By Kara (AnyaLindir@aol.com)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None, preseries
Disclaimer: None of these X-5s or Manticore related personnel belongs to me. I might borrow them on occasion though.
Summary: When Max gets sick, Lydecker has doubts about his actions and his feelings for the X-5s.
A/N: Part of the "Children of the Shadows" series (http://www.roswellunderground.com/shadows/childrenoftheshadows.html)
2008
One of the rules that I made twelve years ago was that I would never get attached. Vivadyne brought me on to head this project because the last C.O. couldn't make anything of this outfit. He wasn't as…dedicated to the cause. And after the failure of the previous X-series, they wanted a fresh take. X-5599 answered that prayer when he was born in my second year of the project. At the moment of his birth, I promised myself that I wouldn't invest anything personal into you kids. I wasn't your father. I would never be your father, because a sense of love and family would just weaken your instincts. You were never children in my eyes, even in that first moment when I held your older brother in my arms. Never children, because I couldn't let you be children. It was better that way for both of us.
I watched four sets of eight women become implanted with your embryos. Normally, only thirty are impregnated, but this time, we had an excess of genetic material. Survival of the fittest and all. We didn't expect X-5417 and X-5711's mothers to actually deliver, since X-5417's DNA had proven weak in the previous four classes, and X-5711 was your leftover genetic material, modified for a masculine clone. You kids all share a similar genetic structure, but only you and X-5711 are twinned to that level. He was to be your back-up, in case your surrogate miscarried. We never expected your surrogate to put up a struggle for you. I never expected for that same spirit to pass itself on to you, even as I first held you in my arms.
I was there for all your births. My predecessor had never gotten so involved, but I felt it was my duty, as creator, if you will, to be the first one that you kids imprinted on. Though X-5599 was destined to be your CO, even from the first, I wanted myself to be the ultimate authority figure that you kids turned to. Not the father, because I would never denigrate myself to polluting the genepool. It was enough that I tampered with your own DNA. Enough that I remembered that look my wife used to give me, and that I gave into the desire to see that look again.
You weren't meant to get sick. You've gotten the influenza vaccination the same as your brothers and sisters for the past seven years. Why this year was different, I don't know. When X-5599 brought you to me, sweating and shaking, I felt a moment of panic. It was enough that he favored you and your sister, X-5210, over the rest. I was momentarily touched that he trusted me enough with his two best and favorite soldiers. But I didn't realize how attached I'd grown to you, even when I picked up your body. I never realized how small you were. In full camouflage, you seem taller, older beyond your years. Even in those ridiculous scrubs you wear, there's nothing small about you. But when your brother shoved your feverish body into my arms, my first thoughts were why I let my kids get so sick.
We tried many new tactics with your group. Instead of leaving you with your surrogates for the first year, you were assigned to carefully-rotated Watchers, grouped so that you would never get attached to just one person. From crib to pallet, you were placed side by side with the other X-5s, forcing that bond of siblings to grow between you. The other X-series never came together the way you have. There are no ties between them. The X-2s tried to flat out kill each other before they were five years old. Your group isn't as savage as they were. You're stronger and faster and meld better than the X-3s and X-4s, but I've noticed an individuality among you. X-5210 shares nothing of her surrogate's DNA, yet her eyes shine with the same fire sometimes. Perhaps something more than nutrients was passed through the placenta over those nine months. And you…you have your surrogate's spirit and her instinct to protect. I've seen the way you look at your brothers and sisters. Don't let them become your weakness. Not as you've become mine.
You lay there on the bed, your feverish eyes staring into mine, and all I can see is Marie. Your face is rounder, darker than hers was, but your eyes… You have become my weakness. I know that you aren't my wife's spirit, reincarnated. Marie was soft-spoken where you scream ferocity. She was small, and already I see signs of the strength you'll have as an adult. She was every good human trait, but she was never a fighter. You'll survive anything we can throw at you.
I'm afraid for you. I'm afraid that we'll never be able to break you. I'm afraid that you'll break my heart, that I've already put too much emphasis on your place in my life. You're a soldier foremost, but now, I can't help seeing you as a child, maybe even a child that Marie and I talked of having. We were young when we married, and young still when she was killed. I'm too old to have such thoughts of sentimentality. But still I cling to my training and that wall that I put up around myself twelve years ago. No child will break it down, not even you.
I shouldn't be here now, sitting in this infirmary. I shouldn't show favoritism. But you're special to me. I hope you never know that. If you knew how much I loved her, you'd understand. You, of all your brothers and sisters… And it isn't just because you have her eyes. Sometimes I wish I could take you away from all this, where they couldn't do anything to you. I worry when you come in from a mission, broken and battered. Every time I've let myself punish you, taking out my own failings as a man on you… Those times remind me that you aren't just a soldier in a small body--that, in spite of your engineered DNA, you are still a child. You can't be a child to me. If you are, this whole project falls apart. I am not your father, and I can't be your father. But sometimes, like now, when you look at me with those eyes of yours…
You were the first one to name yourself. None of the other X-series figured out that they were more than just barcodes. Joshua did, but he was our prototype. And then he escaped. Don't think that we don't know about your names. You kids do a good job of keeping your daytime and nighttime selves separate. And X-5599 is right in the fact that we watch you, day and night. You have no idea how much you mean to this project, how much time and research we've invested into you. The fact that you are capable of Cartesian thought is an incredible breakthrough. The higher-ups are still debating over this marvel, and whether it will help or hinder the project. You've far exceeded all expectations. And that's another reason why I shouldn't be sitting here now.
You've never failed me. Other of your siblings have. X-5656 always fails to live up to her potential. She could be as strong as X-5599 if she chose, but fear holds her back. She's too complacent for the position she was engineered for. Originally, she was meant to be X-5599's second. But there was always a chemistry between you and X-5599, even from the time of your first introduction. He took to you immediately. I wonder if he realizes yet what I now know--you are both our weaknesses. He looks to you with the same intensity that I find myself regarding you with. Hopefully his training and discipline will keep him from falling into the same trap that I headed down. We need him as your CO, and you as his second.
He came to see you before Lights Out. X-5210 and X-5711 trailed behind him like ducklings. In their scrubs, they seemed smaller than usual. I'm beginning to wonder if X-5210 will ever begin to grow. Her spirit and attitude more than makes up for her size. Like you, I have no worries about her survival. But like you, she has an incredible capacity for emotional connections that we don't want to encourage. She turns the same eyes to X-5599 that he turns to you. I've seen the way you three look at each other. It may prove interesting in the years to come.
But apparently I've been wrong about you kids. I never realized it before until X-5599 approached me tonight. He saluted and asked how you were, showing all the professional concern that a commanding officer should show. He gave me the requested details on how your brothers and sisters performed today. X-5210 and X-5711 stood at quiet attention behind him, looking for all the world like the soldiers they were. Only their eyes gave them away. I forget sometimes that you're still too young to know how to lie with your eyes. Their eyes were worried, and full of an emotion that I never expected to see on an X-5's face---love.
Somewhere along the line, you kids taught yourselves how to love. I don't know how you did it. We've been careful about filtering your knowledge of the outside world. I know how often you listen to the guards, and how often they forget that you exist. We purposefully never taught you the word love. It has no room in your world as a soldier, and isn't something that you're required to know. Love is phony sentimentality that only leads to weakness. It breaks down the barriers that years of training and habit have erected until you allow yourself to get attached to a genetically-engineered science experiment. We encouraged loyalty and taught strength in numbers, but somehow, you kids learned love. You thought yourselves into existence and gave yourselves names. You became individuals before most normal people even realize that they have their own personal thoughts. And you learned to love each other, making you far stronger than we ever realized. And because you learned to love…
I'm torn now, between love and despair. Part of me feels nothing but fear for what this may lead to in the years ahead. We can contain you now, because you are still small, and you haven't yet realized how much stronger you are than the rest of us. But part of me feels an incredible sense of pride, that my kids taught each other a human emotion that they weren't supposed to have. You're soldiers. You aren't supposed to know anything other than bloodlust and loyalty. We taught you duty and discipline. We molded you into a seamless squadron. Yet somewhere along the way, you found the power of love, and the power of a name.
Darwin always said that those who adapted would be the ones who lived to pass on their DNA to viable offspring. Mendel never mentioned anything about love in his treatise on genetics. Psychiatrists have long thought to have proven the tabula rasa theory of child-rearing. From a medical standpoint, what you feel should not be possible. You were raised from the beginning to think as a soldier, with survival being your important goal, second only to fulfilling your orders. But I've seen you turn that look of love to your brothers and sisters. And I've seen the child inside the soldier, making me regret… For the past twelve years, I've tried not to let myself feel anything for you kids. I've tried to raise you right, for what you were born to do. But for the first time since Marie died, I feel like I've made a mistake. You aren't evolving any faster into a soldier. As the years progress, you become more human.
Tonight, you're Max, not X-5452. You're a sick little girl, and I'm trying my best not to worry too much about you. I'll let myself be the concerned parent sitting up with his daughter, sponging off your forehead, and reassuring your brothers and sister that you'll live through the night. I won't think about epiphanies, or reflect on the light of love that shone from three pairs of X-5 eyes. I won't think about what that emotion will mean to the future of Manticore, and how it will affect your performance as soldiers. Tonight's mistake is something I will worry about later and pay for later. For now, I'm content to be a father, leaving the repercussions of that feeling for Scarlet's infamous tomorrow.