I can't believe it. I absolutely can't believe something this good could ever happen to me. After years of playing mommy to a class of kids back at Manticore, babysitting other post-Pulse orphans while their guardians went to work... I have a son.
I have a son.
I was born X6-656, one of the first female X5s. I don't know exactly how old my brothers and sisters were in months and days so I very well could have been the first. When I was about six we made up our names. I don't know where I got the name Tinga- it could have been a mispronunciation of women's names that I'd heard, or my perception of exactly what the raindrops of late autumn in Wyoming sounded like as they rolled down the metal drainpipe.
It may be that. Even now I my advanced hearing slows down the sound and I hear my name. Tin-ga, Tin-ga.
I was ten when I escaped- a whole lousy decade of being afraid and hurt and angry. I left with Brin, my favourite sister. We were tight, Brin and I, like girls you see in Outside high schools who always go around with linked arms and a view of the world that doesn't get you anywhere.
I babied Brin a bit despite the closeness in our ages- she was very small for ten, petite, with delicate features, so she could have been the same age as the little ones. Max. Jondy. Omri. Krit, although he was big for his age.
My little one. I sit up in bed and look into the cold metal hospital crib set up beside me, where my baby sleeps. My son. I have my own child.
I swing my legs out from the bed and dangle them childishly over the linoleum, remembering a time in the late afternoon back at Manticore. For weeks we'd been testing- which were stronger, X5 boys or girls? We were in the forest, my team, and the leader, Syl, divided us all into small groups of three or four. Brin, Jondy, Max and I waited in a tree for a squad of boys to go past so we could jump them.
It was the ultimate boy-against-girl war. It poured with rain, the sky opened up. My fuzz of hair clung wetly to my scalp as we waited. Though there wasn't a drainpipe for miles I still inwardly heard the elements chanting my name- "Tin-ga, Tin-ga..."
"I'm bored. And wet," whined Brin, and I put a sympathetic arm around her. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Hmm. Drizzle. First time I ever heard that word on the Outside I nearly burst out laughing. I thought it was hilarious.
"Poor baby," I soothed, and Jondy laughed.
"Yes, poor baby," she giggled, and I slapped at her.
Max suggested, "Let's talk, we've been sitting for thirty-eight minutes and not one boy's walked under us."
"We're winning the competition," I beamed.
"Naturally," said Jondy as if it were obvious. "We've got all the best soldiers."
"Girls kick ass, I saw it on a t-shirt," put in Max.
We all looked at her. "Pardon, soldier?" I asked.
"No, really. They were bringing in prisoners a month ago, when Jondy and I had to make use of the bathroom in the night. While we were creeping back I saw. A girl, she was wearing a t-shirt with WORDS on it, and they said GIRLS KICK ASS. True."
Brin frowned. "What's ass?"
"Simple," Jondy said. "We're girls, and we can kick, and ass is... ass is..."
"Let's just say ass means boys," I said. "I never heard of a t-shirt with words on it before."
"Me neither," echoed Max, Brin and Jondy together.
"I heard the Colonel say that word once," mused Brin. She paused. "The Colonel scares me."
"He shouldn't," said Max. "Soldiers aren't scared of anything. Like Tinga, Tinga's not scared of anything, are you, Tinga?"
All eyes were on me.
"I am scared of something," I confessed. "Ben's Nomalies."
Max looked unnerved at the fact that something, anything scared me.
"Why do you listen to his stories, then?" asked Jondy in bewilderment. She and Max, the two youngest X5 girls, had always considered me the fearless older sister.
"I like Ben," I said simply, and that was that.
"Now you two have to tell us what scares you," commanded Brin. Jondy and Max exchanged a look and emphatically shook their heads.
"I can't," said Max softly. "Soldiers aren't meant to be scared."
"I won't tell if Maxie won't tell," Jondy said stubbornly.
"You can trust us," I told them. "We're your... allies." The word 'friend' had slipped my mind for the moment.
And for a long time we sat up there, having one of the greatest conversations of my childhood. Max and Jondy had always had a sort of friendly rivalry going with Brinny (a name she would only ever allow me to call her) and myself. They couldn't understand why we wanted to act older, and as if we knew things... secrets. Jondy and Max would poke fun at us.
This was as close as the four of us could get- pretty close, on that fateful day. Jondy and Maxie even deigned to teach Brin and I one of their special handshakes before resolving never to use it again. They were bequeathing it to us. In Jondy's own quiet words, "It's yours now."
Oddly, Brin and I never did use that special handshake again after that afternoon. It was a one-time thing.
We talked for ages about everything- memories, and the forest ("It's older than time," said I in awestruck tones) and different kinds of weapons and explosives and food (Jondy said loathesomely, "I hate meat, 'specially chicken.") and different 'Nomaly experiences' ("Once I thought a Nomaly was in the hall outside the dormitory," confessed Brin). I was feeling such a warm rush of love for all three girls I'd just opened my mouth to voice my opinions about certain X5 boys...
And as a group of boys ran underneath us, the moment was broken and we weren't girls any more, but soldiers. We nodded, and in the split second before we leaped from the tree our eyes made a solemn promise never to speak of this time again.
My feet in boots scraped over slick grass, little rivers of rainwater tracking a precise calligraphy through the dusty earth along the path. I cocked a gun with tranquiliser darts and aimed at the first boy I saw- Jack.
He dropped and Ben turned to pick him up and drag Jack with them. My heart went out to him. He loved Jack so much, Ben did. Brin's eyes blazed feline as she hit him with a dart, and she grinned.
There was one last boy in the group- Zane. Zane was the tallest X5 in our facility. Max, small and skinny, took careful aim, but he shot her and she dropped to the ground. Then he ran off.
Ben, Jack and Max had been caught, so in seconds their barcodes bloomed blood red against pale, damp skin. They'd wake up in ten minutes and their barcodes would return to the original colour in exactly twenty-four hours. Usually we'd leave Max with the boys while we returned to the hideout the girls' team had planned on- a special secret cave that nobody, not even the adults knew about. Eva had found it when we were tiny and caught in a snowstorm. It was easily big enough to fit all the girls. But unbelievably, it was Brin, not Jondy, who volunteered that we should take Max with us.
As the oldest sister, I supervised while Jondy and Brinny hoisted Max up with an arm around each of their shoulders. We took her up the mountain to the cave, where all the X5 sisters had met. A blanket of barcodes and crew-cuts and thin hands clutching weapons was what met my eyes, not a shred of femaleness among us. And after we all met up we travelled, solemnly, down the mountain, back to base, tiny little Syl leading us. She was my age but looked at least a year my junior.
It was only once in the following months that any of the four of us spoke of that day. I rejoined the ranks after throwing Zack across the room in sparring. As another pair prepared to do battle, a sly smile curled Jondy's lips and she mouthed something at me from across the room.
WHAT? I mouthed back.
Slowly, each word took shape on her face, many times, until I understood. GIRLS KICK ASS, she had said to me.
And I was proud.
"Hey, baby," I say sweetly, and reach out to my child. I wonder what Manticore-driven toughness lies beneath that innocent exterior and instinctively, my eyes flicker to the back of my baby's neck. No barcode. No barcode, no barcode, no barcode...
He's free. I can't believe that from my Manticore genes is born a child who's free, free forever. No running or hiding or excuses or friends left behind.
How could that child, MY child, ever be hiding anything? Oh, he's my baby. My own child. I'll do anything for this little child.
I think of an old song I heard on a bus leaving San Francisco when I was nearly twelve. '... don't worry baby- ev'rything will be all right!' the song lamented.
Those three words- "I like Ben."- held more meaning than my three sisters could have comprehended, that day in the forest. For about four months, right up until the escape, I'd had what I now know is a crush on Ben. I'd felt afraid of the warm rush I got when Ben was near me. It wasn't normal.
I had absolutely no idea what physical attraction was at ten years old, and no way to describe or express it. I liked being close to Ben- sitting near him as he told his Nomaly stories, chatting with him in the High Place, taking him on during sparring. I'd even let him slam me into the mat just for the apologetic look he'd give me.
Once, when Max and Brin were both undergoing genetic testing, I sat close by him as he told a story. It was part of a serial he'd been relating for the last few nights, and he'd gotten to the terrifying part where soldiers he'd aptly named Zane, Krit and Tinga were heading into the basement to battle the evil Nomalies. I sat stock-still, breathing hard as a story Nomaly leaped from the shadows onto Krit, tearing him apart...
He suddenly seemed to sense how terrified I was. "Then, the brave soldier Tinga took charge. Holding her gun, she aimed and shot, sending the Nomaly howling to the floor. She'd saved him," he said.
Krit moaned at being rescued by me, and in the discussion that followed, Ben's hand found mine. He gave it an awkward little shake of reassurance and I found myself thinking, Ben, I'd fight a thousand Nomalies for you.
I pined for him when I was alone in the Outside. Even after all these years I still spell it with a capital. I learned all the things they'd never thought to tell us, and for months after the escape I cried for him in my sleep. I believed I was in love with him. I knew I was one of his favourite sisters, and got jealous of his other favourites- Eva. Max.
I remember being eleven. I sat on my windowsill in the old office building I'd turned into my home. I'd set up the room with blankets and broken furniture, covering faded walls with pictures I pinned up. Although most pictures were just to fill space, some had meaning- in particular a picture of the Virgin Mary. Every so often I'd pull out a regenerative tooth and put it into a space in the plaster behind the picture. Finally, I had to face the fact that I didn't believe in Her any more.
I took down her picture and bit at my lip, feeling horribly disloyal to Ben. I said a final prayer to Her. "Blue Lady of Manticore, I am Tinga of the X5 class. Ma'am, I'm sorry but I don't believe in You any more. It's not that I don't want to, but too much has happened and I can't... I just can't. Please don't let Ben not love me any more for forsaking You. Sometimes I think I might have loved Ben even more than Brin and for him to hate me... Ma'am, I thank You for protecting me in Manticore. I'll never forget You." I paused and used a strange religious word they'd apparently always used on the Outside. "Amen."
My little baby boy will always know love, I decide silently. I will never be short of hugs.
I can't believe he's mine. I just want to hold him forever and ever. "You look like your daddy, baby," I say softly, and stroke his hair.
Even when my feelings for Ben went away, for a number of years I always hung onto a faint belief that someday Ben and I would meet up and get married, just like I'd wanted when I was young- although I had no idea what married was and would have called it, "... meet up in the Good Place where he can tell me stories and we can be together all the time." That was my idea of a union strong as marriage.
Romantic notions left my head in my teens, and I concentrated on getting a job, getting some friends, getting a life. I became Penny Jameson, an orphan who'd spent years apart from numerous brothers and sister while in care but was doing just fine, thank you.
Then came Charlie.
Whatever I felt for Ben, it was nothing compared to the love I had for him. I feel dishonest, deceiving him like this... but he fell in love with Penny. Is there any guarantee he'd love Tinga?
Oh, God, I love him so much.
I almost feel like I don't know Tinga any more. Tinga was violent and took orders without question. Tinga looked different, sounded different. My first ever name, X5-656 is little more than a distant memory to me.
But Tinga is a part of me. Why else do I hear my name in the rain, flinch at icons of the Virgin Mary, remain silent during gunfire and pine for my sister Brin with every passing day?
"Penny?"
It's Charlie. I smile at him as he walks into the room- we're taking our little baby home today, for the very first time.
"Charlie, isn't he just so..."
"So...?" prompts Charlie, smiling.
"Ours," I say shortly.
"Got your things?"
"Yeah, just let me get dressed," I tell him, and change out of my nightclothes into old jeans and a sweatshirt. I like to dress nicely, but I haven't been getting much sleep lately, even for an X-series. I'm too tired.
I gently pick up my baby and hold him a little stiffly- I haven't had much experience with children over four. His eyes open and he stares contentedly at me, not crying, just breathing evenly.
I wonder if the little girl named by nature who sat up in the tree with her sisters ever imagined she'd be playing mommy in an entirely different way?
X5-656. Tinga. Penny. Charlie's wife. And now- Case's mom.
What's next for me?
I hitch him up a little. "Let's go," I say to Charlie, and I leave with my new family to start the next stage of my life.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
NOTE: Remember that pretty Manticore girl who the great webmistresses Empress Vader and Ashantai have said is meant to be Tinga, aged ten? Isn't she COOL? I love all the flashback X5s, or as I sometimes call them in a goofy mood, 'the cute ickle Manticore kiddies'.
I have a son.
I was born X6-656, one of the first female X5s. I don't know exactly how old my brothers and sisters were in months and days so I very well could have been the first. When I was about six we made up our names. I don't know where I got the name Tinga- it could have been a mispronunciation of women's names that I'd heard, or my perception of exactly what the raindrops of late autumn in Wyoming sounded like as they rolled down the metal drainpipe.
It may be that. Even now I my advanced hearing slows down the sound and I hear my name. Tin-ga, Tin-ga.
I was ten when I escaped- a whole lousy decade of being afraid and hurt and angry. I left with Brin, my favourite sister. We were tight, Brin and I, like girls you see in Outside high schools who always go around with linked arms and a view of the world that doesn't get you anywhere.
I babied Brin a bit despite the closeness in our ages- she was very small for ten, petite, with delicate features, so she could have been the same age as the little ones. Max. Jondy. Omri. Krit, although he was big for his age.
My little one. I sit up in bed and look into the cold metal hospital crib set up beside me, where my baby sleeps. My son. I have my own child.
I swing my legs out from the bed and dangle them childishly over the linoleum, remembering a time in the late afternoon back at Manticore. For weeks we'd been testing- which were stronger, X5 boys or girls? We were in the forest, my team, and the leader, Syl, divided us all into small groups of three or four. Brin, Jondy, Max and I waited in a tree for a squad of boys to go past so we could jump them.
It was the ultimate boy-against-girl war. It poured with rain, the sky opened up. My fuzz of hair clung wetly to my scalp as we waited. Though there wasn't a drainpipe for miles I still inwardly heard the elements chanting my name- "Tin-ga, Tin-ga..."
"I'm bored. And wet," whined Brin, and I put a sympathetic arm around her. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Hmm. Drizzle. First time I ever heard that word on the Outside I nearly burst out laughing. I thought it was hilarious.
"Poor baby," I soothed, and Jondy laughed.
"Yes, poor baby," she giggled, and I slapped at her.
Max suggested, "Let's talk, we've been sitting for thirty-eight minutes and not one boy's walked under us."
"We're winning the competition," I beamed.
"Naturally," said Jondy as if it were obvious. "We've got all the best soldiers."
"Girls kick ass, I saw it on a t-shirt," put in Max.
We all looked at her. "Pardon, soldier?" I asked.
"No, really. They were bringing in prisoners a month ago, when Jondy and I had to make use of the bathroom in the night. While we were creeping back I saw. A girl, she was wearing a t-shirt with WORDS on it, and they said GIRLS KICK ASS. True."
Brin frowned. "What's ass?"
"Simple," Jondy said. "We're girls, and we can kick, and ass is... ass is..."
"Let's just say ass means boys," I said. "I never heard of a t-shirt with words on it before."
"Me neither," echoed Max, Brin and Jondy together.
"I heard the Colonel say that word once," mused Brin. She paused. "The Colonel scares me."
"He shouldn't," said Max. "Soldiers aren't scared of anything. Like Tinga, Tinga's not scared of anything, are you, Tinga?"
All eyes were on me.
"I am scared of something," I confessed. "Ben's Nomalies."
Max looked unnerved at the fact that something, anything scared me.
"Why do you listen to his stories, then?" asked Jondy in bewilderment. She and Max, the two youngest X5 girls, had always considered me the fearless older sister.
"I like Ben," I said simply, and that was that.
"Now you two have to tell us what scares you," commanded Brin. Jondy and Max exchanged a look and emphatically shook their heads.
"I can't," said Max softly. "Soldiers aren't meant to be scared."
"I won't tell if Maxie won't tell," Jondy said stubbornly.
"You can trust us," I told them. "We're your... allies." The word 'friend' had slipped my mind for the moment.
And for a long time we sat up there, having one of the greatest conversations of my childhood. Max and Jondy had always had a sort of friendly rivalry going with Brinny (a name she would only ever allow me to call her) and myself. They couldn't understand why we wanted to act older, and as if we knew things... secrets. Jondy and Max would poke fun at us.
This was as close as the four of us could get- pretty close, on that fateful day. Jondy and Maxie even deigned to teach Brin and I one of their special handshakes before resolving never to use it again. They were bequeathing it to us. In Jondy's own quiet words, "It's yours now."
Oddly, Brin and I never did use that special handshake again after that afternoon. It was a one-time thing.
We talked for ages about everything- memories, and the forest ("It's older than time," said I in awestruck tones) and different kinds of weapons and explosives and food (Jondy said loathesomely, "I hate meat, 'specially chicken.") and different 'Nomaly experiences' ("Once I thought a Nomaly was in the hall outside the dormitory," confessed Brin). I was feeling such a warm rush of love for all three girls I'd just opened my mouth to voice my opinions about certain X5 boys...
And as a group of boys ran underneath us, the moment was broken and we weren't girls any more, but soldiers. We nodded, and in the split second before we leaped from the tree our eyes made a solemn promise never to speak of this time again.
My feet in boots scraped over slick grass, little rivers of rainwater tracking a precise calligraphy through the dusty earth along the path. I cocked a gun with tranquiliser darts and aimed at the first boy I saw- Jack.
He dropped and Ben turned to pick him up and drag Jack with them. My heart went out to him. He loved Jack so much, Ben did. Brin's eyes blazed feline as she hit him with a dart, and she grinned.
There was one last boy in the group- Zane. Zane was the tallest X5 in our facility. Max, small and skinny, took careful aim, but he shot her and she dropped to the ground. Then he ran off.
Ben, Jack and Max had been caught, so in seconds their barcodes bloomed blood red against pale, damp skin. They'd wake up in ten minutes and their barcodes would return to the original colour in exactly twenty-four hours. Usually we'd leave Max with the boys while we returned to the hideout the girls' team had planned on- a special secret cave that nobody, not even the adults knew about. Eva had found it when we were tiny and caught in a snowstorm. It was easily big enough to fit all the girls. But unbelievably, it was Brin, not Jondy, who volunteered that we should take Max with us.
As the oldest sister, I supervised while Jondy and Brinny hoisted Max up with an arm around each of their shoulders. We took her up the mountain to the cave, where all the X5 sisters had met. A blanket of barcodes and crew-cuts and thin hands clutching weapons was what met my eyes, not a shred of femaleness among us. And after we all met up we travelled, solemnly, down the mountain, back to base, tiny little Syl leading us. She was my age but looked at least a year my junior.
It was only once in the following months that any of the four of us spoke of that day. I rejoined the ranks after throwing Zack across the room in sparring. As another pair prepared to do battle, a sly smile curled Jondy's lips and she mouthed something at me from across the room.
WHAT? I mouthed back.
Slowly, each word took shape on her face, many times, until I understood. GIRLS KICK ASS, she had said to me.
And I was proud.
"Hey, baby," I say sweetly, and reach out to my child. I wonder what Manticore-driven toughness lies beneath that innocent exterior and instinctively, my eyes flicker to the back of my baby's neck. No barcode. No barcode, no barcode, no barcode...
He's free. I can't believe that from my Manticore genes is born a child who's free, free forever. No running or hiding or excuses or friends left behind.
How could that child, MY child, ever be hiding anything? Oh, he's my baby. My own child. I'll do anything for this little child.
I think of an old song I heard on a bus leaving San Francisco when I was nearly twelve. '... don't worry baby- ev'rything will be all right!' the song lamented.
Those three words- "I like Ben."- held more meaning than my three sisters could have comprehended, that day in the forest. For about four months, right up until the escape, I'd had what I now know is a crush on Ben. I'd felt afraid of the warm rush I got when Ben was near me. It wasn't normal.
I had absolutely no idea what physical attraction was at ten years old, and no way to describe or express it. I liked being close to Ben- sitting near him as he told his Nomaly stories, chatting with him in the High Place, taking him on during sparring. I'd even let him slam me into the mat just for the apologetic look he'd give me.
Once, when Max and Brin were both undergoing genetic testing, I sat close by him as he told a story. It was part of a serial he'd been relating for the last few nights, and he'd gotten to the terrifying part where soldiers he'd aptly named Zane, Krit and Tinga were heading into the basement to battle the evil Nomalies. I sat stock-still, breathing hard as a story Nomaly leaped from the shadows onto Krit, tearing him apart...
He suddenly seemed to sense how terrified I was. "Then, the brave soldier Tinga took charge. Holding her gun, she aimed and shot, sending the Nomaly howling to the floor. She'd saved him," he said.
Krit moaned at being rescued by me, and in the discussion that followed, Ben's hand found mine. He gave it an awkward little shake of reassurance and I found myself thinking, Ben, I'd fight a thousand Nomalies for you.
I pined for him when I was alone in the Outside. Even after all these years I still spell it with a capital. I learned all the things they'd never thought to tell us, and for months after the escape I cried for him in my sleep. I believed I was in love with him. I knew I was one of his favourite sisters, and got jealous of his other favourites- Eva. Max.
I remember being eleven. I sat on my windowsill in the old office building I'd turned into my home. I'd set up the room with blankets and broken furniture, covering faded walls with pictures I pinned up. Although most pictures were just to fill space, some had meaning- in particular a picture of the Virgin Mary. Every so often I'd pull out a regenerative tooth and put it into a space in the plaster behind the picture. Finally, I had to face the fact that I didn't believe in Her any more.
I took down her picture and bit at my lip, feeling horribly disloyal to Ben. I said a final prayer to Her. "Blue Lady of Manticore, I am Tinga of the X5 class. Ma'am, I'm sorry but I don't believe in You any more. It's not that I don't want to, but too much has happened and I can't... I just can't. Please don't let Ben not love me any more for forsaking You. Sometimes I think I might have loved Ben even more than Brin and for him to hate me... Ma'am, I thank You for protecting me in Manticore. I'll never forget You." I paused and used a strange religious word they'd apparently always used on the Outside. "Amen."
My little baby boy will always know love, I decide silently. I will never be short of hugs.
I can't believe he's mine. I just want to hold him forever and ever. "You look like your daddy, baby," I say softly, and stroke his hair.
Even when my feelings for Ben went away, for a number of years I always hung onto a faint belief that someday Ben and I would meet up and get married, just like I'd wanted when I was young- although I had no idea what married was and would have called it, "... meet up in the Good Place where he can tell me stories and we can be together all the time." That was my idea of a union strong as marriage.
Romantic notions left my head in my teens, and I concentrated on getting a job, getting some friends, getting a life. I became Penny Jameson, an orphan who'd spent years apart from numerous brothers and sister while in care but was doing just fine, thank you.
Then came Charlie.
Whatever I felt for Ben, it was nothing compared to the love I had for him. I feel dishonest, deceiving him like this... but he fell in love with Penny. Is there any guarantee he'd love Tinga?
Oh, God, I love him so much.
I almost feel like I don't know Tinga any more. Tinga was violent and took orders without question. Tinga looked different, sounded different. My first ever name, X5-656 is little more than a distant memory to me.
But Tinga is a part of me. Why else do I hear my name in the rain, flinch at icons of the Virgin Mary, remain silent during gunfire and pine for my sister Brin with every passing day?
"Penny?"
It's Charlie. I smile at him as he walks into the room- we're taking our little baby home today, for the very first time.
"Charlie, isn't he just so..."
"So...?" prompts Charlie, smiling.
"Ours," I say shortly.
"Got your things?"
"Yeah, just let me get dressed," I tell him, and change out of my nightclothes into old jeans and a sweatshirt. I like to dress nicely, but I haven't been getting much sleep lately, even for an X-series. I'm too tired.
I gently pick up my baby and hold him a little stiffly- I haven't had much experience with children over four. His eyes open and he stares contentedly at me, not crying, just breathing evenly.
I wonder if the little girl named by nature who sat up in the tree with her sisters ever imagined she'd be playing mommy in an entirely different way?
X5-656. Tinga. Penny. Charlie's wife. And now- Case's mom.
What's next for me?
I hitch him up a little. "Let's go," I say to Charlie, and I leave with my new family to start the next stage of my life.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
NOTE: Remember that pretty Manticore girl who the great webmistresses Empress Vader and Ashantai have said is meant to be Tinga, aged ten? Isn't she COOL? I love all the flashback X5s, or as I sometimes call them in a goofy mood, 'the cute ickle Manticore kiddies'.