Ben's Story

----------------------------

There is a psychology to survival. The soldier in a survival environment faces many stresses that ultimately impact on his mind. These stresses can produce thoughts and emotions that, if poorly understood, can transform a confident, well-trained soldier into an indecisive, ineffective individual with questionable ability to survive. SurvivalIQ Handbook.

----------------------------

Friday 13 February, 2009

It was cold, so bitterly cold. Never before had the boy felt such an agonizing chill bite so deep into his bones. His bare feet felt like frozen lumps of lead as he forced one ahead of the other through the snow. A combination of perspiration and melted snow had dampened the thin grey nightshirt he wore, offering as much protection as tissue paper against the piercing cold.

But regardless of his physical discomfort, the boy moved machine-like through the snow-clad woods; never faltering, never allowing the numbing cold which gnawed at his limbs like a dog upon a bone to enter the part of his brain which remained alert; steering him through an unmarked path like a high-tech robot on autopilot, urging him to compartmentalise the effects of the freezing climate and battle on, even though a normal child would have fallen to hypothermia long before now.

Pausing on occasion to listen for sounds that might indicate pursuit, the boy could have been a machine. Adrenalin had worn off long ago, but if fatigue in any way affected him, it hadn't yet begun to dull his movements. Crossing every obstacle that lay upon his invisible path - be it the fallen tree he sprung over with cat-like agility, or the occasional knee-deep snowdrift he was forced to make his way through - he moved not like a weary confused child lost in a forest, but like a heat-seeking missile; lacking now the astonishing speed he had displayed earlier while in the midst of flight, but slowly and purposefully moving through the woods as if led along an invisible rope.

Eventually the boy came to rest against a pine tree and shivering, looked back the way he had come. Within moments his tracks were covered by the steadily falling snow. It was a small comfort in a world suddenly barren of all other reassurance. Had it not been for the fresh snow to cover his footprints, he might have been easy pickings for his pursuers. Although he'd outrun the searchlights and TAC teams long ago, he knew the chase to recapture him wasn't over yet. And probably never would be.

Already the boy had endured so much more during his brief existence than an ordinary nine year old could ever have the capacity to handle. Ordinary kids were not taught about weapons and warfare, how to avoid being tracked, how to plan a raid on an enemy base, or how to assassinate a person without leaving a trace of one's self upon the crime scene. Yet that kind of thing had been the daily routine of his life up until now. Although having lived his entire nine years as one of the prodigies of a secret government project called 'Manticore', the boy was (so far) innocently unaware of just how unusual his upbringing was to those beyond the perimeter fence.

However, the child knew that it wasn't ordinary - even by his standards - to be hunted relentlessly by soldiers on snow mobiles and armed with weapons. Soldiers who obviously had every intention of using deadly force if they had but half a chance to take fire upon their pint-sized target. And while he'd initially allowed his instincts and training to take control as he'd woven and darted between trees like it were another SERE exercise, eventually the truth of his predicament had pierced his adrenalin-charged brain.

This was no exercise.

This was real life, and when the running was over, there would be no warm shower and clean barracks to return to. The place he had always thought of as home had in the blink of an eye, become hostile territory. And nothing could ever be the same again.

The boy swallowed a pang of regret which suddenly forced its way into his throat like a sour mouthful of bile. He wanted to be a good soldier. He wanted to be brave. But for a fleeting moment he couldn't help but dwell on the fact that he should right now be lying on his grey Manticore-issue cot, snuggled beneath his grey Manticore-issue blanket, in a barrack filled with grey Manticore-issue children just like him. He couldn't help but consider that if all things were as they'd always been, he would this moment be whispering bedtime stories to his companions; his own fairytales based on Manticore's earlier and unsuccessful experiments which continued to lived in howling horror, deep within the basement of the cold grey military base he knew of as home.

But all things weren't as they'd always been. Tonight, they'd grown much worse. Tonight, a monster had been unleashed upon the children of Manticore. And it hadn't come screeching it's way up from the depths in the form of a grotesque basement creature, but in the form of the very man who had looked after them throughout their brief and extraordinary lives. Tonight, one of his siblings had been shot dead before his very eyes. Betrayed, by the closest thing to a 'father' the children had ever experienced.

Clenching his teeth as memories and emotions threatened to tear loose from the compartment of his brain in which he'd stored them, the boy pushed on, not wanting to dwell on the fate of his sister.

Suck it up soldier.

He had to focus on the present, and find safe territory. He was a soldier, this was what he'd been trained for, and with each step he took, he reminded himself that he was moving one step further from the place which had created him. It was a mantra whispered within his mind to keep himself going (and to keep himself from going back), and to block out the fear and weariness which at times welled up within him, threatening to undo his very will to continue taking those essential steps.

But as the boy continued to make his further and further from that home which had now become so deadly to him, he numbly began to realise that life as he knew it would never be the same again. Tonight his grey Manticore-issue world had splintered into gunfire, shards of glass, and particles of snow. Tonight he had learnt just how disposable he and his 'siblings' were. Everything he had once known as 'normal' was gone, and as the boy had no real idea of the kind of world that existed beyond the wire of Manticore, he was reasonably certain that even if he and his siblings managed to outwit the TAC teams sent to recover them tonight, they could never consider themselves safe. No matter how far they ran, or how deep they hid, nothing in their world would ever be safe and snug and warm, ever again.

-----------------------------------

End Note: I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this brief fic. It was inspired by the opening chapter of Max Allen Collin's Before The Dawn. Re-reading it gave me an urge to tell the story of how another transgenic faced life after the escape. I'm not sure if the date of the escape is correct as I'm going by the date in MAC's book, and he's not always good at getting things right either…

Unfortunately my muse seems to be suffering from narcolepsy and it can quite easily fall asleep in the middle of an idea and never wake up to it again. (as can most people while reading my fics I think :P) So let's just figure this story is a vignette - a brief and passing peek at a scene, a quick glimpse into a moment of a transgenic's life. It should have served more of a purpose - held some kind of interesting revelation… whatever, but unfortunately it didn't. In fact it didn't even mention Ben's Blue Lady. Don't you think it should've? Wouldn't he be thinking of her while fleeing Manticore? Wondering if she's deserted him, or guiding him onwards?

Maybe this is still too unfinished to post online, even by a vignette's standards. But it's been sitting in my hard drive a couple months now, and if it stays there any longer, it'll never leave. Urgh. glances at small stockpile of unposted fics I'm good like that. Anyhoo… any feedback would be much much appreciated. :)