A/N: Guys guys guys! Guess what?? I finished my novel!! Which means I can write this again! Whooohoo! *FantasyFan5 runs in circles as readers just stare*
I'm so freaking excited. So now that my novel is in the editing stage rather than being written every day and night (no kidding) I have more free time! (Who cares that I'm going to fail my physics project? Actually....uh...heh heh...change of subject!)
Okay, so not going to lie...I feel terrible for leaving it THIS long...I mean, really? That's just despicable. *cringe* So I give you fifteen secrets rather than ten to attempt to account for it. Please please please don't hate me.
So...15 Secrets of Anne.
One: Anne has always had it good - she was born into a rich family in Massachusetts and was the stereotypical spoiled American little girl. She was given everything that she could ever want as a child - new toys, a television, anything. She was always 'Daddy's little girl', and she loved her dad as much as she loved herself, maybe more. Her mother, on the other hand, was not Anne's favorite person. Anne wanted a mother like she saw on TV - someone that would love her, and care for her, and have baked cookies ready when she came home from school. Instead, she had a mother that would be talking on her cell phone when the chauffeur dropped her off at her front door, who would wave impatiently at her when Anne wanted to talk, and never gave her a second thought as she obsessed over her first love - her work. Look at me! Anne wanted to scream. Pay attention to me! I'm your daughter, shouldn't you care?
But nothing ever worked.
Two: As much as Anne disliked her mother, she wanted to please her. She wanted to do something that would make her mother notice her. But nothing worked - not her straight As, not the awards that she brought home from her prestigious New York boarding school. "That's nice, honey," her mother would say, looking straight through her as if she wasn't there. And so Anne pushed herself to be perfect, the best that she could ever be, on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, her mother would notice.
Three: Anne never wanted to go into science. All that she wanted to do was teach - to impart her knowledge to smiling children each day. To her, it seemed like a dream job. However, when she told her mother the Ice Queen that, she was immediately shot down. "No," her mother told her. "That's out of the question."
"Why?" Sixteen year old Anne protested. "Why can't I be a teacher? What's wrong with that?"
Her mother looked at her disdainfully. Anne noticed with disgust her perfect hair and complexion. What a control freak. "What's wrong with it?" Her mother repeated. "Anne, look around you." She waved a hand around the massive dining room that they were seated in. The table was covered with a pristine white tablecloth, which was laid with the finest china. The area was lit with a chandelier of the finest Austrian crystal. "Do you think that we would be able to pay for this if your father and I were both teachers?" She snorted. "No. Absolutely not. Teaching is a profession for the poor, and you are above that. You have class."
"I can have class and be a teacher, mother," Anne argued. Her mother cut a green bean into pieces and looked up at Anne again, her blue eyes two twin chips of ice.
"This family has prestige, Anne Elizabeth," her mother said firmly. "We have a name, we have a reputation. You will not mess it up." And with that, she pushed her chair back from the table, leaving the rest of her dinner untouched. The clicking sound of her designer shoes against the floor receded gradually as she left the room. Anne remained seated, staring at her plate, and wished she was someone else.
Four: Even when she went to college - majoring in science - and realized that nothing she was could do would make her mother see sense, her desire for perfection was now ingrained in her. Rather than going out and partying on Fridays and Saturdays with the rest of the Wellesley girls, she stayed alone in her room and studied, memorizing the ins and outs of genetics, running small experiments in her room with plants. Against her will, she was interested. Part of her still screamed that this wasn't what she wanted to do, but she silenced it. It would do her no good - her parents refused to pay unless she majored in science and went on to graduate school.
So a scientist she became.
Five: She chose Itex as a job when she was twenty five years old. Anne had always been the slightly awkward one in social situations, and sat by herself with a notebook at the orientation, writing random thoughts as they entered her head. Because of her research on genetics during college and graduate school, she was almost instantly tapped to join the team of scientists who wanted to create a new species all together. The prospect excited her, made her feel like she was doing something important. At first, it was like a new, exciting game, something to challenge her. But as the days melted into weeks, which drifted into months, it began to show its ugly underside.
Six: The very first experiment that they created, a human/piscis hybrid, was a complete failure. It hadn't turned out quite the way that they had expected it to - instead of it having merely webbed feet and hands and fish eyes, it also had gills. By the time that they had recognized that important fact, it had already died.
Anne's world came crashing down as she watched something that she had brought to life die because of her own mistake.
Seven: She hates herself. She hates herself for not trusting her instincts and becoming a teacher, like she wanted to. She hates herself for making mistakes that cost other living creatures their lives. She hates herself for not doing the right thing and just walking away, quitting her job, refusing to create more failures. She hates herself for doing nothing as experiments die, watching her with eyes that ask the same question.
The guilt eats away at her like acid, burning a hole through her heart.
Eight: She can't deal with all of the self hate. It has to go somewhere. And so she pushes it off onto the experiments, the only things that she can think of as below herself. She pushes them through test after test, watches them under magnifying glasses and takes endless notes. They're nothing, she tells herself. They're not even human. I'm so much better than them. By hating them, for a little, she doesn't have to hate herself as much.
But then she goes home, and sits in her empty house alone, and the hatred swallows her whole again.
Nine: She offered to be the primary caretaker of the clone of the first human/avian hybrid to see if some of the pressure could be lifted off of her chest. Maybe if she was able to show love to this...creature? Human? She could start healing herself, begin to fix the hole in her heart. For awhile, it worked. The clone adored her, and she could feel herself becoming attached to it as well. Little by little, the hole healed, until she was herself again. She was Anne.
Then Max II discovered she was a clone, and the eyes that had once looked at Anne for reassurance, with love, now turned on her with the same hate she normally reserved for other scientists.
Why was it that she could do nothing right?
Ten: She's jealous of Jeb. That's right, you heard her. He somehow found it in him to do the right thing - to let experiments escape. Why hadn't she thought of that? He managed to give them a life. She had no idea that he actually cared for the experiments - she could only think of them as experiments, thinking of them as anything close to human would undo her - all that Anne saw was Jeb absolving himself of the same guilt that she felt every day.
She wished with all her heart that she could do the same.
Eleven: Eventually, her ambition paid off. She became Director of the American Itex.
She didn't care.
Twelve: The Erasers scare her half to death. She's beyond glad that she didn't have to deal with that particular development. Successful they were, yes. But by the age of three they were all murderous monsters. She suspected that if given the chance, they would turn on the scientists themselves. She always, always gave them a wide berth, and only dealt with them if she could help it. She thought that they could sense her fear.
Whoever gave them that wolf-like ability, she would like to see.
Thirteen: Finally, her chance came to rid herself of the guilt that she had wallowed in for so long.
She was called one Thursday morning around two years after Jeb had returned from freeing the avians. "Anne?" said a brisk female voice. "This is Marian Janssen. I'm sure you're on top of the situation with the avians on your end?"
Of course she was. Did this woman think that she was stupid? But Anne bit her tongue, as she always did, and replied, "Yes, of course. Why?"
"We've decided we'd like to see how they relate to human beings. We're going to put them in a private school, there's one all set up near you already. It was created a few years back; we've given it an outstanding reputation already. All that's left is a place for them to 'stay' during the experiment. As you're the head of the American Itex, you have been chosen."
Anne felt the beginnings of a smile cross her face, but she kept the smile out of her voice. "Excellent," she told the German Director. "When does the test start?"
"We'll get a hold of you," the other woman said. "Clear? Good. Goodbye." And with a click their conversation was over.
Anne replaced the receiver, letting the smile take over her features. She wouldn't treat these avians like she had the rest of the experiments, she resolved. She would finally put things right. Those things were going to love her.
Fourteen: She did everything for the six kids that she wished her mother would have done for her. She baked them cookies, she made them dinner, she sat and talked to them. Eventually, she forgot that it was even an experiment. She really started thinking of them as her kids, especially the youngest, Ariel. She was so precious. Anne could hardly believe that her colleagues wanted to experiment on this innocent little child.
Slowly, she began to heal with them there. Maybe, she thought, if they were there forever, Anne could come back as well.
Fifteen: Watching them fly was the most breathtaking sight that she had ever had the luck to behold. It was enough to make her wish that she had wings as well, so she could join them up in the boundless blue sky, wheeling above the earth as if nothing could hold them down.
When they left, she was so caught up in watching the mesmerizing, fluid movements of their wings that she almost forgot to be sad.
A/N: Hmm. Well, that was odd. I honestly had no idea how this was going to turn out. Opinions?
The green review button is sick. Quick! Click it to keep it alive! (And me...I die without opinions.)
