Based entirely off the movie, and the trailer (since the whole religious backstory aspect seems to have been left off in the movie).
I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this. I was going to lead up to 47/Nika but we shall see. Or not.
Thanks for all and any feedback, especially mature reviews!
At age five, her hair is wispy-silky and long, her uncut baby hair still cobweb-soft at the very ends. Her dad can't bring himself to trim them – later, she learns it is the only thing she has inherited from her mother, those lake-dark tresses. Even at that age, her face shows hints of angularity that promise either high cheekbones or a slanted, narrow face like her father's. She plays in the grubby dirt by her dad while he works, and decades later, those memories will leave imprints on her dreams: that rich scent of earth, that blue-white Russian summer, the feel of loose soil and life crumbling in her small hands. Her father's thin face shining with effort as he curses the earth, pleads and cajoles it, smelling of sweat and stubborn love.
Her dad always loved the vines, she remembers – enough that at age eight, she is sold to Boss, a man with soft hands and who looked at her like she was a piece of meat. He was the one who owned the vines, who came every Sunday while her dad knelt in the fertilizer and bowed his head; the one who touched the waxy-thin vines with one forefinger as if they might burn him and puckered his lips and shook his head and sighed; Boss was the one who made dad tremble. She doesn't know what her first sale price was, but that is nothing special: most cattle don't. At that time, she had been too awed, too deeply humbled for being allowed to sit in the Couch before the Magic Box called the TV, and so the negotiations over her body took place while she gaped at a man using a Stick to plan a game called Gofe.
(Later, when Nika was older, she used to fucking hate this shitbag, this fucking father, who dared to touch her – hug her! – before he left; who dared to pretend to goddamn cry you fucking hypocrite, you fuck! – but that was before she started to get jaded; before she started to really understand the world was every person for herself, and stopped caring.)
At first, it isn't so bad – she cries, she's scared, and she wants her daddy right now – but it isn't so bad because all Boss does for the first week is throw her in the back of his shiny-smooth car, and after a long startling ride, lock her in a dingy room. There is a window in the room, and whenever she is exhausted from crying, she would stand on a chair and watch the City from there. There are always people moving around in the streets, even in the latest of late nights, and sometimes she imagines that this is just an adventure her daddy sent her off on, and falls asleep feeling slightly better.
This lasts for about a week, though it had seemed much longer back then, when one day Boss enters the room without his usual bag of food and crooks a finger at her. Come, it says. Now, his look adds when she stares. She stumbles behind him, nearly tripping over herself in her clumsy happiness, and can't stop grinning the whole car trip. It is only when she gets out and there is a huge, large, biggest house she's ever seen in front of her that she realizes she isn't going home. Her bottom lip starts to tremble.
Take your fucking time, why don't you. A man appears in the door and scowls at Boss.
She's here, isn't she?
The man's scowl deepens. This one got a name?
Shit for brains, just give her a new one. And this one's a keeper. I don't want no fucking mix-up like that last one – oh for god's sake girl!
She knows she shouldn't, but she is crying again. "I want... I wanna go h-" she starts, but then there is a sudden, shocking pain and she's lying cheek-down on the gravel, too stunned to cry.
You moron, watch the face!
The new ones always need one. And don't you fucking tell me my business! Where's that –
The adults argue on. In her mouth, there is the taste of copper, but she doesn't dare to spit it out. When she's sure she can look up without crying, Boss is gone and the scowling man is scowling down at his clipboard, muttering.
Always with his goddamn- shit, nicky's taken. Nika? Nika... Oi!
She bites down on her lip; it had started to tremble again. It tastes of blood, and the man looks annoyed, as if she'd did it just to spite him.
Your name's Nika. Got it? You better come when you're called, if you know what's good for you. Now get up, we don't have all fucking day.
She tries not to cry. She nods.
Then the child-whore named Nika stands up.
This is her story.
--
At age eight, he kills a man. It is easy. It is so easy. He can't stop thinking about it.
The blood – the dark red of it, glutinous and thick, splattering; the maroon-black hole in the man's forehead, his blank eyes like a fish's as his head snapped back from the force. But it is so ordinary, so trite, so... so boring. He's seen it at least a thousand times in his studies, in his stimulations.
Yet he can't stop thinking about it.
He mentions this in Counselling. It is widely known among the Class that Counselling is for requests, is the way to ask the Brotherhood for things – books, profiles, studies, questions, assignments, extras. Technically, none of them had any voice – the only Voice is the Brotherhood, and they are merely the Hands in His Holy Body – but it wouldn't be logical for the Voice not to listen to the Hands every now and then, if only to guide them. He has been very well taught in Logic; he had passed that class on the first try. And so he mentions this strange dullness when his session for Counselling comes round, and asks – wonders aloud – if he could get something more next time. Something more challenging.
They give it to him.
The next assignment, they don't gag his target. The man is tied up in the same way his first target was: hands bound, feet bound and anchored to an iron ball, but his mouth is noticeably uncovered. He knows from his studies that this might open a weakness – distraction, or a chance to be persuaded, or confusion – but wonders privately if that advice was meant for lesser Hands. He can't see how a target's words can change anything.
He listens while he swiftly constructs his gun – a Brother watches nearby, timing him and observing him intently. Please, the target begs, son what are you doing? Do you even know what you're doing? I have a family, I have a son just like you, only nine. You don't have to listen to these people! Do you know why I'm here, it's – NO!!
The silencer muffles the shot. A few elder Hands look up from their training, sharply alert, then relax when they spot him. The better ones don't look up at all. In the courtyard, the sound of blows and ragged pants is background to the breeze ruffling the leaves above him. Spring is coming, he thinks, and the pleasantness of it almost makes him forget himself enough to smile.
He thinks this while he wipes down the gun in neat, efficient strokes, and wraps the body up. The ball-chain is detached, the black sheets go over, and when he's done he kneels before the Brother, careful to only bend one knee to the ground so he is ready to move if the Brother decides to give a sudden test on his martial abilities. But no – the Brother simply shows him his time – a new personal record: 0.51 – and nods silently.
It is only when the Brother has left the courtyard that he sighs, gets up, and starts to drag the corpse away. He can't help it: he is disappointed. The art of death is far from dull, yet the final product is. There is a hollowness in the back of his throat, in his gut, that feels like dissatisfaction. Later that night, like the first time, his mind plays back those moments, but this time with the added soundtrack of words – I have a son, just like you. He prides himself on his nightly critique of his daily performance, and lies in his bunk with his hand flexing open and close, open and close. His hand cupping the shape of a gun, yearning.
He wishes they were already allowed guns. He wishes he was older; he is impatient to get better – he is sure it would help him sleep.
He is still striving to get better when his Class reaches their 10th year, even though a part of him acknowledges, clinically, that he is already the best of his Class. The 10th year is an important transition: they get Named, they get Marked. More importantly, he thinks, they are finally allowed personal firearms. He can't wait.
When it is his turn, he sits in the chair and feels the short fuzz of his hair neatly shaven off for the last time – after today, he will have to shave himself. His hand flexes open and close, open and close, on his lap, but his face is impassive: eyes staring ahead. A Brother is watching nearby, so he does his best not to wince when he gets his Mark. For a moment, there is spurt of confusion – of anger, of pride – but then he accepts the pain, and it is over.
He stands up.
The Brother looks at him. It is one of the rare ceremonies that a Hand experiences in his lifetime, and he tries his best to remember every nuance. The way the blue light shimmers on the walls; the faint itch on his nape from the drifting hair; the aftermath of pain still drilling his scalp. The dark suit of the Brother, so perfectly pressed. He holds his breath.
The Brother glances down at his clipboard. "You are forty six – no, forty seven. You may leave."
The boy hesitates. The Brother glances down, then looks up at him again.
"You may leave," he repeats.
The boy's hand opens, closes, opens.
Then 47 stands up and leaves the room.
That night, feeling the cold weight of his gun under his sheets, 47 wishes that he was older, that he was better, that he could leave. He wants to start serving the Brotherhood right away.
This is his story.