reason before it changed.

The man with the blond hair disappeared and was suddenly replaced with a woman with bleach blond hair and a pointed nose and slightly reddened lips. She stood in a black suit watching something. He followed her gaze and found himself looking down at the woman with dark brown hair again. Her face was pale, making the lips that surrounded the clear tube in her throat look fuller. Her eyes were closed. The doctors had been shocking her body continuously, but a harsh steady wail of the heart monitor remained unchanging.

He watched himself pull a gun. Where he had gotten it he wasn't sure. "X5-599, I've got a heart for you." He moved the gun to his head and fired.

He blinked furiously trying to clear the image from his vision, but as soon as the woman's picture disappeared from his mind, he found it being broadcasted on TV. The picture was mostly a head shot taken, it looked like, while she was in motion for some of the facial details were quite blurred, but there was no doubt in his mind that it was the girl from his visions.

"Some of these transgenics resemble humans, but many don't. All the transgenics are said to be identifiable by the barcodes tattooed on the backs of their necks." He felt his hand subconsciously move to the back of his neck. It was something he had discovered a few days after he got back to the ranch. Buddy told him he had gotten it a few years back at a tattoo parlor while being completely drunk, thinking it was cool at the time. He had even tried to get it removed once, but to his surprise, it came back two weeks later. He never really liked it. It reminded him of being owned. He felt like it made him a number, a product, that no one cared about. Since then, he wondered what ever made him want to get in the first place.

Now the news was telling him that these transgenics had them. Could he possibly be a transgenic? How could he be a transgenic and not know it? Why did he have memories of the leader of these transgenics, Max? He didn't understand.

"The transgenics are also believed to have superhuman powers. Manipulated and educated since birth, these creatures were trained to be super soldiers. They have been known to demonstrate fantastic fighting abilities as well as move at unimaginable speeds and exhibit incredible magnitudes of strength." He dropped the screwdriver, the radio completely forgotten, as he looked at his hands. Doing work around the farm he often himself lifting things that many others could not.

One of the other hands, Charlie, had given him an odd look just last week when he had lifted the roll of hay easily into the pick up truck without breaking a sweat. He couldn't even explain how he did it, or how he knew he could do it. He just did it.

Another vision came to his mind. Leaving the hospital, Buddy was pushing him in a wheelchair to the car. His arm was a sling from the car accident, but as they left, he remember passing a girl sitting in a chair in front of a room reading a magazine. It was the same dark haired girl, Max.

He remembered looking at her. Her face looking so familiar and then asking, "Do I know you?"

She looked up and gave him a hesitant glance, but it confused him. It didn't seem as if she hesitated in thought to place him, but rather as if she recognized him and was sad about something. "No. I don't think so."

"Adam?" Adam looked up. Buddy had entered the room and seemed to be struggling to get his attention. He glanced up at the television where the reporter was now talking about ways families could protect themselves from transgenics. A look of uncertainty and concern passed over his features as he returned his attention to Adam.

"We need to talk," Adam said, looking at Buddy. Buddy nodded gravely as if he knew someday he would say those words.