I'm sitting on the steps of my first home in Terminal City with my little sister Steel. It's Christmas. She's six, I'm seven.
As usual, it was freezing cold, but not cold enough for snow. Christmas was something they celebrated on the Outside and it meant that Justin, Steel and I got new shoes. Steel had made Mom some junk earrings- she was very creative- and I'd wracked my brain to try and think of something for Dad. Finally, Justin had helped me knock together a crude pair of collapsible crutches for when he broke bones and there was nobody around.
Steel had found an economy tin that had used to have coffee in it and was using it like a toy car, racing it along the step. "Vrrroom!" she sang out, laughing.
Mom had invited some friends over- they were playing cards inside. Dad and Justin had gone out on a Secret Mission. They'd been out for about an hour and still weren't back.
My mother Kara was the X5 clone (she preferred 'twin' as it sounded more human) for the X5 known as Eva. Eva was one of the heroes of the 2009 escape- she'd held a gun to the one known as Lydecker, and been shot through the chest to save our leader, Max, who was then only nine years old like Justin. Max Guevara refused to use guns as a result of this incident.
When Mom, heavily pregnant with Justin, had come to Terminal City, the remaining X5s of the group who escaped (there hadn't been many as most were dead or emigrated or AWOL) had been in awe of her as she was what Eva would have looked like had she grown up. Their personalities were different though. Mom was outspoken where the long-dead Eva was gentle, but both were very brave. Mom was impatient and exuberant where this Eva tended to blend in.
"Eeeeeeeaaaa! Nee-na, nee-na!" called Steel, making her tin can car bump repeatedly into my leg while she made ambulance noises.
"Steel, don't do that!" I ordered.
She scowled at me. "You're in my way. We have to get the seizing transgenic to the field hospital."
"You're playing with a tin can, not a car."
"Get out of the way! And it isn't a car; it's an ambulance. There's a difference, you know."
"Cars have wheels."
"They don't have to. How many cars have you ever seen? Dad said to me, he said that there are car-things without wheels that travel in the snow," said Steel importantly.
I rolled my eyes. For such a small child I had a definite attitude problem. "Those are snowmobiles, dimwit."
"Oh. In that case, this is a SNOWMOBILE!" cried Steel with glee, and she began making sound effects adjacent to what she thought a snowmobile sounded like. "Vrrrrrrr- we've got to chase down the escaping X5s and take them back to base! Vrrrrrrrrr!"
"Don't do that," I said, both hurt and annoyed. "Dad and Mom are X5s. Why do you want to chase them down?"
Steel waved her hand at me to indicate I should be quiet. "There's an X5... a little boy X5... I'm going after him!"
"DON'T CHASE DOWN DAD!" I yelled at her, and with a swipe of my arm I sent the tin can flying over the road. Steel gaped after it in shock.
"My car!" she wailed, bursting into tears.
"That'll teach you to chase down Dad," I said maliciously.
She glared at me. "I'll kill you!" she shrieked, and pounced. She had plenty of power in her hands and so did I, but we had no interest in actually learning to fight, so we basically just beat each other up like Ordinary children, doing a lot more damage.
That was when Dad arrived home with Justin. He handed our brother the bundle he was carrying in his arms and pulled the two of us apart easily, holding us up in the air by the backs of our shirts.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, shaking us a bit.
"She threw away my car!" wailed Steel.
"She was gonna chase you down, Dad!" I countered.
Dad deposited us on the ground, where we scrambled to our feet. Now that I look back, we were almost standing at attention. "I want both of you," he said quietly, "to go into the house quietly. No fighting or tantrums or dirty looks. Now."
Christmas was definitely not as big a deal as it was on the Outside, because there were practically no religious transgenics. Still, it was excuse for some light heartedness to make it through to us and perpetuate our lives. Perhaps that why Dad had planned to take us to see a martial arts match that some younger X-series had organised, but consented to punishing Steel and I by leaving us at home.
It was the evening. Although chilly, it wasn't raining and I went into the makeshift kitchen to find my little sister playing with a cigarette box. Steel was making her usual sound effects, but boredly. We were home alone.
"What's that you're playing with? An airplane?" I asked, trying to make peace. I sat down next to her.
"You're close. It's a helicopter," she said.
"Who are you chasing down?"
"Nobody. I'm in the helicopter with you and we're going to the martial arts match and on the way we're gonna pick up Mom and Dad and Justin and all fly there together."
"I've got an idea, Steel."
"Uh-huh?"
"Let's go to the martial arts match! I know where they're holding it; we can leave before the last fight and beat everyone else home. They'll never know we were gone!"
Steel looked up at me with round brown eyes. I will never forget the look on my imaginative little sister's face as I proposed sneaking out. She grinned at me. "Let's move out."
The two of us left the house. I caught a glimpse of the other side of the fence as we crept through the streets- strange colours lights had replaced the burning torches of the anti-transgenics. Someone had even set up a strange pointy tree with a creased paper star on the top.
The martial arts tournament was well in swing by the time Steel and I arrived. A ring had been rigged up in the centre of the City, with a few bonfires burning here and there to make the place seem 'festive'. It was eerie and exciting.
There was a furry feline soldier up against the current female X-series champion, my dad's X5 sister Amna. The two of us were small enough to push our way through the crowd to the front, where Amna and the cat-human waited patiently at opposite ends of the ring for everyone to place bets.
"Aunt Amna!" yelled Steel, hopping up and down. Our aunt spotted us waving to her and looked surprised- we would soon find out why.
The fight began. While other children in other parts of Seattle played with their presents or snuggled into warm beds, I stood at the edge of the ring, booing as my aunt took a blow to the head. She shook her head to try and dull the pain and as the opponents circled, she seemed to be muttering to herself- probably using pain-blocking techniques taught to her during her time in Manticore.
"Duck!" I shrieked as the feline transgenic kicked out at my aunt. She easily blocked the kick and threw her on her back, yellow eyes seething into my aunt's determined black ones.
"One!" yelled the crowd. "Two! Three!"
"Down for the count!" called the judge, Amna's favourite X5 brother, our Uncle Omri. He couldn't fight that night because he had broken his wrist a day before. Mom had said dryly that he must've been spending too much time with our dad.
"You were great, Aunt Amna!" I called. "You're the champion!"
"And YOU'RE in trouble," said a voice behind us. We turned around in shock to find Mom standing there.
"Mom!" I cried in shock. "How did you find us?"
"Yeah, we weren't cheering that loudly," piped up Steel. One thing to be said for my little sister was that she was honest.
"Extrasensory hearing," said Mom ominously. "I hate these kinds of things for all the noise, it does in my head, but I can never turn down a good fight. Besides, your dad felt guilty and went home to fetch you. He said for your Aunt Amna to keep an eye on Justin and me. You weren't there. But I suppose there's no point in sending you home again, is there?"
She beckoned us and we followed her past the ring, where Aunt Amna's head was aloft in pride at being proclaimed the female X5 champion and past the straggly line of female X5s who were sulking and holding icepacks to various injuries. Aunt Amna had beaten them up.
"I found them," sang out Mom as we reached Dad and Justin. "By the ring, cheering your sister on."
"I thought I told you girls to stay at home?"
"It's Christmas, Dad," said Justin in a jokey voice. "We're a family, aren't we?"
"Well, I'm not taking them home," said Dad. "It's X6s next; I want to see 'em."
"I'm not either," said Mom, folding her arms across her front stubbornly. "I might have a turn in the ring during the random matches."
Wow, I thought. My mother in the ring!
"Have you learned your lesson?" said Dad.
"Yes, sir!" chorused Steel and I. With a sigh, our parents led the way nearer to the ring where the X6 matches were beginning.
It seems odd to me that my father punished my sister and I for fighting and relented, letting us watch others fight. It also seems odd to Ordinaries that I spent holidays as a child watching poker games or playing war games involving most of the neighbouring children, or the aforementioned martial arts match. The whole place was could definitely be a family- a very dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
As usual, it was freezing cold, but not cold enough for snow. Christmas was something they celebrated on the Outside and it meant that Justin, Steel and I got new shoes. Steel had made Mom some junk earrings- she was very creative- and I'd wracked my brain to try and think of something for Dad. Finally, Justin had helped me knock together a crude pair of collapsible crutches for when he broke bones and there was nobody around.
Steel had found an economy tin that had used to have coffee in it and was using it like a toy car, racing it along the step. "Vrrroom!" she sang out, laughing.
Mom had invited some friends over- they were playing cards inside. Dad and Justin had gone out on a Secret Mission. They'd been out for about an hour and still weren't back.
My mother Kara was the X5 clone (she preferred 'twin' as it sounded more human) for the X5 known as Eva. Eva was one of the heroes of the 2009 escape- she'd held a gun to the one known as Lydecker, and been shot through the chest to save our leader, Max, who was then only nine years old like Justin. Max Guevara refused to use guns as a result of this incident.
When Mom, heavily pregnant with Justin, had come to Terminal City, the remaining X5s of the group who escaped (there hadn't been many as most were dead or emigrated or AWOL) had been in awe of her as she was what Eva would have looked like had she grown up. Their personalities were different though. Mom was outspoken where the long-dead Eva was gentle, but both were very brave. Mom was impatient and exuberant where this Eva tended to blend in.
"Eeeeeeeaaaa! Nee-na, nee-na!" called Steel, making her tin can car bump repeatedly into my leg while she made ambulance noises.
"Steel, don't do that!" I ordered.
She scowled at me. "You're in my way. We have to get the seizing transgenic to the field hospital."
"You're playing with a tin can, not a car."
"Get out of the way! And it isn't a car; it's an ambulance. There's a difference, you know."
"Cars have wheels."
"They don't have to. How many cars have you ever seen? Dad said to me, he said that there are car-things without wheels that travel in the snow," said Steel importantly.
I rolled my eyes. For such a small child I had a definite attitude problem. "Those are snowmobiles, dimwit."
"Oh. In that case, this is a SNOWMOBILE!" cried Steel with glee, and she began making sound effects adjacent to what she thought a snowmobile sounded like. "Vrrrrrrr- we've got to chase down the escaping X5s and take them back to base! Vrrrrrrrrr!"
"Don't do that," I said, both hurt and annoyed. "Dad and Mom are X5s. Why do you want to chase them down?"
Steel waved her hand at me to indicate I should be quiet. "There's an X5... a little boy X5... I'm going after him!"
"DON'T CHASE DOWN DAD!" I yelled at her, and with a swipe of my arm I sent the tin can flying over the road. Steel gaped after it in shock.
"My car!" she wailed, bursting into tears.
"That'll teach you to chase down Dad," I said maliciously.
She glared at me. "I'll kill you!" she shrieked, and pounced. She had plenty of power in her hands and so did I, but we had no interest in actually learning to fight, so we basically just beat each other up like Ordinary children, doing a lot more damage.
That was when Dad arrived home with Justin. He handed our brother the bundle he was carrying in his arms and pulled the two of us apart easily, holding us up in the air by the backs of our shirts.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, shaking us a bit.
"She threw away my car!" wailed Steel.
"She was gonna chase you down, Dad!" I countered.
Dad deposited us on the ground, where we scrambled to our feet. Now that I look back, we were almost standing at attention. "I want both of you," he said quietly, "to go into the house quietly. No fighting or tantrums or dirty looks. Now."
Christmas was definitely not as big a deal as it was on the Outside, because there were practically no religious transgenics. Still, it was excuse for some light heartedness to make it through to us and perpetuate our lives. Perhaps that why Dad had planned to take us to see a martial arts match that some younger X-series had organised, but consented to punishing Steel and I by leaving us at home.
It was the evening. Although chilly, it wasn't raining and I went into the makeshift kitchen to find my little sister playing with a cigarette box. Steel was making her usual sound effects, but boredly. We were home alone.
"What's that you're playing with? An airplane?" I asked, trying to make peace. I sat down next to her.
"You're close. It's a helicopter," she said.
"Who are you chasing down?"
"Nobody. I'm in the helicopter with you and we're going to the martial arts match and on the way we're gonna pick up Mom and Dad and Justin and all fly there together."
"I've got an idea, Steel."
"Uh-huh?"
"Let's go to the martial arts match! I know where they're holding it; we can leave before the last fight and beat everyone else home. They'll never know we were gone!"
Steel looked up at me with round brown eyes. I will never forget the look on my imaginative little sister's face as I proposed sneaking out. She grinned at me. "Let's move out."
The two of us left the house. I caught a glimpse of the other side of the fence as we crept through the streets- strange colours lights had replaced the burning torches of the anti-transgenics. Someone had even set up a strange pointy tree with a creased paper star on the top.
The martial arts tournament was well in swing by the time Steel and I arrived. A ring had been rigged up in the centre of the City, with a few bonfires burning here and there to make the place seem 'festive'. It was eerie and exciting.
There was a furry feline soldier up against the current female X-series champion, my dad's X5 sister Amna. The two of us were small enough to push our way through the crowd to the front, where Amna and the cat-human waited patiently at opposite ends of the ring for everyone to place bets.
"Aunt Amna!" yelled Steel, hopping up and down. Our aunt spotted us waving to her and looked surprised- we would soon find out why.
The fight began. While other children in other parts of Seattle played with their presents or snuggled into warm beds, I stood at the edge of the ring, booing as my aunt took a blow to the head. She shook her head to try and dull the pain and as the opponents circled, she seemed to be muttering to herself- probably using pain-blocking techniques taught to her during her time in Manticore.
"Duck!" I shrieked as the feline transgenic kicked out at my aunt. She easily blocked the kick and threw her on her back, yellow eyes seething into my aunt's determined black ones.
"One!" yelled the crowd. "Two! Three!"
"Down for the count!" called the judge, Amna's favourite X5 brother, our Uncle Omri. He couldn't fight that night because he had broken his wrist a day before. Mom had said dryly that he must've been spending too much time with our dad.
"You were great, Aunt Amna!" I called. "You're the champion!"
"And YOU'RE in trouble," said a voice behind us. We turned around in shock to find Mom standing there.
"Mom!" I cried in shock. "How did you find us?"
"Yeah, we weren't cheering that loudly," piped up Steel. One thing to be said for my little sister was that she was honest.
"Extrasensory hearing," said Mom ominously. "I hate these kinds of things for all the noise, it does in my head, but I can never turn down a good fight. Besides, your dad felt guilty and went home to fetch you. He said for your Aunt Amna to keep an eye on Justin and me. You weren't there. But I suppose there's no point in sending you home again, is there?"
She beckoned us and we followed her past the ring, where Aunt Amna's head was aloft in pride at being proclaimed the female X5 champion and past the straggly line of female X5s who were sulking and holding icepacks to various injuries. Aunt Amna had beaten them up.
"I found them," sang out Mom as we reached Dad and Justin. "By the ring, cheering your sister on."
"I thought I told you girls to stay at home?"
"It's Christmas, Dad," said Justin in a jokey voice. "We're a family, aren't we?"
"Well, I'm not taking them home," said Dad. "It's X6s next; I want to see 'em."
"I'm not either," said Mom, folding her arms across her front stubbornly. "I might have a turn in the ring during the random matches."
Wow, I thought. My mother in the ring!
"Have you learned your lesson?" said Dad.
"Yes, sir!" chorused Steel and I. With a sigh, our parents led the way nearer to the ring where the X6 matches were beginning.
It seems odd to me that my father punished my sister and I for fighting and relented, letting us watch others fight. It also seems odd to Ordinaries that I spent holidays as a child watching poker games or playing war games involving most of the neighbouring children, or the aforementioned martial arts match. The whole place was could definitely be a family- a very dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.