{{TRANSCRIPT OF DIALOGUE FROM BASE 231.8
STATUS: SECURITY LEVEL 1
DATE: 20.5.13
TOPIC: PROJECT TITAN: STATUS: CLASSIFIED LEVEL 1


A: I've wanted to talk to you about the way you're training the boys.


B: They aren't boys, any more than a robot is. They're an artificial life form - I don't understand why you continually fail to understand that.


A: I am corrected. At any rate, I have some concerns. The emotional training seems to be taking well, and none of them suspect anything, but I'm not convinced this latest technique of yours is a good idea.


B: What, specifically, is the problem?


A: Well, for starters, you're turning them into idealists.


B: I don't see the problem.


A: I know you're not as stupid or naïve as you sound. We all know why we joined the Alliance, and it wasn't because we wanted to help people.


B: Maybe it wasn't for you! I, on the other hand...


A: Lay off the act! It's bad enough to listen to you spouting that nonsense to the boys... excuse me, subjects, but I won't listen to it myself. You joined the Alliance because they had the most money with which to fund your experiments, and the power to force other scientists to help you. The Alliance does not exist 'to protect the people' or whatever other ridiculousness you've been telling the subjects. The Alliance exists to protect the status quo - us in power. Now why on earth are you telling them otherwise?


B: I want them to believe that they're acting for a noble cause.


A: Why?!


B: It's a well-documented fact that extremists, men on religious or ethical quests, push themselves to lengths that a normal man could not. When would you fight harder, for a religious belief or because it was your job?


A: I don't see how this relates to them. They've been told - they believe that they're not human.


B: But we've left them enough emotions that they have a longing to be human. It's impossible, of course, but by acting as if they had emotions, as if they had empathy for humans - in fact, by acting to protect humans - it makes them feel as if they were human, or at least that they have some humanity.


A: So you're saying that while we're convincing them that they're not human, we're also trying to convince them that they want to be human?


B: That's about it.


A: That's twisted, and dangerous. It's a fine line you're walking. And if they ever find out the truth about the Alliance...


B: How would they do that? We're training them to be so loyal to the Alliance that if anyone ever tried to tell them the truth, they'd never believe it anyway. We just keep telling them that we teach them everything in order so that they can be stronger, serve the Alliance better, and thus serve the people. All of their information comes through us - we can tell them anything we want about the people we want them to kill, about the things we want them to do, and they have to believe us. Simple.


A: Just be careful.


B: Is that all you know how to say? Why is it that every time I report to you, you tell me to be careful?


A: Why is it that every time I hear your report I feel that this whole thing is going to become one big nightmare that I'm going to have to clean up? Stop making me feel that way, and I'll stop telling you to be careful.}}


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One stood in front of the wooden panel. It was built to simulate a heavy wooden door, the expensive kind that some of the wealthiest colonists had imported from Earth. He held himself in perfect readiness, looking completely relaxed but ready to move at an instant's notice. His eyes were fixed on the panel, but his attention was focused on a light across the room. He stared at it without seeming to, watching it out of the corner of his eye.

It flashed only once, for one one-hundredth of a second, but before a tenth of a second had passed, he had driven his hand through the panel. He ripped the 'door' off it's hinges in the next second, casually tossing it aside. He stiffened into a properly attentive position as the door to the small room opened and Mem came walking in. "Satisfactorily done, One," Mem said, looking at a data pad. "Your response time was point oh-oh-three-two seconds. You even shaved some time off your last attempt."

One didn't respond, continued staring straight ahead. That had been one of the first things they taught him, how to stand properly when he was waiting for orders. Discipline was important, they said. If he and the other subjects didn't have discipline, they could never serve the Alliance perfectly.

Mem watched him, and a pleased expression appeared on his face. "Very good, One. Excellent discipline. Now follow me." He turned and left the room. One followed him, not letting his discipline relax in the slightest. He marched forward, eyes straight ahead, although he took note when the other four experiments marched out of the other rooms and fell into line behind him. He watched them as long as he could without moving his eyes or head, and was generally satisfied with their behavior. He noticed Three's eyes flick up and down the line once, and there was the barest hint of a smile playing around the edges of Two's mouth, but other than that, *their* discipline was fine. But Four... if he had been human, One would have frowned. There was nothing obviously wrong about his discipline, but there was something... not right about the way he behaved. There was a... a haunted look about him, something in the eyes.

One considered the matter as they marched down the featureless hall, trying to reason out Four's actions logically. It was true that even after they'd finished their training in the chamber he still seemed to spend a lot of his time there, usually because of Mem's orders. That might account for it... Again One paused as he came across something he didn't understand. Mem did what he did out of loyalty to the Alliance, in order to protect the colonists. Surely Four saw that, so why would that account for the impression of a hunted animal?

Try as he might, One could come up with no logical explanation for Four's behavior, and he was forced to drop the thought as they entered one of the many teaching rooms. Without prompting he and the others stood beside each of the five desks, then sat down at a nod from Mem. One fixed his eyes on the instructor. They had been coming to him every day for four weeks now. The man was a gifted spy, and had been teaching them how to imitate the mannerisms of humans, so that they could move among them at will, if necessary. Mostly he had concentrated on how human children acted, for obvious reasons, and would be back later on to teach them more nuances of adult behavior when they appeared that way. For now, their basic training was over, and today there would be a test of some sort.

They had not been told the man's name, nor had they been given one to use. The reason for this was that he went by whatever character he was playing at the moment, and sometimes he had forced them to guess what character that was by mannerisms alone, so that they would learn to notice and identify them. In this way they learned what they had to imitate in order to appear human.

"All right. Today you will each be given a role to play, and then we will go to a point off base, where you will interact with humans, of many different ages, none of whom will know who you truly are. Your instructions are simple - interact with them for several hours without revealing anything. It should be simple, given what I've taught you. If anyone suspects you of anything, if you even stand out from the crowd in any way, you will be punished. Are there any questions?"

Silence met him, although One could feel the excitement of his companions. He felt some of it himself. In the seven years since they had been created, none of them had ever traveled off-base before, nor had they ever met any humans not connected with the project. Human children in particular would be very useful to observe, since that was what they most resembled. But One's excitement ran deeper than that - once he passed this test, he would be one step closer to becoming operational, getting to the point where he could truly serve the Alliance.


-------------


Four sat absolutely still in his seat in the back of the shuttle. They couldn't see out, but he knew that they had been brought somewhere inside the dome of Alpha colony, and that now they were headed back out to the base. Without moving his eyes, he sneaked a glance at Mem.

Mem was staring at him, a thoughtful expression on his face, occasionally frowning to himself. It was strange to see him in a suit instead of his usual white coat, but that peculiarity didn't remove any of the sense of dread from Four. Something had happened at the gathering they had been brought to, he didn't know what yet, but he'd done something wrong, and that meant he would be punished. He wasn't quite successful at hiding the shudder that ran through him at the thought of that. What had he done?

The gathering had been unlike anything he had ever seen, humans in bright colored clothing moving around a decorated room while music, real music, played all around them. It had been a party of some sort, and he recognized a number of the adults present as members of the Alliance. Worthy people, then. Despite his training, Four had been thoroughly enjoying himself, although that might have been because he had successfully sunk into the character he was playing so that no one suspected he wasn't human. It was nice to have a name, even if it was just while I was playing a character, he thought wistfully.

He'd gotten along with all of the human children, and even had a few short discussions with the adults, without any of them ever realizing that he was much more intelligent than they were. There had been a woman and a man, standing close together and discussing something, when he had literally stumbled into the man's leg, being careful to ration his strength so that he didn't hurt the man and give himself away. Human children were clumsy creatures, it seemed. Four's action was completely deliberate, however, he was studying the different human responses. Two had tried the same trick a few minutes ago on another human and had been scolded. Four got a different response.

The man looked down at him in annoyance, then that expression softened as he noticed the child. "Watch out there, little man," he said with a gentle smile that caused something inside Four to ache. Four firmly pushed that... whatever it was... away. He smiled playfully up at the man, who he recognized to be an ambassador from Earth. "What's your name?"

"Brian Greenburg," Four replied in a shy voice, kicking one foot back and forth.
"And how old are you, Brian?"

"Seven."

The man glanced at the woman, amused about something. "Seven? Practically all grown up. I have a daughter your age," the man said, fondness evident in his voice and expression.

"Really? Is she here?" Four asked, looking around with apparent eagerness.

"No, unfortunately not. She had an... an accident a few weeks ago," a shadow passed over his face. "But she will recover."

Four frowned, not sure how a human child would react to that comment. Apparently his frown was the correct response, because the human smiled at him again. "Don't worry, she'll be fine. Now why don't you head over there and play?" he said, giving Four a little push towards a group of human children.

Four had obeyed, and played with the human children successfully for several hours without drawing any attention to himself. Just before they left, however, his attention had been drawn to a little girl, about six years old, who was sitting off by herself, staring at the floor. Interested on what might definitely be considered deviant behavior, he moved over to stand next to her.

"Hiya," he said when she didn't look at him.

"Hi," she said in such a quiet voice that a human would barely have been able to hear her.

"What's wrong?"

She stuck her lip out in a pout. "Tomorrow's my birthday, and my dad has to go to Earth for business. That's why he brought me to this party, but I haven't seen him here, either."

Four knew without thinking about it that the proper response from an adult would be to try to comfort the child. The response from a human child was a bit harder to guess, but he thought over the character he was playing. Brian would try to help her, in a clumsy, human child sort of way. Carefully he thought out a sentence that would make sense, coming from a child. "Well, he must love you a lot, to bring you to a neat party like this."

She stared at him doubtfully, then sniffed once or twice to show just how hurt she was by all of this. Four knew, again without knowing why, that even though her pouting now was mostly for show, for any sympathetic audience, she really was a little hurt by her father's seeming abandonment. Without thinking about it, Four reached out and took her hand, easing away some of the sorrow and pain. He did so almost automatically, and was shocked when she suddenly stopped sniffing and flashed him a bashful smile.

"Brian!" Mem's voice called him, and Four barely controlled a shudder. He didn't know what it was, but something had upset the man, and that almost always meant punishment. Instead of that, he made a pouting face, imitating the one on the girl's face a moment earlier.

"I gotta go," he said, making a wry face.

"OK," the girl said, already starting to move towards the table with dessert on it. "Bye-bye."

"We're leaving," Mem informed him shortly, and Four responded with a short nod. Too late he remembered that this was not the proper response from a human child. He immediately rectified the situation by nodded and putting a broad, happy, stupid smile on his face. A glance at Mem made him think that his slip had gone unnoticed, but he couldn't be sure. Now that he was sitting there, on the way back to the base, he was convinced that Mem must have seen it. What else had he done wrong?

He couldn't think of anything, but that didn't mean that Mem would have nothing to complain about. If Four didn't know better, he would have thought that Mem was looking for excuses to punish him. But no, that couldn't be true. Mem punished him because he was weak, because he wasn't living up to his design specifications, and wasn't serving the Alliance as well as he could. The punishments were used to help him focus, to remind him of his duty. But what had he done wrong?

When they got back to the base, they went back to the briefing room, where their teacher - who had observed them - told them what they had done correctly, what they had done less than adequately. Four was reprimanded for the slight slip at the end of the engagement, but other than that the teacher said his disguise had been flawless. Four did not feel any relief at that pronouncement, although he felt a surge of pleasure at having completed this mission successfully. None of it showed on his face, of course. He waited for Mem to speak, as the man had been studying them, and more specifically, had been studying Four thoughtfully.

When their teacher was dismissed, Mem walked up to Four, who immediately stood up at attention. "What did you do to that girl?" Mem asked in a sharp voice.

Four was startled by the question. "Sir?"

"You heard the question, Four, answer it!"

Four hastily gathered his thoughts, still confused as to where this was leading. "I approached her, to observe different types of human behavior. She expressed unease about her family situation, and I attempted to ease it verbally."

"Why?" Mem practically jumped on him.

"Because it was how I believed a human child would act in that situation," Four replied smoothly.

"Then what did you do?" Mem asked, not missing a beat.

"I eased some of her discomfort, then you called me, and I left her."

Mem stared at him, studying his face, looking for... Four didn't know what he was looking for, but he rigidly controlled his features.

"How did you ease her discomfort?" he asked.

"I..." Four trailed off as he realized that he didn't know what he'd done, only that it had helped the girl somehow. "I don't know, sir."

"You don't know?" Mem's voice had definite threat in it.

Four would have winced, but he controlled his face. "No sir."

"And why is that?"

Four thought fast, then came up with the only answer that made sense. "Because I'm not human, sir." That had to be it. It must be one of those things that only humans could understand, he told himself.

To his surprise, Mem broke into a smile at his words. He nodded sharply. "That is correct, Four. Now, you are under direct orders not to explore this any further, is that understood?"

"Yes sir," Four said. "But sir..."

"Yes?" Mem's tone had turned sweet again, which immediately showed Four the enormity of his slip.

"I, ah, I just thought that if I could learn what I did, I could do it again, and maybe I could use it to help Alliance soldiers, or to help the people we protect. Sir."

"Is it just me, or are you considering disobeying orders?" Mem sounded terribly pleased.

Four's terror took over him, and then he broke discipline, glancing desperately at the others, as if they would help him out of his troubles. Of all of them, only Three met his eyes, and just for a moment, before he, too, returned to proper discipline.

"Don't look at them," Mem scolded. "They won't help a weakling like you, who disobeys orders. Is that right?"

"Yes sir! I mean no sir!" Four stammered, then finally got control of himself. "I'm sorry, sir. I just thought..." He trailed off. No need to make things worse then they already were. He knew what was coming. "I won't disobey orders. Sir."

"No, you won't. The rest of you are dismissed," One said with a wave of his hand, all of his attention focused on Four. "You will be punished."

It's to make me stronger, he tried to tell himself. So I can serve the Alliance. But it was all he could do to keep his hands from shaking. As the others filed out, Three cast a sympathetic glance towards Four, but Four didn't notice it, caught up as he was in his terror of what was about to come.


---------------


On the tenth anniversary of the day that they were created, One waited patiently for his target to approach the podium. It was the first true mission that he had been given, and he was the first of them to get a mission. It was very important to him that he set a good example for the others, so this had to go flawlessly.

His mission was to assassinate a representative of the colonies who'd spoken up in the Senate about giving the colonies independence. The man was dangerous, and had to be eliminated, although Alliance Intelligence would probably release a statement on behalf of the Rebels, claiming responsibility, not that anyone would really believe it. That wasn't his problem. It didn't matter who was blamed, so long as he wasn't caught and his target was dead.

It had taken a good deal of planning to get this far. Security was set up by the Alliance, so it was thorough, and getting any kind of weapon in here would have been possible. Or at least getting a whole weapon in. One had spent the last few week preparing - on several different days he had walked through this very courtyard, and each time he had left a piece of his weapon. The individual pieces didn't show up on the scans the security people did of the area, and he was able to walk through the metal detectors without any fears. After that it took less than an hour to collect all of the pieces and stash them in the front of his shirt. When he'd collected all of the pieces, he managed to scale the side of one of the buildings, although it wasn't easy without a rope and few things to hold onto. No one noticed his ascent, and when he'd reached the roof, he was able to sit down and rebuild the weapon. It was an ordinary blaster, without a range-finder or laser sight. Both of those things could be detected, and as soon as they were, a force-shield would be activated around the representative. He would have to aim the old-fashioned way.

One's breath momentarily caught in his throat as the representative stepped onto the raised platform. He raised the blaster - he'd have only one shot at this, if he missed, they would immediately activate the shield. He took his time aiming, almost a full minute, and waited until the applause had died down and the representative was ready to speak. He was just about to fire when he had a flash of inspiration. He swung around and fired one quick shot at the building across the square. There was a flash of light and some screams as several large pieces of concrete fell onto the square below, along with someone who had been standing in the building he hit. But he saw none of this as he turned back to aim at the representative, who had just turned his head, along with everyone else, to look for the source of the sound.

His shot hit the representative in the head, killing him instantly. As more screams followed the first, he felt a wave of pleasure hit him, and he smiled, resisting the urge to laugh. Because of the way he had been created, the only way he could truly be happy was to complete a mission. He could smile and find things pleasant in other situations, but the only way he ever felt any real joy was when he was successful in the task set before him. He reveled in the feeling for a minute, then looked back over the edge of the roof.

He heard the sirens of police and ambulances coming as the security people looked around, trying to determine where the shot had come from. He smiled. His little trick had worked - everyone had been looking at the sight of his first shot when he fired again, so they didn't know where he was. He scanned the scene one more time, and saw something strange.

Along with the representative and his family, there were a number of other officials and their families. Among those was the ambassador who dealt with relations between Earth and this colony. But it wasn't the ambassador who caught One's attention. It was his daughter. She was obviously a colonist, an albino, so she must have been adopted, but that wasn't what caught his attention either. What caught his attention was the fact that amidst all the chaos, she was staring up at One. Directly at him.

Does she see me? No, that's impossible. I'm well over a hundred meters away. Humans can't see details that far away without binoculars.

He told himself that it had to be coincidence, or a trick of the light that made it look as if she was staring at him, and backed away from the edge of the roof. He quickly moved to the opposite edge of the roof. There was a fifty-foot gap between this roof and the next: he took a running start and cleared it. Someone on the ground saw him, but he had expected that, and at this height they wouldn't be able to make out any details, save that he was also albino, a colonist, which would serve his purposes well. It didn't matter how many alarms they set off now, his mission was completed.


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"So, what was it like?" Three asked after One had finished with his debriefing and was sent back to their quarters. "Were there any problems?"

"None, it went smoothly."

"How did it make you feel?" Two asked, grinning at his comrade's success.

"I felt a lot of joy," One reported, wondering why he didn't feel anything now. From the way his instructors had described it, he'd thought he'd feel something different when he had his first real mission. The joy had been stronger than before, but had faded just as quickly, and now he felt nothing, no sense of accomplishment. He had completed him mission - that was what he had been created for - why should he feel accomplishment in that? But he felt like he should have.

"What was killing him like?" Four asked. He was the weakest of them, often questioning their orders and being the last to come up with the best solution for certain problems. He was strange - but that wasn't always a bad thing. He'd come up with the idea of them giving themselves names. One liked that idea, but he wasn't sure why, and had suggested they wait until their first mission until they told each other their names. He was glad he'd waited now - it would be something new and different, now that his first mission had been accomplished.

"It was nothing. Just like the drills. Why?"

"No reason." Four shook his head and looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. One decided to ignore the comment. Four was always strange.

"Really? There was nothing more to it?" Five asked, sounding disappointed.

"No."

There was a short silence, then Two said. "Hey, it's time."

Everyone looked at him. "Time for what?" Three asked.

"One's got to tell us his name, the one he picked for himself. He's finished his first mission."

"That's right," Four said, raising his eyes to look at One. "You get to go first. What is your name?"

One hesitated, then said, "Heero."

"Heero," Four repeated. "I like it." He gave One a little smile.

One felt a hint of happiness at Four's words. He'd read the name in one of his schoolbooks, and it had appealed to him even before they decided to choose names. And it was his name, now. One was still his operating name, but now they could call him the other name, if they wanted to.

"Heero," Five repeated slowly, then nodded.

"Heero," Three also repeated thoughtfully. "Like hero?"

"I get it," Two said with a grin. "One... I mean Heero wants to be a hero for the Earth Alliance. If it were up to him he'd take on all of the Rebels by himself."

"Only if we're ordered to," Heero said.



Just so you know, he's the only one with the same name. The rest pick different names for themselves, for various reasons. We get Rina's perspective on the assassination in the next section. :)