"Renegade"
Roguegirl 37
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or it's characters. However, this story is mine for anyone to enjoy. You don't like my ideas or the story, don't read it!
Summary: An X-6 examines her dream of freedom.
Spoilers/Timeframe: Occurs during "Designate This".
Rating: PG 13
*****
I am an X-6, known by most as X-6817. But there was another name I used to call myself, one that no one knew other than me, one that no one could ever know. Not until I was free. It was a silly little name I'd made up to call myself. A name a lonely little X-6 would invent to remind, or hope for, a better life, a life Outside of Manticore. I am Ren, short for renegade. Which I was, there was no other way to describe me other than the great Houdini. I used that as my unofficial last name. I am Renegade Houdini, escape artist extraordinaire! I loved that name, though I'd get my hide skinned, if anyone ever found out my name. No matter what my teachers taught me, I knew there was more to me than just an identification number.
Lydecker had a name, and some of the guards I knew had one for certain. Thus, it made sense that I should have one as well. Since no one was there to tell me what it was, I gave myself one. I couldn't tell anyone of course, I would have been in enough trouble to last 10 X-6's a month! So I pretty much shut up about that. In fact, I shut up about a lot of things, mainly my plans for escape.
You think you have a hard life? Hah! At least you had a childhood! Mine was a soldier's life from day one. A horrible one at that. I didn't make it very pleasant for my commanders either, which probably is why I hated it so much. Let's just say I liked to keep the guards on their toes, and the commanders up at night wondering what I was scheming, or whether my door had been locked properly, the new security cameras installed by my cot, the lasers on alert and so on. You learn to hate something or someone, and your thoughts start to wander towards that freedom door more and more...
I've always had the urge to escape, ever since I can remember the dream. It was real I'm sure, but it never came like a normal memory. It was fragmented and showed up in my dreams. But I knew it was no dream, I still had the scar left from the punishment 11 years before. And I remembered very clearly getting it. I guess you could call me the black sheep of the X- 6's and I wasn't terribly fond of the whole duty to Manticore thing either. Which frankly means Manticore couldn't keep even the smallest drop of duty in me for any price or punishment. Duty to Manticore as a soldier? Ha!
I could blame the urge to escape the only home I've ever known, to having strange dreams, to be an outcast by the other X-6's, and have harsher training without any friendship from anyone on the X-5's, but it wouldn't be fair. They hadn't even known I existed before they were wiped out of my life forever. Or maybe not forever, I still thought of them late at night when the rest were all sleeping.
When I thought of them, I'd remember the dreams and how it had all happened. I was just a little one then. I didn't need a lot of sleep, unlike most of my siblings, and for that reason I was full of energy and curiosity after lights out. Which is how this whole thing started. I really had admired the X-5's. The way they trusted each other and even followed one of their own, without him being even officially designated as leader surprised me. More than that they used the terms "brother" and "sister" with each other. Words I did not recognize, but could sense the meaning behind them: love, though I had no clear concept of what that was.
But the X-6's were different, we were brought up to fight against each other, to be competitive not friends with each other. It was very competitive between us. All of us were trying to be the best at everything, whether it was the fastest runner or just standing in line the straightest. It was pretty fierce, everyone competing for a commander's favor or the right to call themselves the best at something. The atmosphere between us was pretty cold.
Not that we weren't capable of working in a group or in synchronized partners. There was just no love, or a wanting to share something special. Nothing except desire to excel... We respected each other, and would follow a designated leader, but no more than that.
Sometimes I'd peek out the door to watch the night janitor's work. Still too small then to be at height of the small window, or even grab hold of the door knob, I'd climb up, using a nearby cot to give me a boost up to the door knob. From there, using all the balance I possessed, I would stand with one foot balanced on the knob, letting the rest of my small weight rest on the inch thick sill of the window. It was a precarious position and left me exposed to someone looking and seeing me but I liked it. Even then, I'd had an itch to get away from my room, my teachers, the people who controlled I life. Call me a rebel, cause that was probably exactly what I was.
X-6 life was dull and lonely. I was so small and the X-6's never did any of the good stuff that the X-5's did. To me they were older and better in every way. They had lots of fun in my small eyes. I'd look across the hall to the other door across from mine, inside was a full squadron of those big X-5's. Thanks to my night vision I could see much that went on in that room by looking through their window. I'd see them sit up and talk to each other, and do so many other things. Things I had never had done with my peers or would ever do from the look of it. All they thought of was the enemy and obeying orders to the fullest. It irritated me; the X-5's certainly didn't obey all the orders if they were up at night.
It was on one of these nights, when I was watching them that they escaped. The day that changed everything for me. The day that the Manticore people tried so hard for years to make me forget. But I could not forget it completely. They'd tried their best, the Manticore people, but somehow a small part remained, resurfacing every once and awhile in my dreams. They'd brainwashed me after the incident of course, even given me extensive mental therapy to make me think I'd made it all up, but somehow I knew that what I saw was true. I'd held on to that fact for years, protecting it and nursing it fiercely.
I remembered watching the door fixedly, and then the X-5's would be opening the door and were pouring out of the room. It had surprised me so much then, that I'd fallen from my perch, not noticing the pain in my side as I started to pound on the door as hard as my little fists could, yelling for one of them to open the door and let me come, too. The doorknob was just a bit to far out of reach for me, and besides, it was locked. I heard the sirens go off, the pounding of many booted feet and faintly, the sound of glass breaking. They found me soon after, still pounding on the door and crying for someone to let me out. The guards had handed me to Lydecker who had given me the biggest punishment any X-6 had ever received.
They had forbade me to talk of it, and little was made known to the other X- 6's other than the fact that security had been stepped up tremendously. A fly couldn't get in or out undetected anymore. But no matter how they tried to make me forget or break me, I'd remember and my desire to escape became stronger instead of weaker as the years went by. Because I'd always remember that the X-5's had had a reason to leave and I found, as the years went by, one, too.
I wanted freedom from routine, to see the Outside and fight my own battles, not just the ones they told me to and how to do them. I had a secret, too, that pushed me towards freedom every time I thought of it. I'd overheard something no X was ever supposed to hear, the X-5's were never recaptured. That gave me hope that there as something good Outside waiting for me if only I could get to it.
Because of this incident many things changed. The X-6's were taught more fiercely of duty and less of brotherhood. "Sister" and "brother" were words that were never taught to them, they were taught to do no more than trust one another, never to love or even let things like friends interfere with their training. It was a sign of a weak soldier and was followed by a harsh punishment. For that reason, there was nothing more than a vague comradeship between the X-6's. Even less comradeship between me and my peers. Sometimes I got the impression that they hated me. I could feel the hostility in their eyes when they were paired up with me, I could never trust them completely not to ruin a mission to get at me.
I'd tolerated it all, these last 11 years, distancing myself from them and plotting my escape. I'd hatch different plans for escaping, all of them so far had failed. 5 years ago, I'd just about made it to the window, having already taken a few doses of tranquilizer before I'd been grabbed by the guards, my limbs having given out, screaming as loud as I could, hand outstretched towards the unattainable window. But that had been only one of many throughout the years. I'd be good and quiet for a while but then the urge would come and I'd hatch another plan. I was still kept in a dorm with other X-6's; there was no better way to keep me in line. What X-6 would pass up the chance to report on one of their misbehaving peers and perhaps gain favor from the Manticore personnel. You just didn't pass that up when you were an X-6. Which made my job way difficult, trying to escape on my own.
In the last few years though, there had been no escapes, I was quietly waiting my chance, and gaining trust from the Manticore personnel. One day soon, I would escape and I would never be found, just like the X-5's had done.
Then the miracle happened. The X-5's came back. They had blown up the genetics lab, and I'd used that confusion, while the X-6's were released, to escape. I was passing unnoticed through the woods following the renegade X-5, behind another X-7 I knew was bent on taking the X-5 down. If necessary I would stop the other X-7, perhaps gain favor in this X-5's eyes. But I'd been too far behind and when the two had faced each other, I'd been powerless to stop the bullet from entering the X-5's heart. I lay hidden, watching as the events unfolded, men crying over her, then being forced to leave the body. I should have used the time to escape, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the girl lying there on the ground, dead, and yet had such an effect on people that they expressed emotion, over a body. It didn't make any sense, what were these tears for, why the tender eyes? What did that mean? Was that what the Outside was like?
I thirsted to know but it was too late now. I'd missed my chance, others were coming, I could not escape tonight. The loss fell heavily in my heart, I cursed myself for being so stupid. The objective was freedom, the mission was escape, and I'd failed. That hurt deep, and for the first time in my life that I could remember, I sobbed silently on my cot, thinking of the disgrace of it all.
I saw the X-5 again, once, alive somehow, but probably changed by now. They'd have broken her, forced her to submit. So I planned another escape, determined to find a way. Not long after the X-5's capture, she escaped again. I was outside with the group that was supposed to "bring her down" but it was all just a trap to make it look realistic. We weren't supposed to catch her just chase her till she led the Manticore people to a very special man.
v I wanted to shout out, warn her, but I was not given the chance, before she hopped over the fence and was gone. I was desperate for escape. I began to jump up high, soaring through the air and over the fence, when another X- 7 began to drag me back down. Once again I'd been stopped, but this time I was through with being good. I attacked the other X-7 with all my might, it was a hard battle but I fought with pent-up fury. Fury I'd kept inside me for 11 years and freedom being denied to me by one of my own! I was still pounding at her unconscious form when they finally tore me away; I hadn't even realized I'd knocked her unconscious in my rage.
I was hauled to the basement, where the nomalies were kept. I wasn't afraid of them, I'd been down there too many times already, but this time it would be permanent. I was kind of a returning customer, you might say. I was still sitting on my cot in my cell, fuming over the idiot who had stopped me when I caught a whiff of smoke.
It was fire! The building was burning and I was trapped inside! I pounded on the door, screaming for anyone to let me out. Calling on who ever was out there to release me, I didn't want to die, not yet, not like this.
Then wonder of wonders, a miracle happened, the door swung open! I was free, with the other nomalies and monsters at my heels, I charged out of the building. I was free and no one could stop me! I passed over the perimeter fence, gloating in the sensation of knowing no one would ever stop me again, I was free! As I landed on the other side of the fence, I looked back, knowing that whatever happened on the Outside, I would NEVER return to that forsaken place. No one could ever make me go back.
Whatever the future held, I was ready for it!
The End
Roguegirl 37
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or it's characters. However, this story is mine for anyone to enjoy. You don't like my ideas or the story, don't read it!
Summary: An X-6 examines her dream of freedom.
Spoilers/Timeframe: Occurs during "Designate This".
Rating: PG 13
*****
I am an X-6, known by most as X-6817. But there was another name I used to call myself, one that no one knew other than me, one that no one could ever know. Not until I was free. It was a silly little name I'd made up to call myself. A name a lonely little X-6 would invent to remind, or hope for, a better life, a life Outside of Manticore. I am Ren, short for renegade. Which I was, there was no other way to describe me other than the great Houdini. I used that as my unofficial last name. I am Renegade Houdini, escape artist extraordinaire! I loved that name, though I'd get my hide skinned, if anyone ever found out my name. No matter what my teachers taught me, I knew there was more to me than just an identification number.
Lydecker had a name, and some of the guards I knew had one for certain. Thus, it made sense that I should have one as well. Since no one was there to tell me what it was, I gave myself one. I couldn't tell anyone of course, I would have been in enough trouble to last 10 X-6's a month! So I pretty much shut up about that. In fact, I shut up about a lot of things, mainly my plans for escape.
You think you have a hard life? Hah! At least you had a childhood! Mine was a soldier's life from day one. A horrible one at that. I didn't make it very pleasant for my commanders either, which probably is why I hated it so much. Let's just say I liked to keep the guards on their toes, and the commanders up at night wondering what I was scheming, or whether my door had been locked properly, the new security cameras installed by my cot, the lasers on alert and so on. You learn to hate something or someone, and your thoughts start to wander towards that freedom door more and more...
I've always had the urge to escape, ever since I can remember the dream. It was real I'm sure, but it never came like a normal memory. It was fragmented and showed up in my dreams. But I knew it was no dream, I still had the scar left from the punishment 11 years before. And I remembered very clearly getting it. I guess you could call me the black sheep of the X- 6's and I wasn't terribly fond of the whole duty to Manticore thing either. Which frankly means Manticore couldn't keep even the smallest drop of duty in me for any price or punishment. Duty to Manticore as a soldier? Ha!
I could blame the urge to escape the only home I've ever known, to having strange dreams, to be an outcast by the other X-6's, and have harsher training without any friendship from anyone on the X-5's, but it wouldn't be fair. They hadn't even known I existed before they were wiped out of my life forever. Or maybe not forever, I still thought of them late at night when the rest were all sleeping.
When I thought of them, I'd remember the dreams and how it had all happened. I was just a little one then. I didn't need a lot of sleep, unlike most of my siblings, and for that reason I was full of energy and curiosity after lights out. Which is how this whole thing started. I really had admired the X-5's. The way they trusted each other and even followed one of their own, without him being even officially designated as leader surprised me. More than that they used the terms "brother" and "sister" with each other. Words I did not recognize, but could sense the meaning behind them: love, though I had no clear concept of what that was.
But the X-6's were different, we were brought up to fight against each other, to be competitive not friends with each other. It was very competitive between us. All of us were trying to be the best at everything, whether it was the fastest runner or just standing in line the straightest. It was pretty fierce, everyone competing for a commander's favor or the right to call themselves the best at something. The atmosphere between us was pretty cold.
Not that we weren't capable of working in a group or in synchronized partners. There was just no love, or a wanting to share something special. Nothing except desire to excel... We respected each other, and would follow a designated leader, but no more than that.
Sometimes I'd peek out the door to watch the night janitor's work. Still too small then to be at height of the small window, or even grab hold of the door knob, I'd climb up, using a nearby cot to give me a boost up to the door knob. From there, using all the balance I possessed, I would stand with one foot balanced on the knob, letting the rest of my small weight rest on the inch thick sill of the window. It was a precarious position and left me exposed to someone looking and seeing me but I liked it. Even then, I'd had an itch to get away from my room, my teachers, the people who controlled I life. Call me a rebel, cause that was probably exactly what I was.
X-6 life was dull and lonely. I was so small and the X-6's never did any of the good stuff that the X-5's did. To me they were older and better in every way. They had lots of fun in my small eyes. I'd look across the hall to the other door across from mine, inside was a full squadron of those big X-5's. Thanks to my night vision I could see much that went on in that room by looking through their window. I'd see them sit up and talk to each other, and do so many other things. Things I had never had done with my peers or would ever do from the look of it. All they thought of was the enemy and obeying orders to the fullest. It irritated me; the X-5's certainly didn't obey all the orders if they were up at night.
It was on one of these nights, when I was watching them that they escaped. The day that changed everything for me. The day that the Manticore people tried so hard for years to make me forget. But I could not forget it completely. They'd tried their best, the Manticore people, but somehow a small part remained, resurfacing every once and awhile in my dreams. They'd brainwashed me after the incident of course, even given me extensive mental therapy to make me think I'd made it all up, but somehow I knew that what I saw was true. I'd held on to that fact for years, protecting it and nursing it fiercely.
I remembered watching the door fixedly, and then the X-5's would be opening the door and were pouring out of the room. It had surprised me so much then, that I'd fallen from my perch, not noticing the pain in my side as I started to pound on the door as hard as my little fists could, yelling for one of them to open the door and let me come, too. The doorknob was just a bit to far out of reach for me, and besides, it was locked. I heard the sirens go off, the pounding of many booted feet and faintly, the sound of glass breaking. They found me soon after, still pounding on the door and crying for someone to let me out. The guards had handed me to Lydecker who had given me the biggest punishment any X-6 had ever received.
They had forbade me to talk of it, and little was made known to the other X- 6's other than the fact that security had been stepped up tremendously. A fly couldn't get in or out undetected anymore. But no matter how they tried to make me forget or break me, I'd remember and my desire to escape became stronger instead of weaker as the years went by. Because I'd always remember that the X-5's had had a reason to leave and I found, as the years went by, one, too.
I wanted freedom from routine, to see the Outside and fight my own battles, not just the ones they told me to and how to do them. I had a secret, too, that pushed me towards freedom every time I thought of it. I'd overheard something no X was ever supposed to hear, the X-5's were never recaptured. That gave me hope that there as something good Outside waiting for me if only I could get to it.
Because of this incident many things changed. The X-6's were taught more fiercely of duty and less of brotherhood. "Sister" and "brother" were words that were never taught to them, they were taught to do no more than trust one another, never to love or even let things like friends interfere with their training. It was a sign of a weak soldier and was followed by a harsh punishment. For that reason, there was nothing more than a vague comradeship between the X-6's. Even less comradeship between me and my peers. Sometimes I got the impression that they hated me. I could feel the hostility in their eyes when they were paired up with me, I could never trust them completely not to ruin a mission to get at me.
I'd tolerated it all, these last 11 years, distancing myself from them and plotting my escape. I'd hatch different plans for escaping, all of them so far had failed. 5 years ago, I'd just about made it to the window, having already taken a few doses of tranquilizer before I'd been grabbed by the guards, my limbs having given out, screaming as loud as I could, hand outstretched towards the unattainable window. But that had been only one of many throughout the years. I'd be good and quiet for a while but then the urge would come and I'd hatch another plan. I was still kept in a dorm with other X-6's; there was no better way to keep me in line. What X-6 would pass up the chance to report on one of their misbehaving peers and perhaps gain favor from the Manticore personnel. You just didn't pass that up when you were an X-6. Which made my job way difficult, trying to escape on my own.
In the last few years though, there had been no escapes, I was quietly waiting my chance, and gaining trust from the Manticore personnel. One day soon, I would escape and I would never be found, just like the X-5's had done.
Then the miracle happened. The X-5's came back. They had blown up the genetics lab, and I'd used that confusion, while the X-6's were released, to escape. I was passing unnoticed through the woods following the renegade X-5, behind another X-7 I knew was bent on taking the X-5 down. If necessary I would stop the other X-7, perhaps gain favor in this X-5's eyes. But I'd been too far behind and when the two had faced each other, I'd been powerless to stop the bullet from entering the X-5's heart. I lay hidden, watching as the events unfolded, men crying over her, then being forced to leave the body. I should have used the time to escape, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the girl lying there on the ground, dead, and yet had such an effect on people that they expressed emotion, over a body. It didn't make any sense, what were these tears for, why the tender eyes? What did that mean? Was that what the Outside was like?
I thirsted to know but it was too late now. I'd missed my chance, others were coming, I could not escape tonight. The loss fell heavily in my heart, I cursed myself for being so stupid. The objective was freedom, the mission was escape, and I'd failed. That hurt deep, and for the first time in my life that I could remember, I sobbed silently on my cot, thinking of the disgrace of it all.
I saw the X-5 again, once, alive somehow, but probably changed by now. They'd have broken her, forced her to submit. So I planned another escape, determined to find a way. Not long after the X-5's capture, she escaped again. I was outside with the group that was supposed to "bring her down" but it was all just a trap to make it look realistic. We weren't supposed to catch her just chase her till she led the Manticore people to a very special man.
v I wanted to shout out, warn her, but I was not given the chance, before she hopped over the fence and was gone. I was desperate for escape. I began to jump up high, soaring through the air and over the fence, when another X- 7 began to drag me back down. Once again I'd been stopped, but this time I was through with being good. I attacked the other X-7 with all my might, it was a hard battle but I fought with pent-up fury. Fury I'd kept inside me for 11 years and freedom being denied to me by one of my own! I was still pounding at her unconscious form when they finally tore me away; I hadn't even realized I'd knocked her unconscious in my rage.
I was hauled to the basement, where the nomalies were kept. I wasn't afraid of them, I'd been down there too many times already, but this time it would be permanent. I was kind of a returning customer, you might say. I was still sitting on my cot in my cell, fuming over the idiot who had stopped me when I caught a whiff of smoke.
It was fire! The building was burning and I was trapped inside! I pounded on the door, screaming for anyone to let me out. Calling on who ever was out there to release me, I didn't want to die, not yet, not like this.
Then wonder of wonders, a miracle happened, the door swung open! I was free, with the other nomalies and monsters at my heels, I charged out of the building. I was free and no one could stop me! I passed over the perimeter fence, gloating in the sensation of knowing no one would ever stop me again, I was free! As I landed on the other side of the fence, I looked back, knowing that whatever happened on the Outside, I would NEVER return to that forsaken place. No one could ever make me go back.
Whatever the future held, I was ready for it!
The End