Chapter 17

"Your mother works here?" Laura asked me.

After I had finished talking with my mother, I had been escorted back to the room by two Erasers and was roughly thrown into my cage. Once they had left I sat in silence before Laura asked me the question.

"Yeah," I said, letting the disgust showing in my voice, "I never knew. It disgusts me that she can work in a place like this, with everything they do. She knew what they did, yet her ambition over-ruled her sense of righteousness. The mother I had known was kind and caring. The person she's become now is the complete opposite."

"Why?" Laura asked, "Why did she get involved in the first place?"

"For me," I replied, sorrow in my voice, "She wanted to help me by curing my ability. She did all of this to find the cure for me and I threw it back in her face."

"I wish I even had a mother," Laura replied, "But I'm still a nobody with a name. I'm just an image of another person. I don't belong anywhere."

I lay down on my cage floor, my folded wings cushioning my back from the cold steel floor. I leaned my head back on my hands and propped my feet on the ground with my knees bent to fit in the cage. I lay there for a moment before I spoke again.

"You aren't just an image of another person," I replied, "You were created to look like the original, trained to be like her, but you aren't really her, you have your own personality. You don't have to be her. A friend would be better. If you ever find her again, become her friend."

I smiled to myself, but she must have caught a glimpse of it from where she sat in her cage.

"What are you smiling about?" She asked curious about what was on my mind.

"Well, in the real world," I answered, "There are people who look exactly alike, but have different personalities. They are called identical twins. Laura, you are the girl's identical twin. I just thought of that. What is the girl's name? The one you were made to replace?"

"Keira," She replied, "That was her name. I was named Keira II, not very original, don't you agree?" She fell silent thinking about what I had said, and then asked, "What are we going to do now?"

"I don't know," I replied, "You said when you were being trained they gave the experiments who were co-operative rooms of their own and free access to areas around the place, right?"

"Yeah," Laura replied, "What are you getting at?"

"If I can become trusted," I said, "I could get access to places around Haven. While they train me, I could plan an escape."

"An average plan," Laura replied, "Except you forgot one thing. I'm not going to be trusted. They have me scheduled for termination. I won't be around for much longer."

"I don't think they want you dead yet," Nathan replied with a smile, "Let's just say I have a hunch they want to study you're new personality, how you are able to cope with emotions you haven't felt in years."

"Really?" Laura asked playfully, "And how good are your hunches?"

"They're normally correct," I replied, "This I'm certain of. Call it a foresight."

Laura smiled and I smiled back. I rolled over onto my side and thought about everything that had happened, about all I had given up and what I missed about normal life. I never thought I'd prefer a boring life to this. I wanted adventure, now I had a nightmare to live. Sometimes I don't know when to leave things as they are. Fate had a complex and twisted destiny for me. I had enough to ponder and I suspected tomorrow was going to be a busy day, so I curled up and went to sleep, not realizing the wings folding around me naturally as if I had them all my life.

Chapter 18

"Come on," The Eraser snarled at me, "I thought you were tougher than this. The Erasers said you were a hard one to take down, that you killed Miguel. But that was with a gun wasn't it? Now what are you going to do? You don't have any guns."

I rolled my eyes to annoy him even more and stood my ground waiting for him to attack first. I had learnt in fights at school to never make the first move, let them go first. I didn't have to wait long as the Erasers swung a foot up towards my left cheek. I ducked below it and rammed my foot up into his stomach, hearing the air rush out his lungs as I winded him and sent him flying backwards. A second Eraser attacked me from the left, but I saw the small movement before he lunged, grabbed his wrist as he was about to hit, and swung him, using his own weight against him, into the first Eraser that was still recovering. The third Eraser go lucky, placing a well aimed punch on my right side ribs. A pain stabbed through me as I heard the bone crack, but not break. Training was always like this.

I had been here for a total of three days, I found out, before they had deemed me well enough to start their sick and twisted tests. First they decided to see if my strength and speed were the same as the others who were born with wings, and that's started with an hour long fight with three erasers, fun.

The third Eraser was about to take another swing at me until I recovered and blocked out the pain, striking back with a fist of my own that smashed into his jaw, knocking out a few teeth with the force. He staggered back, reeling from the blow. The first and second of the group were just recovering and I shifted my attention to them while keeping my eye of the third one. They attacked both at the same time, the third one joining in soon after as they attacked me from three directions. I blocked the first attack and struck back at the Eraser, cracking his ribs from a well placed round house kick and spun my attention to the second Erasers as he sent a fist flying. I ducked to the side, rolling under the attack and kicked up, performing the nut cruncher maneuver and the Eraser went down with a painful look on his face. The third Eraser had been put off by my roll from the previous attack, but recovered quickly to lunge at me, tackling me down to the ground, arms pinned under his own ones, legs held down by his. I was well and truly pinned.

"How are you getting out of this one?" The Eraser asked, "No experiment has been able to. I doubt you would."

"Oh, please," Nathan said, "I've fought in enough school fights to learn a few tricks. The first of those tricks is this…"

As I finished talking to him, I spat in his face, fighting dirty. Hey, Erasers got to fight dirty, they could transform at will, so why wasn't I allowed to use a few dirty tricks. As I expected the Eraser let go of my arms to wipe his face and that gave me the chance I needed. I aimed a fist at his stomach and punched it hard enough to make the guy gag from the force. The second punch I landed on his face, smashing his cheek to the side and hearing his jaw bone crack, possibly break from the punch. As he reared back in pain, his half transformed claws slashed me across the chest, leaving three crimson lines staining my shirt red and blood drip through the holes of the shirt.

"Enough," A voice barked out over the intercom high in the ceiling above. They had all been watching the fight from the room next door, through the one way glass, "Sessions over. Report to the infirmary to get your wounds checked."

I smirked. The guy on the other end of the intercom sounded really annoyed that I had won. Maybe they had a bet going on, seeing who would win and placing bets on whether it would be me or the Erasers. Well I had won, so I wonder how much money people would have lost? I dragged myself down the infirmary, my breath wasshort from the pain in my right ribs. The slash marks I could ignore, they were minor and were practically healed, because of the change. I still called it a change because that's what it was, but I might as well call it the death of my old self.

The doctors checked my wounds and ordered me to lie still on the examining table as her took x-ray's of my right ribs to see if they were broken. He got some swabs and cleaned the blood off my chest and cut off my last remaining shirt from the outside world. It was going to be so hard to replace that now I'm here.

"Well you are lucky," The doctor said, "Your ribs aren't broken, although there are about three that have been cracked and a fourth that has been bruised. I'd hate to see what you've done to the Erasers."

He had barely spoken the words when the Erasers walked in through the door. One was staggering around, his pain evident on his face and I guessed he was the one I had hit in the sore spot. Another was lying limp between the two of them, this one's jaw was clearly broken and he did not look very good, blood dripping from his mouth. The third one had a bright red mark on his head and wandered around as if in a daze and I guessed I must have given him a concussion.

"Thanks doc," I replied, "I'm Nathan. I think you might be seeing me often enough to be able to call me that. I'm already beginning to hate this place."

"It'll only get worse," The doc said, warning me, "It always gets worse. You seem a nice kid, Nathan, even if your mother works here. I just feel sorry you got involved."

As soon as I heard my mother mentioned I continued on my way back to my cage under escort by two Erasers. When the doctor had mentioned my mothers name, I guessed she had pulled a few strings to make sure I wasn't treated as rough as the others. Gee thanks mom, I thought, you're the one who got me into this mess in the first place my creating that drug which changed me.

I was shoved into my cage and then left alone, Laura had disappeared out of her cage, takensomewhere. I hoped it wasn't to be terminated…