Brick Laying (1/1)

Title: Brick Laying (1/1)
Summary: Krit has been many different people during the span of his life.
Characters: Krit. Mild Brin and Zack.
Rating: PG13 for some swearing and light mentions of sex and violence.
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.
Date: April 7-8 2001.
Note: Wrote this before we had anything more on Krit than his name.
Title inspiration: "Another Brick in the Wall."

99865412 didn't really have much to recommend him. He was small and solid and wore a dour expression as if he had been born with such a face. He had known when to be quiet -- when Lydecker was near, when Zack's jaw started to twitch in time with his annoyance, when they were training. He had known when to sit still, when to move, when to listen and when to speak. He'd been awful with mechanics, good at combat, could handle a weapon without making a fool of himself and was a whiz at computers. 99865412 had known what he had to do and when to do it, and he had stuck to those boundaries most of the time.

His mother's name was Alexandra. He had found her waiting tables at a dingy dinner in Vancouver when he was eighteen. She was slim and pale and her hands shook as brought her cigarette to thin lips. She had looked old and tired and beaten by the world. She had told him that she would have named him John after her father if she'd been given the choice. She hadn't held him, hadn't looked at him with love or awe, hadn't given him her father's name. He had been born 99865412, dark bands imprinted into the back of his neck naming him so. And his mother had been handed her cash, urged out the door and she had tottered into the nearest bar and drank herself sick. He had spent the first five years of his life being 99865412. That string of numbers he had been had learned to say "yes, sir!" before anything else.

Krit had been different, a bit looser, a bit wild, a hell of a lot more fun. Krit had been small and solid and he had grinned a lot, a flash of teeth as soon as their trainers' backs were turned. He had known when to be quiet - but he had loved to talk, with flickering hands or a soft fall of words beneath humming fluorescent lights and encasing blue walls. He was awful at mechanics, but let Zane do most of the work. He was good at combat, and made Jondy's lips twitch while she tackled him. He could handle a weapon, standing at the shooting range, tongue caught between his teeth, head cocked, brows furrowed. He'd been a whiz at computers, had cracked into the lab techs' computers and discovered the games hidden deep in the system. Krit knew what he had to do, and he knew when and where and how he could get away with avoiding his duties.

Brin was the one who came up with the idea of names. She was tiny and dark and she had watched their trainers and other personnel at the base with wide, curious eyes. "Mary," she had said, pointing towards the woman who kept watch over them while they lay in their beds. "Albert. Marcus. Peter. Edwin." She had pointed at herself, finger pressed above her heart: "I wanna name!"

Zack had gritted his small jaw, narrowed his eyes in an impression of their trainers. "You're 9918673," he had said with a scowl as he tripped over the last few numbers.

"A real name," Brin had insisted, and she had known how to pout.

They had clustered together in the mess hall, talking names over cooling eggs. They had been low and hushed in voice, their words humming with excitement. 99865412 wouldn't have appreciated their actions that day. 99865412 would have known that Lydecker wouldn't approve their initiative, their recognition of individuality and humanity. Krit hadn't given a damn what Lydecker thought. "Krit. I'm Krit," he had told his brothers and sisters and had flashed an uncertain grin. 99865412 hadn't smiled, much less grinned. Krit decided that _he_ would. He liked the name. It sounded strong and tough and permanent and no one else in the base had a name like his. He'd been Krit the day they broke for freedom.

James had kept his silence. He had watched a strange world with wide eyes, and a jolt of exultation bled with suspicious terror. James had been the first and only one of them who had slunk through life, bent head and hunched shoulders and a constant wary eye over his shoulder. James had scrounged through garbage pails in search of food. He had slept outside on dirty pavement and had sprung into wakefulness at the slightest sound. He hadn't been sure what to do, or when, or where, or why and he had hated that.

He had stopped calling himself Krit once he hit his first city. He knew that Manticore was looking for him and that it was best to shuffle aside all hints of the soldier he had been. He had been sitting on the curb, taking careful bites out of the ham sandwich he had bought with stolen money. There had been a woman, and she had turned slightly, soft impatience in her voice: "Hurry up, James!" A little boy had called back to her: "coming, mommy!" and his sneakers had pounded against the pavement as he rushed towards the woman. He'd started calling himself James, unsure of what other name to take as his own. No one much had asked him for his name. There had been stares and curses and more cries of "get outta here, you lousy kid!" than he cared to recall.

Chris had found his place in the world. He had thought he had it all figured out. He hadn't slunk; he'd strode, sauntered, strutted. He had drank a lot, thrown back his head and titled bottle after bottle and burned away its effects before the booze hit his system. The girls had liked Chris, and Chris had liked the girls. He had one at his side whenever he hits the bars or a party, a muscled arm flung over bared shoulders, a slim arm looped around his waist. He'd known what to do, where to go, who to make laugh, who to bribe or fuck or fight. And he'd been better than all of them, and had known it.

He had been Chris the first time he'd found himself between a girl's spread thighs. He had been Chris the first time he had gotten into a fight and struck out a bit to hard. He had been Chris when he ran into Brin in New York, and it had been Chris who had made her cry. And maybe he'd been a bit of a bastard to her, he'd thought, staring at Brin with helpless surprise, but she wasn't supposed to cry. She sat against the wall, legs pulled up into her chest, elbows resting against her knees, head bent with her hands resting atop the back of her head. She had heaved in great gasps of air, gurgling hurt.

"Aw, fuck, _Brin_..." he had began, angry in his helplessness.

She had lifted her head, exposed red rimmed eyes that he had seen on dozens of other women but never on one he cared about. "Shut up. I don't care what you have to say." Brin had risen to her feet, swiped at her eyes and nose before she had straightened her shoulders and stalked towards the door. They had been shopping when they met, and Brin had asked him to come with her to her apartment, closer than his. There were paintings on the walls, and she'd told him she had done them. And he was an idiot, and he shouldn't have said anything, but for Christ's sake -- Brin yanked the door open, glared at him. "Get out. Now."

Chris never said he was sorry. Brin didn't seem to like Chris. Krit wasn't sure whether he did at the moment either. "Look, I'm sorry, Brin," and he had meant it. He hadn't wanted to make her cry, hadn't wanted to leave her, hadn't wanted to keep on being Chris.

She had dipped her head, ran a hand through long black hair. He had listened to the intake and release of air, rapid breath forced towards slowness, her pounding heart brought back towards normal through force of will backed by training. "It's okay..." Brin had breathed. "It's not your fault. It's okay. It is. I'm just--" and then she was in his arms, head against his chest, shaking so hard he thought she was seizing. She was gone the next morning, all her paintings torn from the walls, ashes thick and accusing in the kitchen sink.

She must have contacted Zack, because the other man had shown up two weeks later. He hadn't been Chris anymore, and that was probably a good thing because Krit doubted that Zack would have liked Chris much. Zack never called him anything but Krit, in any case. Zack would urge them to run far and fast, to dye their hair, to sear barcodes from their necks, to change their names, and he'd always call them by the names he had first known them by.

Shawn hadn't drank, hadn't sought out fights, hadn't picked up barely dressed women with a long smile and hot glance. Shawn had owned a trailer, cleaned it every weekend and had made breakfast for Jenny. He'd kissed her before he went to work each day, whistled as he walked and thought that he loved the woman he shared his home and life with. Shawn had been normal. 99865412, Krit, James and Chris, none of them had understood normal. None of them had quite believed in it.

Shawn had liked to eat his lunch outside. He had met Jenny in the park, choked back a mouthful of club sandwich and had washed sticking bread away with a gulp of sickeningly sweet soda. Chris wouldn't have looked twice at Jenny. She wasn't thin enough, wasn't wild enough, didn't flash skin with every step she took. Shawn liked her. Shawn was more grownup than Chris had been. He had asked Jenny out on a date, and she had smiled shyly and nodded her blonde head. Months, and he had grown to know Jenny better than anyone since the other X5s. He had told her slivers of truth about James and Chris, and she'd managed to like him anyhow.

They had been living together for two months when Zack showed up. They had stepped outside taken long steps away from the trailer and Jenny's anxious face at the window. They had screamed at each other in hushed, snarling tones and tightly moving hands. Zack had been all anger and frustration and his voice has been harsh as he tore into Krit's newest creation. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not doing anything wrong! Fuck, Zack, give me a rest, would you."

"You're going to end up getting yourself caught if you fool yourself into believing this is real," Zack had said.

Jenny's face was set in worry when Shawn stepped back into their home. She smoothed her hands against her jean clad thighs and spoke past her uncertainty. "Who was that?" and he'd read her dislike clear in her voice. "What did he want?"

Shawn had shrugged and stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "It isn't anything you have to worry about," he had told her. It was his life and she would never even known the half of it. She had bit her lip, clenched her fists and moved away from him with tight knees. He had slipped back outside, watched the road Zack had taken when he left, lips clenched around a cigarette.

Shawn had gone to work one day, stopped in surprise as a bullet tore through his shoulder. He had stopped being Shawn, cast him aside in the time it took the pain to reach his mind. Fell back towards 99865412's training and Krit's rebellion against Manticore and had bolted. He had made it across the state border before he thought of his wife coming back to an empty home. Shawn would have called her, would have gone back for her, would have done something. Krit blinked back tears, swallowed against the tightness in his throat because he wasn't Shawn anymore than he'd been Chris or James, and maybe even Krit.

He hated Richard more than he had grown to hate even Chris. Richard was the one who first saw the ghosts. Richard had shaken, fell towards the ground with the force of his seizures. He had scrambled over the dusty floor, shaking fingers seeking out white pills tumbled across the ground. Two of them, fumbled down his throat and he had raised his head and seen them. Dozens of people, pale and light, walking through each other, through him. He had closed his eyes and could have sworn he felt his manufactured brain twist and shift and break into something new. Richard was the one who stood still and looked back onto the men he had been, the world he had been born of. Richard was the one who regretted, who mourned, who the dead followed with silently twisting mouths.

Richard was the one who had been told that Brin wasn't free -- bright and beautiful and a swirl of colour on canvas and Brin was being crushed out of flesh and spirit in Manticore. Richard was the one who had called Zack to be answered by silence. Ringing and ringing and ringing and Zack hadn't answered, and Krit had known that something was wrong. Richard was all bad news and loss, and Krit had gotten tired of him fast.

Rough fingertips rested against the back of his neck and he thought that he could feel the ownership label edited in his flesh, forever and ever until he rotted away to bones and dust. 99865412, born soldier, a face and string of numbers and dry psych file in Manticore's computers. 99865412 had known what he had to do and when to do it. 99865412 hadn't stopped knowing, even while James, Chris, Shawn and Richard -- and maybe even Krit -- were at a loss.

"Krit. I'm Krit," he had told his brothers and sisters as he flashed them an uncertain grin. He remembered that the name had made him think of rock - a mountain, tall and powerful and unbreakable. And damn it all, that's what he was. He was here, free, alive. He was 99865412, and James, and Chris, and Shawn, and Richard and all the dozen other names he'd worn as he passed from one end of the continent to the next. He was less and more, all and none of them.

Krit, he was Krit. That meant something. He was sure.

~end~

Sorry about the ending. I couldn't figure how to finish it off.