Rating: R
| The black steel baton came flying towards his eyes, filling his field of
vision, slamming into his face like a freight train. He could feel the force of the blow
slamming his head backwards, accompanied by a mercilessly intense explosion of pain
emanating from his nose. It was as if a great big thunderbolt had struck him, a soundless
boom inundated his ears as a soft, indistinct crack echoed in a barely registered tone.
Which of course, was from the bones in his nose. A thick, watery splurt of blood shot out
of his nostrils and rolled down his lips. He tasted the ever familiar saltiness of it mingled
with mucus. "You stupid degenerate piece of crap!" he barely had time to recover from
the previous blow before the next one landed on his chin, igniting a brand new flare of
pain. "You call yourself a soldier! What the fuck is wrong with you! Don't you have any
respect for yourself! For your unit! For your duty!" Another vicious blow landed on his
knee. "State your designation, you worthless sack of shit!" Gasping, he muttered the
words partly in exhaustion, partly in terror. "X5-364, Sir!" He was rewarded with another
blow to the cheek.
By now he had blood running down his face from multiple injuries on his
forehead, mouth, and eyes, and a face covered in a curtain of swollen, bloated black and
blue marks. "Louder! You disgrace us with your pitiful weakness!" "X5-364, SIR!"
"Answer me 364! Do you care to explain why a worthless cock sucking piece of SHIT
such as yourself failed to obey the orders of your TAC leader?" "Sir, would you let me...."
Yet another strike landed in his gut, cutting off his breath and causing him suck in his
stomach in an effort to dull the burning pain. "I see you haven't run out of pitiful excuses
for the failing of your duty. Sergeant, bring out the electrodes and water......."|
He awoke with a start, the side of his face scraping against the dirty old
mattress as scrambled to tear his head from it. |Shit.| Bad dreams again. So many
nightmares, so many memories he'd kill to forget. He thought that once he got out of that
hell the nocturnal horrors would cease, but they continued on, seemingly getting worse as
time passed. He was only eight when that episode occurred. He noticed his heavy
breathing, and the thin trickle of sweat running down one side of his face, past his dark
almond brown pupils and the smooth not quite white skin. Fear raced through his heart,
along with something else. Anger. No. Hate. Rage. He wish he could take a thousand
carving knives to the faces of each and every one of those bastards, crush their bones and
set them ablaze with the very force of his rage.
What he wouldn't give to let those soldiers be the ones receiving the
beatings and torture for a change, let the sick motherfuckers in the long white lab coats be
the subjects of their own twisted experiments. He wanted to hurt them, maul them,
torment them endlessly and without respite, so that they could suffer like he did and 100
times over. He wished it never happened to him. None of it. To any of them. He wished he
could have been normal, he wished he had a family who loved him, he wished he could
have lived on the outside all that time. He wished, he wished, he wanted.... |Ah, fuck it
soldier. Bullshit sentimentality has never got you anywhere before, and it won't start now.|
Through a lifetime of endless, unrelenting training and painful experience,
he developed a remarkably precise internal clock, much like the others in his unit. He
accessed that clock now, and discovered that he had been asleep for close to five hours.
Looking at the sky outside of the abandoned apartment, he saw that night had come. By
his best estimate, it was 0900. His stomach groaned and gnawed at him with a aching pain
that had dulled since he had gone to sleep. Good. He could be thankful for that small
mercy. He rose slowly to his knees, the hunger pangs in his stomach slipping out of his
consciousness for a moment. Lifted a dirty, grease and blood stained hand to his equally
wretched face. Brushed his oily black hair upwards as he shut his eyes and rubbed his
forehead to soothe a dying headache. He sat back down for a few seconds. |Well, you
wanna eat tomorrow or not? Yes? Than proceed with the mission.| X5-364 pulled himself
to his feet, a sense of hope and purpose re-igniting his determination. His muscles sprang
back to life and rapidly increased to full power as he walked, then half-sprinted down the
hallway, down the stairs, and into the seedy, trash strewn streets of Seattle.
His target sat on 24th street, a simple one story, darkened building that cast
long shadows onto the crumbling sidewalk. The popping of gunshots and the wailing of
sirens echoed faintly in the distance. A teenage junky lay sprawled against the side of the
building, only half conscious, whatever shit in his system lulling his senses into
nothingness. X5-364 made his way cautiously through the small heaps of garbage littering
the ancient road. A billowing newspaper wrapped itself around his leg, prompting him to
kick it away, sending it on it's lonely way down the streets of a forsaken wasteland. Hopes
and dreams of the people here had floated away ages before. This part of the city was in
wretched shape before the pulse, and now it was a living hell filled with predators and
scavengers, rats scurrying across the face of the desolate landscape. He approached the
seemingly empty and darkened shop with care, transgenic eyes piercing easily through the
pitch darkness of interior, enhanced senses on alert for any guardians. He reached the
padlocked door, the wood peeling off in strips, rotting away.
Despite the ugliness and overpoweringly obvious poverty surrounding the
establishment, the store itself had a shiny new coat of paint on it's sides, something that
couldn't be said for most of the businesses in this district. Which meant it was doing fairly
well, and a good target for thieves. He looked around once and pulled a set of makeshift
tools from the black leather jacket he acquired from a unsuspecting mugger who assaulted
him the day before. He inserted one of the smaller tools into the lock, fiddled with it for a
bit, and smiled as the lock clicked and opened. The now useless lock fell and clattered on
the pavement as he slowly eased the door open and stepped into dark confines of the
room. He failed to notice a solitary figure standing by the edge of the building across the
street, watching him in eerie silence.
The owner was busy checking the inventory in the back section of the large
room, surrounded by various strange looking goods hanging from the walls and on the
store shelves. There was a newly installed alarm system which the X5 had disabled earlier
in the day. The owner continued to scroll through the list, pausing to curse or take a drag
from the cigarette he held in one hand. He never noticed 364's presence until the latter's
hands pressed down on the pressure points of his neck. The mostly bald, 40ish man
collapsed into on the dusty storeroom floor, head making a soft thunk. 364 pulled the
desert eagle .357 from the man's waist, examined the weapon for a brief moment, then
tucked it into the waist of his jeans. He then checked the merchandise surrounding him. A
potpourri of legal and illegal products, ranging from shampoo to MRE's to knives and
handguns. Stacks of pornography lay on one shelf, condoms on another. He helped
himself to another pistol off the shelf, a glock .45. He searched around a bit more and
procurred as much ammo as he could carry for each weapon without making his pant
pockets rattle like the armor of a medieval knight.
Flipped through a couple girlie magazines, smiled and gave out a snort of
derision. |They always fed us crap about the outsiders and their perversion.| Shots of men
doing things with women, women with other women. Some included animals as well. He
dropped the magazine to the floor and headed for the back room behind the counter.
The small room he entered smelled absolutely bizarre. It was putrid and
overpowering with the scent of some exotic substance he had never before encountered.
Of course, that could be said of a lot of things, considering he'd only been out of
Manticore a total of 6 times, not counting this one, and never into a urban area like this
one. He soon discovered the origin. Shelves and tables throughout the room contained jars
filled with cocaine, crack cocaine, and other unidentifiable powdery substances. The odor
filled his nostrils, making him want to wretch in disgust. He'd walked into a fucking
amateur drug factory. Heroin was being cooked up in kitchen pots on the stove at the
right side of the room. Needles, pipes, and assorted drug paraphernalia littered the tables.
He remembered the young addict camped out by the side of the building. |Apparently I'm
robbing the largest supply of recreational medicine in the neighborhood. Who would have
thought.| Made sense though. The money for that security system and the new paint job
had to come from somewhere. Scanning the messy, chaotic space, he found no cash or
equipment he could use. The owners bedroom lay behind the door next to the stove, and
he kicked it open, busting the chain link lock in half and flinging some broken bits of it
into the room.
The bedroom was old and dusty, but relatively clean compared to the rest
of the store. A five level drawer lay on one side of the bed, topped with an alarm clock
and a watch. A new plasma screen TV sat by the western end. Next to that a somewhat
dirty window, taken hold of by bits of grime. In the bedside cabinet he found a tall bottle
of Jack Daniel's, 3 packs of Marlboro's, and a key chain. He took a lingering look at the
surroundings, clothes strewn messily onto a straight back chair, old pizza crusts and
Chinese food on the new desk. There was a closed closet to the left of him, near the door.
In it he discovered a sturdy metal safe on the middle section. A minute or two later, the
safe clicked and the door swung open. 364 snorted in disgust. Too damn easy. They
trained him way too good to be knocking over some shithole with this kind of half assed
security. To his profound delight, the safe was full of fresh smelling, crisp dollar bills. His
mind did a quick count, and came up with the number $120,000. In 50's and 20's. |Shit.
Not bad, soldier, not bad.|
And then he heard the mind shattering click of a gun being aimed at the
back of his head, and his muscles transformed into ice. |Fuck.|
AN: I'm dissatisfied with plot so far, and hopefully I can pick up the pace
somehow in the next chapter. It's been awhile since my last fic, and I'm trying to create
my own storylines and characters instead of relying on those from the show. As always,
feedback is more than welcome. Tell me where you want me to take this.
| The black steel baton came flying towards his eyes, filling his field of
vision, slamming into his face like a freight train. He could feel the force of the blow
slamming his head backwards, accompanied by a mercilessly intense explosion of pain
emanating from his nose. It was as if a great big thunderbolt had struck him, a soundless
boom inundated his ears as a soft, indistinct crack echoed in a barely registered tone.
Which of course, was from the bones in his nose. A thick, watery splurt of blood shot out
of his nostrils and rolled down his lips. He tasted the ever familiar saltiness of it mingled
with mucus. "You stupid degenerate piece of crap!" he barely had time to recover from
the previous blow before the next one landed on his chin, igniting a brand new flare of
pain. "You call yourself a soldier! What the fuck is wrong with you! Don't you have any
respect for yourself! For your unit! For your duty!" Another vicious blow landed on his
knee. "State your designation, you worthless sack of shit!" Gasping, he muttered the
words partly in exhaustion, partly in terror. "X5-364, Sir!" He was rewarded with another
blow to the cheek.
By now he had blood running down his face from multiple injuries on his
forehead, mouth, and eyes, and a face covered in a curtain of swollen, bloated black and
blue marks. "Louder! You disgrace us with your pitiful weakness!" "X5-364, SIR!"
"Answer me 364! Do you care to explain why a worthless cock sucking piece of SHIT
such as yourself failed to obey the orders of your TAC leader?" "Sir, would you let me...."
Yet another strike landed in his gut, cutting off his breath and causing him suck in his
stomach in an effort to dull the burning pain. "I see you haven't run out of pitiful excuses
for the failing of your duty. Sergeant, bring out the electrodes and water......."|
He awoke with a start, the side of his face scraping against the dirty old
mattress as scrambled to tear his head from it. |Shit.| Bad dreams again. So many
nightmares, so many memories he'd kill to forget. He thought that once he got out of that
hell the nocturnal horrors would cease, but they continued on, seemingly getting worse as
time passed. He was only eight when that episode occurred. He noticed his heavy
breathing, and the thin trickle of sweat running down one side of his face, past his dark
almond brown pupils and the smooth not quite white skin. Fear raced through his heart,
along with something else. Anger. No. Hate. Rage. He wish he could take a thousand
carving knives to the faces of each and every one of those bastards, crush their bones and
set them ablaze with the very force of his rage.
What he wouldn't give to let those soldiers be the ones receiving the
beatings and torture for a change, let the sick motherfuckers in the long white lab coats be
the subjects of their own twisted experiments. He wanted to hurt them, maul them,
torment them endlessly and without respite, so that they could suffer like he did and 100
times over. He wished it never happened to him. None of it. To any of them. He wished he
could have been normal, he wished he had a family who loved him, he wished he could
have lived on the outside all that time. He wished, he wished, he wanted.... |Ah, fuck it
soldier. Bullshit sentimentality has never got you anywhere before, and it won't start now.|
Through a lifetime of endless, unrelenting training and painful experience,
he developed a remarkably precise internal clock, much like the others in his unit. He
accessed that clock now, and discovered that he had been asleep for close to five hours.
Looking at the sky outside of the abandoned apartment, he saw that night had come. By
his best estimate, it was 0900. His stomach groaned and gnawed at him with a aching pain
that had dulled since he had gone to sleep. Good. He could be thankful for that small
mercy. He rose slowly to his knees, the hunger pangs in his stomach slipping out of his
consciousness for a moment. Lifted a dirty, grease and blood stained hand to his equally
wretched face. Brushed his oily black hair upwards as he shut his eyes and rubbed his
forehead to soothe a dying headache. He sat back down for a few seconds. |Well, you
wanna eat tomorrow or not? Yes? Than proceed with the mission.| X5-364 pulled himself
to his feet, a sense of hope and purpose re-igniting his determination. His muscles sprang
back to life and rapidly increased to full power as he walked, then half-sprinted down the
hallway, down the stairs, and into the seedy, trash strewn streets of Seattle.
His target sat on 24th street, a simple one story, darkened building that cast
long shadows onto the crumbling sidewalk. The popping of gunshots and the wailing of
sirens echoed faintly in the distance. A teenage junky lay sprawled against the side of the
building, only half conscious, whatever shit in his system lulling his senses into
nothingness. X5-364 made his way cautiously through the small heaps of garbage littering
the ancient road. A billowing newspaper wrapped itself around his leg, prompting him to
kick it away, sending it on it's lonely way down the streets of a forsaken wasteland. Hopes
and dreams of the people here had floated away ages before. This part of the city was in
wretched shape before the pulse, and now it was a living hell filled with predators and
scavengers, rats scurrying across the face of the desolate landscape. He approached the
seemingly empty and darkened shop with care, transgenic eyes piercing easily through the
pitch darkness of interior, enhanced senses on alert for any guardians. He reached the
padlocked door, the wood peeling off in strips, rotting away.
Despite the ugliness and overpoweringly obvious poverty surrounding the
establishment, the store itself had a shiny new coat of paint on it's sides, something that
couldn't be said for most of the businesses in this district. Which meant it was doing fairly
well, and a good target for thieves. He looked around once and pulled a set of makeshift
tools from the black leather jacket he acquired from a unsuspecting mugger who assaulted
him the day before. He inserted one of the smaller tools into the lock, fiddled with it for a
bit, and smiled as the lock clicked and opened. The now useless lock fell and clattered on
the pavement as he slowly eased the door open and stepped into dark confines of the
room. He failed to notice a solitary figure standing by the edge of the building across the
street, watching him in eerie silence.
The owner was busy checking the inventory in the back section of the large
room, surrounded by various strange looking goods hanging from the walls and on the
store shelves. There was a newly installed alarm system which the X5 had disabled earlier
in the day. The owner continued to scroll through the list, pausing to curse or take a drag
from the cigarette he held in one hand. He never noticed 364's presence until the latter's
hands pressed down on the pressure points of his neck. The mostly bald, 40ish man
collapsed into on the dusty storeroom floor, head making a soft thunk. 364 pulled the
desert eagle .357 from the man's waist, examined the weapon for a brief moment, then
tucked it into the waist of his jeans. He then checked the merchandise surrounding him. A
potpourri of legal and illegal products, ranging from shampoo to MRE's to knives and
handguns. Stacks of pornography lay on one shelf, condoms on another. He helped
himself to another pistol off the shelf, a glock .45. He searched around a bit more and
procurred as much ammo as he could carry for each weapon without making his pant
pockets rattle like the armor of a medieval knight.
Flipped through a couple girlie magazines, smiled and gave out a snort of
derision. |They always fed us crap about the outsiders and their perversion.| Shots of men
doing things with women, women with other women. Some included animals as well. He
dropped the magazine to the floor and headed for the back room behind the counter.
The small room he entered smelled absolutely bizarre. It was putrid and
overpowering with the scent of some exotic substance he had never before encountered.
Of course, that could be said of a lot of things, considering he'd only been out of
Manticore a total of 6 times, not counting this one, and never into a urban area like this
one. He soon discovered the origin. Shelves and tables throughout the room contained jars
filled with cocaine, crack cocaine, and other unidentifiable powdery substances. The odor
filled his nostrils, making him want to wretch in disgust. He'd walked into a fucking
amateur drug factory. Heroin was being cooked up in kitchen pots on the stove at the
right side of the room. Needles, pipes, and assorted drug paraphernalia littered the tables.
He remembered the young addict camped out by the side of the building. |Apparently I'm
robbing the largest supply of recreational medicine in the neighborhood. Who would have
thought.| Made sense though. The money for that security system and the new paint job
had to come from somewhere. Scanning the messy, chaotic space, he found no cash or
equipment he could use. The owners bedroom lay behind the door next to the stove, and
he kicked it open, busting the chain link lock in half and flinging some broken bits of it
into the room.
The bedroom was old and dusty, but relatively clean compared to the rest
of the store. A five level drawer lay on one side of the bed, topped with an alarm clock
and a watch. A new plasma screen TV sat by the western end. Next to that a somewhat
dirty window, taken hold of by bits of grime. In the bedside cabinet he found a tall bottle
of Jack Daniel's, 3 packs of Marlboro's, and a key chain. He took a lingering look at the
surroundings, clothes strewn messily onto a straight back chair, old pizza crusts and
Chinese food on the new desk. There was a closed closet to the left of him, near the door.
In it he discovered a sturdy metal safe on the middle section. A minute or two later, the
safe clicked and the door swung open. 364 snorted in disgust. Too damn easy. They
trained him way too good to be knocking over some shithole with this kind of half assed
security. To his profound delight, the safe was full of fresh smelling, crisp dollar bills. His
mind did a quick count, and came up with the number $120,000. In 50's and 20's. |Shit.
Not bad, soldier, not bad.|
And then he heard the mind shattering click of a gun being aimed at the
back of his head, and his muscles transformed into ice. |Fuck.|
AN: I'm dissatisfied with plot so far, and hopefully I can pick up the pace
somehow in the next chapter. It's been awhile since my last fic, and I'm trying to create
my own storylines and characters instead of relying on those from the show. As always,
feedback is more than welcome. Tell me where you want me to take this.