Author's Note: Replies

Infinitechange: Thank you! It's always fun to see a new replier! J

Miko Vampire: Rex and Van Kleiss are not going to have a sexual relationship.

Crystal Peak: Your welcome for Rex's emotions, and made this chapter very long! (Mostly because it took me so long to get up). And, the nanite controller will be used soon, maybe the next chapter! J And with Breach knowing how to set up the auto pilot…I guesse she has hidden talents. And yes, uinfact, this is the chapter Van Kleiss does tell us of Rex'x past-most of it.

KaliAnn: Read your trilogy to the second installment. After reading it, I have to say I am even more thrilled that you are interested in my story! Thank you for reading my story! J Also, thank you for the compliments.

Peace/freedom: I loved the Secret Saturadays too, sad that they aren't aired anymore L But, I guesse Six just has a magic ship, 'cause they don't crash. J And thank you, a lot of people like it when Caesar rants about VK. J I like writing it. J

General Zargon: Too fend off you attack, I offer a slightly good chapter for Rex. J And if that does not appease you, I would choose the coleslaw. J I must admit, I laugh at your comments. J So, bring it Pancake Master! And with that, continue to chapter 14, where Rex at least learns a little about himself J

Chapter 14: Because I Said So

Rex was alone in a room. He wasn't in a cell, or under any kind of restraint, which made his stomach turn. There was no need to lock him in. What could he do? Nothing, not with that button on Van Kleiss's arm. Rex lightly touched his left arm where the gauze had been tightly wound around his skin. It wasn't there now-just a thin red line indicating where an incision had been made. Rex probed the wound with his finger.

Suddenly an idea came to Rex. He smiled deviously as he forced his nanites into his skin, sent them searching for the tiny device that was embedded inside him. All he had to do deactivate the tiny machine and he was a free man. The door was wide open, after all.

Just as the blue lines began to trace along him, he heard a dying whir fade and the blue lines faded from his skin. He took his finger away, disappointed. And then he felt it. It was like hot, liquid, lead was being poured into his blood stream. Rex started to shake his arm, trying hard to possibly shake the pain away. He felt it begin to spread through his whole body. He succumbed to the pain and just laid there, groaning. Finally, after what could have been an eternity, Rex felt the heat fade, and then leave him altogether. He laid there for a moment more, taking a deep breath, and then patiently moving his muscles.

"What was that?" Rex asked to himself, filling the silent space with his voice. Rex sat down again on what was supposedly a bed. He threw himself down on the hard, lumpy mattress and put his hands over his face.

A prison without bars, that's where he was. Rex thought about it, and realized with sinking feeling that his own body was like a cell without bars. Rex sat up, tired of his self pity. Just as his feet hit the ground, he saw Van Kleiss enter the door way.

Rex just glared at him. There were no words for the feelings of anger he was currently experiencing.

Van Kleiss shook his head.

"Rex, my little device told me that you have been trying to change its programming. However, I trust that its reaction was enough to detour you from that action," Van Kleiss said.

"You mean setting my insides on fire?" Rex asked.

"All the machine did was raise the temperature of your nanites."

"I felt like you lit me on fire!" Rex said defensively, somehow making it sound threatening as well.

Van Kleiss allowed a smile to bloom across his face.

"How often you remind me of your mother, Rex" he said, shaking his head softly.

Rex was up in a flash, standing up, chest to chest with Van Kleiss.

"Tell. Me. About. My. Parents." He said, etching each word with anger, determination, and somewhere from deep inside, loss.

Van Kleiss looked at Rex for a moment, weighing his options.

"Fine," he said, and Rex found a seat on his uncomfortable bed, Van Kleiss grabbing a small wooden stool that had been discarded in the corner of the room.

"Your mother," Van Kleiss began, "Was a young and beautiful woman. Her name was Violetta. She was artistic and liked jokes. She was smart and wanted to be a doctor, world renowned .She had been hired onto the Nanite Project because she was determined to use nanites as a medical tool. After one year in the Project, she was one of the head doctors. That is where she met Raphael. He was a serious man, and was devoted to his work. He was intent on programming the nanites to their full potential. He was a genius, and the Project was about forty percent faster with the help of one man. The two got married within the year, and on that same year, the Nanite Project was finally given funding. The two became obsessed with their work, having only a few close friends, such as Rylander. In this time, the couple had a brilliant baby boy. His name was Caesar."

(Caesar)

Caesar smashed the computer screen, his fist cracking it into twisted lines. He then looked at the screen with disappointment, looking at the creeping cracks sprouting from the middle. He sat down with a sigh. Running his hand through his wild black hair, he thought about Rex. This wasn't that surprising because that's all he had been thinking of lately, aside from getting him back.

And they had been so close. He had been right there! Agent Six had been with him! He had been so close…They all had. Caesar gazed at the parts of complex looking machinery that surrounded him on the clean white tables. And then there was White, the head honcho. He had just finished speaking with Caesar, and that is where the broken screen had come into being.

"Please, just allow a raid! An army of men! It's for Rex! He's the cure!" Caesar had pleaded, remembering Holiday's main argument.

"We will not send men to die for one teen, no matter who or what he is and can be." White had said, taking a sip of milk.

"Even for the cure of all humanity?" Caesar had said, frustrated.

"The fact remains that he is one rouge teen, and I will not send good men to die," White had answered, setting down the glass, conviction in his voice.

"Please-"

"I said no." White's voice had sternly said, his gaze sharpening on Caesar.

That's when Caesar's vision had blurred, red tingeing as his fist collided with the screen, shutting off the White Knight.

Caesar rubbed both hands against his face, trying to make the last few minutes non-existent, at least in his memory. It didn't work.

Caesar stood up and walked away from his lab, the room suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He walked aimlessly around the building, earning him strange looks, as he hardly ever left his lab. After rounding the same room twice, he passed into the Petting Zoo. He looked at it through a large rectangular window and then noticed Dr. Holiday looking longingly at the Hold. Caesar bit his lip, for the first time understanding some of her pain. Caesar threw of his emotions, and looked at the situation. There was a possibility he could get back Rex, slim but existent. Whereas Dr. Holiday had only an EVO who had once been her sister.

Caesar walked past the sliding door, and up to Holiday.

"I'm sorry," he said. He wouldn't lie and say "It's alright," or "It'll be okay,", because it never would be, not really.

"At least she's alive, here. Not dead, out there." She said, her green eyes remaining on the hold.

Dr. Holiday had left her lab for the first time in days, needing to get away from work, if only for a minute.

"So," Holiday asked, ripping her stare from her sister's cage, "Made in progress with Rex? I haven't,"

"Just the opposite- I punched White's screen as he told me he wouldn't send agents to help Rex,"

Holiday smiled softly, remembering the few times she had ever done it, "It felt great, didn't it?" she asked, turning all the way to him.

"Yeah, until I realized what I had done."

Holiday paused and looked him over. He looked dead tired, even worse off than she was. But she knew what is was like to be intent on finding a solution, so she over-looked the sacks. If he were still like this in two days, she would tranquilize him herself.

"I am sure he will…at least forgive the incident when Rex, his cure, is safely with Providence." Holiday said, not honestly believing her words, but White didn't want Caesar walking off-not with his knowledge.

Silence was around them, or at least the amount of silence that could be expected in the Petting Zoo.

Then both scientists heard a crackle in their ear.

"Exiting the ship now-Bobo in need of medical scan. As for me, strait black coffee would be preferable." Six informed them.

Soon the saw Six and an agitated looking Bobo staring down on them from the viewing center.

Both scientists took the elevator to the main lab. Once they were there, Bobo plobbed his pudgy primate body on the table.

"My head feels like I need an Advil." Bobo said, raising his furry hand out, like he was expecting one to magically appear.

"Then take an Advil." Holiday said, reaching into her lab coat. She always had a small container with Advil located in a pocket on the left side of her chest, behind her coat.

"So," she said, turning to Six, who had just taken a sip of black coffee, "What went wrong?"

"Rex's body wasn't working properly, behaving much like it did when Dr. Fell and Knight were first experimenting on him," Six said, the coffee managing to fog up the tips of his shades.

"So Van Kleiss messed with his Omega-1, which serves as a defensive mechanism for Rex." Holiday said, turning towards her computer, entering in some information.

"We need to get him back," Caesar said urgently.

"We will," Six said, his rough voice filled with determination.

"That's what you said when he was cured."

"And it's still true."

(Rex and Van Kleiss)

"Caesar?" Rex asked, smiling for the first time in two days at the thought of knowing a little more about his family.

"Yes, Caesar Salazar was born ten years before you. Within this time he was homeschooled by your parents. By age ten he was finishing High School, and tackling college credits. We will look forward now, as I am sure your main interest is after you were born. By the time you were born, Violetta and Raphael had created the first batch of programmable nanites. The very first prototypes that had been able to receive and follow orders. This was monumental for the two, and with you as their new member of the family, it was a time of ecstasy. Where Caesar had your father's mind, and your mother's quirks, you inherited your mother's mind and attitude, and your father's determination. You were far less into academics than your brother, but much more into the outside world. You had a dream of freedom and adventure. This lead to the terrible accident when you were ten." Van Kleiss stated.

"Accident?" Rex asked, his stomach begging to turn.

"Do not interrupt, it makes the story so much less interesting. Yes, accident. The Nanite Project had just recently run into its first mutations, and the creatures were locked into a recreational habitat to be studied. This room was also the room you chose for exploration. By the time the security guards saw you on camera, you were already being attacked by a large alligator-like EVO. The guards got you out in time. You were very lucky to still be among the living, a pulse and all. But you had lost too much blood, and sustained three fatal wounds to you head, neck, and chest. The doctors all said you would be dead by morning. That whole night, the Salazar family stood at your bedside. The watched your heart beat fade on the monitor. As your brain activity started to decrease, your mother left the room, leaving your father and brother by your bed alone. Violetta walked into the room again that night, and told Caesar how to get the programmed nanites out, to put them in a needle, to inject them safely."

"Why didn't she do it herself?" Rex unintentionally asked.

"The doctors would be wary of her, but who would be watching for Caesar, the quiet, young, scientist? Unnoticed, the young male extracted a tube worth of nanites from a large containment unit. Then he took it to your room, and injected you with the programmed nanites. By morning, ninety seven percent of your ailments were gone, only a few scars that eventually healed. Your parents weren't even in trouble because they had filed the incident as medical research. You healed completely in a few days. However, you also started to develop a connection through technology. Doors would open whenever you touched them, computer files would open at your demand. That's when nanites started to be viewed as not only a medical marvel, but a weapon."

(Providence)

Six stood back to look himself over in the mirror. His old field suit still fit. This time, he was going out to get Rex, and failure was not an option. His katanas slid with a deadly certainty into the pack in the pack of the dark green suit. And with one last glance, Six walked out of the room.

He stepped onto the launch pad, his ship awaiting lift-off. His gaze swept the room, and found Bobo polishing his guns.

"Get in. We're going," Six said, and the ships door lowered to the ground.

"On it, Green Bean." Bobo said, set with the same determination that was written on Six's face. Both agents stepped on as the ships door lifted, taking them bith inside.

"So, same battle strategy?" Bobo asked, glancing at the green agent,

"No." he answered.

"So, what stealthy amazing ninja-stuff are we pulling on Van Kleiss?" Bobo asked, despite the situation eager.

"We are going to enter through the front door."