She stood by the window, one hand parting the curtains.

He watched her from the bed. The intricate scars stretched across her back were barely visible in the dimly lit room. "It's too early," he told her. "Come back to bed."

There was no reply, as the light outside changed from a dull gray to a gentle yellow orange. After a minute he got up and joined her, resting one hand on the curve of her hip. The brilliant morning light spilled over the city as the artificial sun slowly climbed up in the horizon, reflecting through the glass sky. Her face glowed with an ethereal beauty that outshone the simulated sunrise. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, burying his face in her golden hair.

"It's lovely," he agreed, "but tell me, kitten... is it really worth all the bluebells in the world?"

She said nothing, but a tear rolled down her cheek, followed in succession by others. For the first time since leaving her home and coming to Paradigm City, Angel broke down and wept.

Phalène

By Jixie (11/2007)

The Big-O © Sunrise Inc

Somehow, somewhere, things had gone terribly wrong.

Agent 271 sat in the back of an MP vehicle, hands cuffed behind his back and an ugly purplish bruise swelling across the left side of his face, along with seven other agents.

He glanced around at the others, trying to ignore the stifling discomfort in the overcrowded truck. Some of them he recognized, others he'd never met before. No one spoke, all of them lost in their own thoughts, wondering how the military police had tracked them down, or where they were being taken.

The girl sitting beside him was a brunette, unusual for a Union agent. He'd seen her once or twice before but didn't know her assigned number, and didn't care enough to ask.

For the most part the ride was uneventful. At one point the truck hit a bump, sending them crashing into one another. When the girl shifted and awkwardly pulled herself upright, she brushed against his arm. He briefly considered for a moment... but, no. They made the rest of the trip in silence, the feeling of dismay building as they each awaited whatever fate held in store.

Then, finally, they stopped.

The back door opened and two military police officers pulled out the nearest agent, slamming and locking the door shut after them. No words exchanged, no instructions given. One of the younger agents whimpered, an obnoxious and barely discernible whine. Another started to speak, voice slightly trembling. "I know they've captured some of our compatriots before this. They were sent to prison to rot. Maybe there are enough of us that a rescue mission will be organized. My brother is one of the-"

There was a heavy crack from outside, the distinct and unquestionable ring of a gunshot.

The first agent whimpered again. Everyone else was silent. A few were looking around, trying to formulate a plan of escape, while others prayed, and some began to cry. After a minute or so of eternity, the officers returned for two others.

"Oh, hell," 271 groaned, rocking back so that his head cracked on the side of the truck. The pain was a refreshing change, so he did it again, captivated by the prickling along his scalp and the dull throb from the bruise. The girl next to him stared, horrified.

Each gunshot elicited cries of terror and sobs of despair from the others. 271 chewed on his lip until it bled, metallic tang dripping from the corner of his mouth. He tried to wipe it off on his shoulder, under the questioning gaze of the brunette.

They pulled her out next, and she was the first to scream. He closed his eyes, listening carefully to the ringing horror in her voice. "Louder," he urged her, then felt a heavy hand clamp down on his arm. He looked up at the officer and grinned.

Outside, they blindfolded the brunette and dragged her away. 271 was pulled around to the side of the truck for questioning.

In all honesty, he would have told them anything. His loyalty could be bought, and the price of his freedom was a fair enough exchange. As it was, he could not answer their questions. A few resonated with a sense of familiarity, and he felt like he should have had the answers. But ultimately 271 was at a loss, unable to even come up with convincing lies to save his life.

The officer walked him back around the truck and then beyond. They were nowhere that 271 could recognize. Cracked pavement that stretched off into the distance, weeds sprouting up haphazardly in the gaps, long abandoned buildings and a decaying chain fence along the parameter... they could've been anywhere.

Not too far off, several other officers stood by. To the side, black plastic tarps covered vaguely human-shaped mounds, the corpses left to lie where they'd fallen. In the middle, the brunette kneeled on the ground. Her head was bowed forward, brown hair falling around the blindfold, arms twisted back with her hands cuffed behind her.

One of the officers were next to her. The pistol was not the standard military police handgun, the end of its long barrel pressed to the back of her head.

A few seconds too late, the officer leading him pulled a blindfold over his face. He was shoved to his knees, and forced to wait on the coming execution. 271 tasted the drying blood on his lips, and with the scene he'd just witnessed playing in his minds eye, envisioned how his own death would look, and grinned.

Then there was a state, between life and death, which defied description.

It understood the basic concepts of existence. What it was, where, and how. Anything beyond that were outside of it's grasp.

There were others, alike but different. They all lacked self-awareness, the spark of individuality that made one human. There were also memories, all meaningless without perception.

Most importantly, there were the scientists. These older men who designed, built, studied, and observed. They controlled the small world of existence for these things, these wretched creatures that were no longer human but not entirely machine.

Days and weeks went by. The scientists would meet and compare records, debate and discuss and plan. They would ask if they were ready, if it was ready, if they'd ever have a chance to begin the first phase of testing. Then they would wait.

The wait ended abruptly. Nearly two and a half months after the project was started, their leader came bringing with him the power of the gods. He listened to their progress, gave them a deadline, and left.

Dr. Gale tapped his pen on the counter, unable to help himself. There was so much built up anxiety, so much of their work depending on this initial run of tests. The first trial had finished over a half an hour ago, and here he was monitoring the status of the Megadeus, which had since powered down and gone into dormancy.

He looked over at the core components of the once majestic Big Duo. All of it's important internal mechanics, the computers and memory drive and primary systems, where here. It's hull was off somewhere else, being rebuilt by a team of mechanics assembled just for that purpose. Gale had heard the hint of a rumor: that their project was not for the Big Duo, but for another Megadeus, an even grander Big...

But he was getting ahead of himself. They'd only just received Duo, and didn't even have the results from their first test with the Megadeus.

Waiting for the word from his higher-ups, Gale flipped through the readout monitoring Duo. They would review it later, but in all honesty- there hadn't been much activity from the Big during the test. He wondered what that meant, and was lost in thought, when the door opened and Dr. Robert Miller stepped in.

"Gale," Miller prompted, and he nearly jumped out of his chair.

"Yes, Dr. Miller. How did it go?"

Miller made a strange face, and Gale was unsure how to take it. "Subject 4-C is having a physiological break-down," he said. "I need you to make three backups of the readout from the Megadeus, then report to the control room."

He couldn't copy those disks quick enough, and scrambled down the hallways to the elevator with uninhibited excitement. He hurried into the control room, where Miller and several others waited.

Miller gratefully collected the disks and Gale glanced over at 4-C. He remembered when it first arrived, a bloody mess of a corpse. They'd rebuilt it, turning the worthless body into something new. He imagined she'd once been a pretty dark-haired girl. Now she was an odd looking amalgam of human and machine. Flesh bonded to pale plastic synthetic skin in some places, but they hadn't bothered to cover the robotic parts completely, exposing the metal shell casing and muscle tissue. It was haphazard, but none of the cyborgs had been built for long term existence.

"...started having a reaction," Miller was saying. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," Gale lied.

"It appeared that 4-C achieved sentience while connected to the Big Duo. However, shortly afterwards it went into a coma. Kidney and liver functions have begun to shut down, the heart has been arrhythmic since the test ended."

"So she's dying? I mean-"

"We can't know for certain yet, but I suspect it's rejecting the cybernetic implants."

This caused Gale to do a double take. "But... but they can't..."

"I know, I know," Miller sighed, blowing his bangs out of his face. "Big Duo triggered something, and we have to find out what went wrong. Since it doesn't look like this one's going to be around much longer, we're going to start the vivisection now."

"Now?"

"As soon as Angelo gets his ass in here. I know you aren't too busy, so we thought you might like to sit in on this one."

Gale felt a little lightheaded. Miller, asking him to sit in on this? He would've expected orders to prepare the equipment and then stay out of their hair, not an invitation to watch the procedure. "I'd love to."

"Then get suited up. You know the routine. Like I said, we'll start as soon as Angelo's here. We'll do the control subject on the planned scheduled." Miller turned and headed out of the room, going to prep for the procedure himself. Gale shot another glance at 4-C, twitching with small spasms on the table, and then rushed to catch up with Miller.

One at a time, the others faded away.

The scientists running the project tried different things. Each test was repeated twice, and despite different methods, different routines, different actions programmed into the Megadeus' system: the results were always the same.

None of the cyborgs in the control group were ever subjected to Big Duo, and while they survived vivisection, the scientists had them humanely destroyed in order to preform a more thorough autopsy.

Paradigm City's military police had collected two groups of foreign spies, for a total of sixteen subjects. While it had proved to be a setback in negotiations with the Union, provoking them to retaliate with the terrorist strike they'd threatened from the start, Rosewater was adamant against using any of his citizens. This caused a great deal of frustration to those in charge- the subjects that they lost were irreplaceable, and they were no closer to a solution than when they'd started.

Although the control group could be recycled, overhauled, and revived, it was a less favorable option. The test group were completely ruined, with no hope of salvaging.

The subjects themselves felt no fear of their impending fate. Such things were beyond them: the concept of self, of the beginning and end of life.

So, they waited.

Gale wandered out of the lab, up into the house above. He came up on the pretense of grabbing some coffee, but truthfully, it was to let off a little steam. The constant failure was getting to him, and he needed to do /something/ before he lost it and stabbed himself in the face with a pen.

Talking to the lady of the house had always provided a decent diversion, but now she was no where to be found. Gale snooped around for a few minutes before heading to the kitchen.

He almost jumped when he nearly ran into the householder. Below his line of sight, he failed to notice the elderly man until it was nearly too late. "Errr, excuse me, sir," he managed, smiling awkwardly.

He was met with a dull, reserved expression. Uncertain how to proceed, Gale scuttled around him to the stove.

"I was just here to get a cup of joe, if you don't mind. A few of the other guys asked me to bring them down some too, so I'll just be a minute..." he jabbered aimlessly.

For a while, the man said nothing. "Tell me how things are going," he finally asked. His tone was firm, but kind. Gale relaxed, the older man's warm voice was somehow reassuring.

"Not too well. We keep running into the same problems."

"I see," he replied, folding his hands and letting them rest in his lap. "And you don't know why?"

Gale shook his head. "Not a damned clue- uh, sorry, sir." He turned his attention to the stove, preparing a cup for Richardson and Harper as well as himself.

"I suppose, it could be possible that you're doing nothing wrong. It could be the Megadeus simply rejects those who volunteered..."

He spilled some of the coffee, and scrambled to wipe it up with a nearby tea towel. 'Volunteered' wasn't exactly the right word, but he wasn't about to correct the old man. "Well... that could be, but I don't think that's it. Dr. Miller says we probably would have figured it out if Wayneright hadn't... you know. If he hadn't died. His memories are all we had to go on at first."

"Hmmm, yes I see. You fellows must not know much about the Megadeus, then. And they've all failed so far?" Gale shot him a confused look, as he backed up and turned to leave. "Well, thank you for letting me know, please keep us informed on how things turn out."

"Uh, okay. Thanks- er, take care Mr. Fitzgerald."

The old man had wheeled out of the room, and Gale was addressing empty space. He carefully gathered the cups in his arm, and balancing them precariously, carried them back down to the lab.

The plant sat on a high window ledge, beyond the reach of inquisitive little children's hands.

It grew in dappled sunlight, the bars outside the window creating shadows that cut through, leaving long stripes of light stretched out across the floor. Tiny fruits peeked out between large delicate leaves, small pale green orbs scattered throughout the branches.

For a moment, there was only that single memory: the young tomato plant on the windowsill.

The rest followed like the tears from a fallen angel. Layers on layers of memories. Some were his. Most were not.

...there had been a fire. No survivors. Like the children living in the orphanage, the fruits of the plant never had a chance to ripen.

...that wasn't right. He remembered the plant, branches bent over from the weight of crimson red tomatoes...

Discolored with splotches of black, blue-gray fuzz and split skin, revealing the decaying pulp of the rotten fruit...

But there had been a fire. The books in the library, burning away into nothing. Ashes, like snow, falling from the heavens.

He woke up.

Big Duo had never intended to kill the cyborgs. It couldn't be helped. They were all defective.

It was here, plugged in directly to the Megadeus' core memory, that they found themselves conscious and aware of every fragment of memory they possessed. With everything laid out, it offered a glimpse of the horrifying truth, the production set behind the stage.

Between what Rosewater had done with their minds, and what Wayneright had done with their bodies- two men determined to use memories to try and break the world- it was too much. Caught in the middle, the cyborgs were crushed from the strain.

While Duo could not directly communicate with anyone in this manner, it offered them pity as they regained their senses.

This one was mostly unreceptive, immediately caught up and pulled under by a flood of memories. Several long seconds passed by before he could even dare to try and think about what was going on around him. It. Them.

Patiently, Duo waited, feeling through their connection how the cyborg wavered between abstract delusions and the present state of things. That, and the part it would play in the future.

They both knew at once that was wrong: all that was left for now was death, until the next go round.

But, no.

At first Duo recoiled, daring to try and break off the link, knowing he could not. There was a sense of dismay from the other end, and after a moment of consideration, he strengthened the connection and brought them closer instead.

There was a soft, constant clicking as Richardson mindless tapped on the keyboard, never pressing hard enough to actually key in anything. Gale shot him a dirty look, mentally commanding him to cease the tapping, but Richardson failed to notice.

"I'm just saying, we don't know if it'll work again. What if it doesn't work again?"

"That's not our decision," Gale answered, knowing well enough that the question hadn't been directed at him.

"Well, I think it's a bad one. We shouldn't destroy our only successful test subject until-"

"Until what, Angelo?"

Beside, he thought, 'successful' was being used in the most liberal sense here. Gale glanced back at Subject 5-B. A sprawling mess of flesh and machinery, barely clinging to existence. It'd had the same reaction all of subjects had to the Megadeus... only this one had survived.

So they did the only sensible thing there was to do, and took it apart. Only after this Richardson froze up, quietly protesting the rest of their procedure. As with the control subjects, they would terminate the cyborgs higher brain functions and recondition it for the next round.

In all honesty, Gale agreed with Richardson. This was probably a fluke and they should've had more time to find out what had happened before they tried again.

But that was not their decision. He tried to ignore the way 5-B flinched when the needle pierced his skin, going in and delivering a fast lethal nothingness.

High in the window, the plant wasted away. Yellowed leaves draped lifelessly over the fruit hanging from shriveled vines, the tomatoes themselves in a state of putrid decay.

she was screaming she was screaming she was screaming

The walls were burning, the whole house was burning down. The fire consumed everything. Paisley wallpaper blistered and curled under the agonizing heat, only to be be devoured by the flames, which moved on to the plaster underneath.

her skin was blue black purple fingers white hands red flecks of rust brown on her thighs nails face shoulder where he bit deep

Through the window glowed an eerie orange red. They wondered, through the horror of it all, if that was what the sun looked like.

voice hoarse she begged screaming begged but he was

he was

he was going to tear her apart

The plant fell, ethereal in the amber light, hitting the floor with enough force to smash it. Shards of terracotta bounced away, dried peat spilling out onto the ground. A twisted mass of roots lay exposed, too overgrown for the pot it had been contained in.

HOW DO YOU LIKE IT KITTY

He looked at the tomatoes, specks of mold on the splitting wrinkled skin. Unable to resist, he stepped on one, watching as it burst open, grinding the rotting flesh into the carpet. The heat was unbearable.

she wasnt kitty she was just some bitch but when he touched her she was kitty and she was this girl but when she screamed she was kitty and

There were bars over the window.

For a second Duo was surprised when they brought this particular cyborg, 5-B, back. It was the same being, the same memories, same destiny... Then the moment passed and Duo was not surprised at all. This was only one of a series of repetitions. Subtle changes that did not divert from the role it would ultimately play.

Once again Duo waited, feeling memories play out once more, this time more violent than the last. He knew what these scientists were trying to do, and it was disgusting. They thought that they could circumvent the true order of things, and they would certainly fail.

In their failure, Duo had found a potential tool for his own purpose.

These humans never had a hope of cracking through Paradigm City. They couldn't understand the cycle, much less control it. Much less end it.

But a Megadeus might. If Big Duo could control the pilot controlling him, there was a possibility that...

Duo could only hope that when the time came, the cyborg wouldn't be completely rotted.

As Alex Rosewater would say, there was no need for Agent 271 to be concerned with memories. Aside from volunteering to be a spy in Paradigm City, and later an ambassador for the negotiations between the Union and Paradigm Corporation, his own memories were nothing significant. After Rosewater's men had made him into something entirely new, he'd become more and more convinced that there were no memories from 40 years ago... at least, not in Paradigm City.

They stood on the roof of one of Paradigm Corporations many offices, Mr. Rosewater and 271- - 5-B- - Alan Gabriel- - whatever they called him now. He watched Rosewater through a veil of black cloth. The blindfold hid the features of his artificial face, unnerved others, and inexplicably reminded him of death. He loved it.

Negotiations were beginning to unravel, but Rosewater already had what he wanted. He watched the fight off in the distance, rhythmically tensing and relaxing the grip on the tomato he held. The ripe fruit bruised under his fingers, and while Rosewater failed to notice, Alan Gabriel was captivated by this.

"Let us have the military police retrieve our three gifts from abroad," he said finally, turning away from the Megadeus battle. He casually tossed the tomato. Alan caught it in his robotic hand, careful not to pierce the tender skin, and grinned.