It's quiet up here.
Against the horizon there's a line of black. I've been up here watching the sun fall for hours now, sliding down the wall of the world. Only just starting to lose itself, drowning silently beneath the mirror of ocean and cloud. A breeze is picking up, coldly curious at my bare arms but I haven't gone inside. It smells like rain.
Somebody else could be sitting right beside me, seeing the same things I'm seeing and I can just imagine them finally turning to me. Isn't it gorgeous, they'd say. It's so peaceful here.
Peace. Not something you get just from looking at something pretty and thinking ... that's beautiful. Sun and water and me on this roof, looking out over all of it like I orchestrated the event.
His eyes were brown. I've been trained to perfect recall, you know, among other things they perfect me for. Brown, and not the light haze that in certain lights looks green. These were solid nuggets of earth, a secret deepness. Black curly hair, a darker complexion than mine although that isn't hard. I'd even say he's a bit younger than me, but I'd have to have seen his hands better to tell for sure.
Only saw him for a minute though, a portrait of a boy framed in wire mesh. There and then - gone. Swallowed into the adults that walked him out of the training arena. Or perhaps he was the one to walk out and they had to follow. Who's to say? The effect was the same regardless of intention.
I don't know if he saw me. Crouched in the ventilation duct, painting my own portrait of myself in darkness. If I was him, I would like to think I would have seen me. I don't know though. I could be fooling myself that I'm better.
Sit here, watch the sun and the quiet and the setting sky. Because I'm thinking, like they trained me to think. To pull fact, thought, intuition, knowledge... pull it out of the air to hold in my hand and say - this is a truth. Even though I can't see it. Even though all I have is a snapshot of a boy that I do not know, in a place that isn't mine, surrounded by men that dwarfed him.
The knowledge that says they're training him to be me.
If I fail, he will be me. A me with brown eyes and curly hair and hands that might or might not be smaller than mine.
You'd think it's peaceful up here, wouldn't you? Just the sky and the cold air, and the sun melting into red wax on a mirror.
Extrapolation is a good word. It says if there is one, then there are others. One for each of us, and probably more. Splinter cells they're called - separated so that a failure in one does not compromise the series. I would think at least triple redundancy, but I do not yet know enough about their absolute requirements to say with any certainty. It is an interesting problem, with complex variables. Which of the many traits we have are the most important?
Blinding reflexes, flexible strength, exquisite dexterity. Analytical, logical thought. Interpolative, intuitive reasoning processes. Spatial perceptions, conceptualizations. How many have what is necessary, in the degree to which they must be present? Much, much less than one percent of the population. Of that very small number, how many are children young enough to be used? And of those, how many have parents that love them, and refuse to give them up?
There's a better than even chance that ISO is just taking them. It's a cold thought, but logical. Utterly, correctly logical.
If I fail... if I die, will my cell die with me? The viable culture they have built around me, to support me in what I must do. Could the boy with the brown eyes step into my place, into my cell, and survive?
Unlikely in the extreme. The worst diseases are caused when the body attacks itself.
I know my scores. I know how the others test as well. It is important, they say, for me to know how the others operate, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what mine are. Our scores... are beyond good. We all regularily register off the charts but I had to dig to find that out. That part, they were not willing to share.
On the basis of those results, through the filter of my perceptions, then we are the alpha team. It is likely that the boy I saw is the beta leader. With his brown eyes and black hair and the straightness of his back.
Because even with scores off the edge of the map they still plan for the moment when I will fail and my cell splinters around me.
A noise to my right, a mouse scratching catches my attention. When the trap door swings open I'm not surprised, even though it makes a hard sound in the silence around me. Don't have to look over to know who they've sent to bring me down from my perch. I've been up here for a long time. They're probably worried.
"Ken. It's time to come in, it's getting late. Dinner will be on the table soon."
"Yes, Hakase. I'll be right there."
Don't move though. There's still a sliver of sun left, a red smear on the mirror.
There's a hesitation on his part. Deliberate? Who knows. But I file it away. I can feel him staring out where I am looking, perhaps trying to see what I see. Yet when he speaks, his voice is neutral.
"Come inside, Ken. There's a storm coming."
Look at the line of darkness against the horizon, it's cool fingers reaching out across the distance to touch my hair. The air smells like rain.
"Yes Hakase. I know."
This story, set in the world of Gatchaman, was totally inspired by... nay, ripped off entirely from NinjaSam, AKA Samantha Winchester who has too many damned ideas to possibly have enough of a lifetime left to write them all herself. So she let me borrow this one, because she's sweet.
Thank you Sammer! this was a real plot bunny, hmm?