Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or franchises associated with this story, and do not profit in any fiscal sense from writing it. Any resemblances to real events and people are purely coincidental.

Prologue: In the Beginning was the Word

"It is the stillest words that bring on the storm. Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world."

-Thus Spoke Zarathusthra

Behold the child. Pale, almost translucent, floating gently in the sterile cylinder, examined by spectacled eyes. Streams of bubbles from his nose and mouth, soft breaths from a peaceful and oblivious sleep.

One word, and the tube is drained and opened, and he is exposed, sticky and dripping with the thick orange fluid which sustained him. His eyes are clasped shut, and he gasps painfully for breath. There is no mother here, no father, no midwife to offer comforting words, no wet nurse to feed him. He writhes, almost panicking.

The doctors observe with detached interest, crossing their arms and squinting their eyes, that he lacks all skin and eye pigment – albinism. They wonder if they made a mistake – 'Should we dispose of it and try again?' they wonder, comparing the costs and possible outcomes, the flaws of genetic integration, retooling the viral plasmids, and so forth. And what an odd-looking child, so pale and delicate. It seems ethereal, unnatural – a false copy, a misplaced graft, something different from humanity. After so many failures and monsters created, this one seems unnatural on yet another level – it appears too well made. The doctors buzz about deciding whether to give it further life.

After some half-hearted deliberation, they decide to let this one live for now. He's the healthiest one in a while. They might as well continue this trial. See if there are any possibilities for further use.

He is wheeled away and placed in some blankets, in a clean little room of the facility, in the pure oxygen chamber, where his brothers and sisters lay last, and were then disposed of because of some anomaly or deformity or mistake. The scientists fill out paperwork. Out of some cruel sense of irony, they draw up a birth certificate, as part of the plans to camouflage this manufactured life. September 13, 2000. Die zweite Aufschlag. Aside from that, he has no name, just subject number 17.


The boy grows unnaturally quickly. His growth accelerates far ahead of projections. He becomes a child, and a teenager, and then his body begins to slow down. He is thin, young, and in fair health. He cannot consume some foods without an allergic reaction, and has to take a regimen of vitamin pills every morning, but he is healthy, sane, and alive.

He is tested, checked, probed and pricked with needles and instruments. Speculums, sphygmomanometers, elektrokardiograms, and other words pass over him, another foreign language. Mechanical examinations. His life is a battery of tests, reducing every event and aspect of him to raw data. He feels an empty numbness, not comprehending what sort of things they do.

His training began early, and progressed quickly. His education accelerated far ahead of even the advanced Gymnasiums. The private tutors brought to the facility for him are amazed with his progress, about how much he learns, how he corrects them. But his curiosity and exploration is limited, and they reveal to him only would they would prefer for him to know. Only subjects of a military or technical field are given to him, and even then with heavy censoring. Wonderful progress, delightful, extraordinary, it is recorded. A true superhuman - extraordinary progress, superior in every way.

Of course, he hears none of this. Don't let others taint this experiment! It must progress within an isolated and sterile environment, in order to prevent contamination of the test subject's psychology. His sole aim and purpose of being is to be a weapon of war, a perfect soldier. He quickly learns to hide his feelings, draw a mask over himself. If he asked too many questions, it was made too clear that he would be liquidated. He is to be given no illusions about the nature of control over his life.


Despite this constriction and blinding, he somehow experiences freedom for the first time. Doubts grow within him. He follows his orders, but dares to think, "Why?" But his thoughts are fleeting, still struggling to grasp the world about him.

The young doctor decides to give him supplemental lessons of his own, of a different sort. First banned books, which he pores over and devours. Hemingway, Mann, Hesse, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, a whole Bible, and so many others. He learns about forbidden emotions, thoughts, feelings, about people, begins to grasp at the concepts of death and life and love. He hungers for more. The young doctor prepares piles of books for him, smuggles them into the facility, which he reads in a sitting.

Eventually, he is given a library card and access to the central university library system, and checks out whatever things he likes. By the time he is biologically 14, he has expressed interests in sociology, non-linear dynamics, neuroscience, game theory, aeronautics, theoretical and speculative biology, cognitive psychology, meta-materials engineering, philosophy, particle physics and is able to hold a university-level conversation in any of these, even writing a speculative paper, which is published anonymously, and is later circulated and discussed by the readers of Natur, Wissenschaft, and all the major newspapers.

He adores these new things, going wide eyed with the joy of discovering a new world entirely. He longs so much for the world outside of the white-washed containment which has been arranged for him. The actions and thoughts are outside of his own experience, but he is curious about studying them, as he has been studied for his entire life. The young doctor sees him curled up with books or sleeping gently amongst them. The doctor is careful not to arouse suspicion.

The young boy reads and devours, but there is still a quiet gnawing within him – loneliness. All he has known is isolations, quarantines, procedures, and examinations, aside from the mere glimpses of the outside world that the young doctor has given him. The doctor decides it is time to take him on a little adventure, to see a little bit of the world.


Lifted up by the good doctor, he sees the grand Prachtallee of the capital city. All the glories of history and conquest are within his sight. A storm of people around him, with their loud voices, swarms of them in grey tweed suits and hats. Theaters in the Greek style, medieval castles, museums, theaters, galleries, palaces, and skyscrapers, all draped with the Schwarz-Weiss-Rot flag, and the vast imposing dome of the Volkshalle, the largest enclosed space in the world. He cannot contain his delight. He is almost overloaded with all of these new sights, sounds, experiences. The giant Weltkrieg-Triomphe-Bogen looms over the city, with its millions of names inscribed in Roman script. The odd couple has a jolly time, together, seeing everything the city of marble and monuments has to offer. What interests him most are the people. They view him, an albino, as a curiosity, as most genetic imperfections are rare these days. And he is interested in people who have no interest in testing him yet again, like the ones he hears about in books so often, but never really gets to meet.

For a brief moment, he hopes. And dreams. He looks up at the stars, for the first time in his life. He smiles.

Of course this happy little dream world with the doctor is smashed, like a sledgehammer to a snowglobe. Police quickly gain word of this unusual escapee. Higher echelons, those beyond the government, send word that these people should be acquired. The men in black coats come as shadows, in the middle of the night. They drug the two, hiding in a little hotel suite, and are taken. The child is separated from the doctor. Strict discipline is applied, in order to contain the damage that was done, prevent any further attachments from forming.

The child is sent away to Japan, Tokyo-3, ahead of schedule. The young doctor's interference is totally unacceptable. He disappears into the apparatus of the state, possibly to turn up in a few years, whiling away in obscurity, studying diseases and mutations in the ruined flood plains of Mittelafrika, then wasting away himself, a mottled yellow half-corpse. Devoured by the beast of the state.

The people there have very good methods, a strict security apparatus. They've learned a good Prussian discipline. He will do well there, and be productive. There is much to be done, and the plan must go forward. He has a manufactured identity for the trip, and a cover story. The name uses an archaic character (a mistake of the translator) but nobody questions anything here, especially not anything this important, and with the backing of such important men. The paperwork goes through. And soon, Kaworu Nagisa would arrive in Tokyo-3, quietly working to fulfill his destiny, and change the momentum of human history.


My first story here. Thoughts and all criticisms welcome.