Heirs to a Prophesy

By Tigris Euphrates (tigris@sbcglobal.net)

Chapter One: Birth of the Hatchling February, 2004

            On the street children rarely ever have names as ordinary people use them - these kids have code names, or handles, and their birth names are a secret kept strictly to them. Some are on welfare; others make a living from light crime, which comes so easily to a person who just wants something to eat. She began life as Lacy Myers, the child of West Hollywood residents Wesley and Helena Myers. Her father spent a year in the marriage playing his favorite game with his only daughter; hide-the-sausage. The courts took her away and she spent the next few years being bounced from the house of one relative to another. Each place found the moody young girl fighting with her guardians, and so Lacy became Lana - the street girl who slept under overpasses and walking the streets of the angel town whenever she had run away from her guardians at the time.

            When she was twelve-almost-thirteen, she was flown to Manhattan to live with an Aunt. This particular aunt was more concerned with which man she had with the bigger prick at the time, once again leaving the street girl from the city of angels either locked in a closet listening to her aunt's lusting screams, or else walking the streets of the Big Apple. She found that she fit right in - the streets are the same no matter where you go - the language of hunger, drugs, sex, and violence is universal. Lana was literally the girl who went uncounted in the millennia census - who went unnoticed by the doers of great things in the world.

            Lana had more than her fair share of unsavory encounters with the pricks on the street. It was not uncommon to for her to find herself servicing policemen to avoid spending a night in jail with the dykes. A plain and ordinary girl of fifteen-almost-sixteen, she was subject to random strip searches and anything else the police could think of in their supposed search for drugs.

            After several long months of "working the system", she finally managed to get herself off of the streets and into a small, dirty, run down house in a complex that was built before the invention of the automobile. The stone gargoyles that decorated it's roof seemed to loom over it's in habitants like the prevailing sense of fear that the people below always felt. She had food stamps to see that she ate properly, a little money to buy clothes with, and some subway tokens to get around town with. Despite all that, she still spent some time catching up with her street friends. She went down the park one night to meet her friend Jeremy Noe. He was a nice boy about her age - and gay too, never willing to lay a finger on a woman, especially Lana. For some reason Lana noticed a lot of gay people on the streets in some parts of town and tried to spend a lot of time there, but the pricks were everywhere and unavoidable - always hunting down a piece of ass as carrion hunts down a dead carcass.

            Jeremy was dressed in drag when she met him. She giggled a little at his attire, as Jeremy pirouetted for her.  His high-heeled shoes made him seem to tower over the small girl. "How'm I doin', Lana?" he inquired.

            "Shitty." she laughed. "Your boobs are way too big, and your voice sounds like a sailor. It's okay, though."

            Jeremy gave her a look, but ignored her giggling. "Got any weed?"

            "Nope, though I wouldn't mind getting stoned right now."

            Jeremy lit up an ordinary hand rolled cigarette, took a few drags off of it, and regarded the girl sitting on the other side of the park bench. "How'd things go at the GA office?"

            "Okay, I have a place. It's a shitty dump, but it's warm." she replied.

            He nodded approvingly. "Good thing. Are you going to get into school?"

            "They're going to start me at a community college level so I can take my GED test."

            "That's great! Damn - yer a bright kid - I never graduated from High School until I was eighteen like all the normie kids. It's such a fucking shame you're on the street with the rest of us. You don't belong here." Jeremy smoked his cigarette a little more. 'Normies' were usually the kids of the rich yuppies who worked for Dot-Commer corporations from 9-5, brought home six figure paychecks, and lived in high-rise downtown house complexes in the Aerie district.

            "Honestly, I don't know what else I'd do. I don't know what it's like to be anything else but a street kid."

            "Get through school, and you'll change that kid - I promise." he smiled at her, finishing his cigarette.

            The last lights of the day were fading away on the west side over the Hudson, and Lana looked up at the house complexes and office buildings with disgust. Together, the two went walking through the back paths of the park where many of the homeless spent their nights.

            "I'll tell ya what." Lana added. "If I did have money, know what I'd do with it?"

            "What?"

            "I'd buy a computer - so I could surf the Internet."

            Jeremy chuckled a little to himself. "You can save up that much - trust me..." His voice trailed off, and he paused, listening. Lana stopped, and turned, listening. Then she heard it - two men were arguing. Quiet as a ghost, Jeremy ducked down low and slipped behind some bushes, Lana following. For several minutes they remained there, listening, as Lana tried to understand everything that was being said. Something in the bushes however began to irritate Jeremy's nose. He turned and sneezed. He tried to stifle the sound, but didn't do too well.

            What followed was a blur. The conversation behind the bushes stopped. The bushes snapped, Jeremy suddenly twisted like he was going to run. A popping sound filled the air, the acrid stench of gunpowder, and Jeremy crumpled to the ground. Terrified, Lana cowered in the bushes until she was sure the thugs wouldn't return, ran back to her dirty little house, and locked the door behind her. What she didn't notice was the face hidden in the trees above where Jeremy laid - the person that picked up the body and took it to Manhattan General. She never noticed that the woman hidden in the trees had wings.

            Detective Maza needed a serious vacation. Her world tour had been anything but a vacation - what she needed was a whole month she could go up to her parents place and just hang around for a while before she went back to work. Besides... she had something she had to think over.

            She tried to focus on the problem at hand though. According to Angela, this was the spot where the man had been killed last night. Elisa searched through the bushes and the grass. She found a shell casing and some blood stains, but nothing else of much use. She would let the lab boys have those things. Satisfied the scene of the crime was yielding her no answers as of yet, she went to the second item on her list.

            Subsidized government housing, unfortunately was barely above poverty level, and Elisa counted her blessings that she made do with the house she had on her NYPD salary. By seeing the house manager, she found herself knocking on a door on the TOP floor. The irony was irresistible.

            The door opened to reveal a very dirty young woman who couldn't be any more than sixteen. Elisa made out a very intelligent young girl behind all that dirt and torn clothing.

            "What?" the girl asked with hostility.

            Elisa opened her badge. "Police. May I come in?"

            The girl was frightened and taken aback - her hands were shaking a little. "Uh, sure."

            Elisa Maza saw only a few fold away chairs in the dingy little room, so she borrow one, and propped it around backwards before sitting down. "Wanna tell me what you saw?"

            "No." Lana replied fearfully. That was the code of the street. You don't see anything, you don't hear anything, or you die.

            Elisa was not discouraged. "Afraid?"

            "Yes."

            "You willing to come downtown with me, or do I need to get me a warrant?"

            Needless to say, Elisa Maza was not thrilled to have to bring her chief witness back to the newly constructed 23rd precinct building and question her there, but she could guarantee her witness protection and privacy there.

            The girl sat in the waiting area while Elisa filed the paperwork, as one of the newer officers to the newly rearranged precinct approached her. With her former partner heading up the gargoyles task force, this was the guy that was most likely going to wind up being her new partner. Elisa loathed him.

            "What is it, Lansing - I'm kind of busy here?" she brushed him off.

            "Here's the file you wanted on the kid. Young genius - completing her GED at fifteen, skills in archaeology, paleontology, and world history. Kid would have a lot of potential if she'd stop smoking pot."

            Elisa sighed. She'd forgotten about the background file. "Thanks. These kids start smoking pot sometimes to keep them from having to think about things - especially the young prodigies."

            With the file in hand, Elisa collected her stray witness, and escorted her back to the interrogation rooms, while Detective Lansing removed a slip of paper from his pants pocket, unfolded it, and smiled.

            She was given a job working at a cannery on the wharf, which used subsidized government low-salary laborers. This was the work she was required to do as part of her staying in that house and getting food to eat. She hated the work, but gritted her teeth and did it - forcing herself to think about not ending up on the streets again.

            Her shift was nearing completion, and everyone was going home. She was covered in flour and things, and she was thinking that she would have to shower every day if she was going to keep this job. She didn't notice as several people entered the factory floor just behind her. Detective Lansing and three other police officers approached her from behind. When Lana finally heard their footfalls on the concrete floor, she looked up suddenly, alarmed.

            "I'm sorry - I didn't hear you coming!" she laughed a little.

            Detective Lansing was a very angular man, tall, lithe and limber with a heavy build, and ears that were hidden under his hat and his long-as-regulation-allowed stringy brown hair. "My apologies, Ms. Lacy Myers." Lana winced at the sound of her given name. "I was coming to make you an offer. A different job you might find... far more to your liking."

            Lana looked at him. She did not, by nature, trust police officers. Lana did not want to press her luck by walking away from the job at the plant so quickly, but she had to admit there were probably better options out there. "I'm listening."

            Her new room was a dorm with clean walls, clean sheets, and a computer. Since her things consisted of only her bag of clothes and a book bag with personal items, she laid them both down at the foot of the bed. She was drawn to the computer. For a few hours she played with it, learning it by playing around with it, when someone came to her room and knocked on the door.

            There stood a few more nameless, faceless adults she had not met. She stepped out of her door. "What do I have to do?" she inquired.

            "All in good time, miss." someone said.

            She felt a tiny prick in her shoulder. Turning slightly to brush the feeling away, she became suddenly very dizzy, and collapsed in a heap.

            Lana reawoke in hell. Her body felt cold and clammy, but for some reason she could not get warm. She tried to move, but found herself unable to move her limbs. She seemed to be floating in a dark fog. There were sounds around her, like muffled voices - some of them screaming. As she strained to somehow pierce the fog around her, she heard other voices.

            "Lacy Myers, age fifteen, weighs just a little over one hundred pounds. She's a drug and alcohol addict, malnourished, and a hardened survivor of ten years of street life." A man reported.

            "Sounds intriguing, but why her?" A woman's voice inquired.

            "Father is dead, parents are separated, and her legal guardian is little more than a professional prostitute. Evidence has been planted that will explain her death as gang-related. She has a high tolerance to disease and many of the rigors of street life. She also tests as having an unusually high I.Q.," the male voice answered.

            "Fascinating project, Detective - my congratulations. Have her brought to my lab for further testing."

            "Of course, Doctor Chen."

            For a while longer, there was silence around her. Some time later she became aware of more voices. She had no idea what the words meant, but knew only that she was tired, and longer for the blissful release of sleep.

            "Alright, everyone - she's awake, but only just. She probably feels very tired and can't understand what we're saying." A male voice reported.

            "Good. Now, we're thinking the only problem with the Advanced Walden-Formula is that the brain has trouble with the procedure and it shuts down. If the subject is at least partially conscious, the patient has a better chance of surviving. This one has a high endurance to a variety of poor conditions, so we suspect better results."

            "Yes, Doctor Chen."

            "Introduce the catalytic polymerase solution and the genetic retrovirus to the subject, and check back with me tomorrow about her progress. When she's ready, throw her in the O2 bath with the others and begin subliminal reprogramming of her mind."

            "Of course."

            Then Lana felt the needles - lots of them - slowly piercing her skin and pumping into her their cold bio-toxic fluids into her bloodstream. She wanted to scream and run, but she couldn't make her muscles respond. She found herself strangely detached from her body. Then she felt herself immersed in a warm watery liquid, and felt herself floating there for what felt like an eternity. Then the pain began - hot and searing, filling every part of her body with a mind numbing blinding ache she was powerless to lessen.  The muffled screams around her became louder - filling her ears and her mind so that she could think of nothing else, only this time she knew the screams were her own.

            When Lana finally awoke to her new life, she had no idea what was going on. She felt herself held down to a table by large metal clamps. She knew she had to escape! She didn't know what was happening to her, but this couldn't be within OSHA guidelines! She couldn't feel her clothes either - what had they done with her clothes?!!! She felt naked!

            She pushed on the restraints with everything in her, every ounce of strength her tiny pain-wracked body could produced, and more - pushing harder against those restraints than her muscles had ever before known, adrenaline washing through every fiber of her body, numbing the pain and pushing tired muscles to push harder. That was when it happened. It began deep in her throat as a low grumble, and began to grow into what finally became the ear-piercing cry that was both falcon and panther, and at the same time neither, making this cry uniquely Lana's own.

            The weaknesses in the metal reached their breaking points, and with the great clanging sounds of bolts and metal pieces being torn in half, Lana ripped her arms and legs free of her restraints, tubes, and wires. She was met with a folly of tazer blasts. She screamed again, collapsing to the table. The moment it passed, she leapt once more, and in a burst of strength she had never felt before, Lana knocked down a group of hooded figures, leaving traces of her blood on their white uniforms from where the bands had torn away at her skin. She heard gunfire behind her, as she raced blindly down halls she had never been down before in her life. Her luck finally ran out, as she found herself pinned down in a dead-end hallway. Masked figures appeared in the hall, firing at her. She felt her leg grazed by a bullet. There! Over her head she had noticed a grate in the wall, with a window beyond it. Lana grabbed the bars and was immediately jolted with hundreds of volts. She screamed again, but without thinking squeezed her body between the bars, punched through the glass, and fell out onto the outside rooftop. There was gravel under her hands, and it stung the cuts and burns all over her hands and knees. She tried to stand, but her body was unstable and wouldn't cooperate.  Lana turned to the sound of more footfalls, and saw the gunmen at the window, taking aim at her. In desperation, she leapt forward on unsteady feet, and threw herself into the air beyond the rooftop... Gunfire sounded, followed by the sound of a chopper's rotors.

            ...and Lana blacked out again.

            "Shall we go after her, Doctor Chen?"

            "No." commanded the subdued female voice, as they watched Lana escape into the night. "We'll see how she does in the wild. She may be our best result yet. Impressive, isn't she?"