Transgenics are supposed to be brave. We are strong, intelligent, endowed with the precision and abilities of beasts. Mom tells me how she was not allowed to cry as a child if one of her sisters slammed her into the mat during sparring and her head snapped back painfully or even during the incident where her rifle went off by accident and shot her in the ankle. A similar occasion was related by Dad, except he was shot in the shoulder... rather, she was told curtly to, "Suck it up, soldier!" and made to complete a few sprints around the hall for being weak.
I wondered in terror why I did not feel brave as my brother Justin crouched next to me with Steel behind us, as we waited for Mom and Dad to come back and give the all-clear for us to start running again.
I was eight years old and a full-fledged war was going on in the City street. X-series and animal-humans were fighting outside. Usually, to watch a transgenic fight was a thing of savage beauty because they were so strong, so fast- they had spent their young lives diligently training and it showed.
The gates of Terminal City had been broken open, and the Ordinary scum of the Outside had swarmed in. They'd taken some second-generation X-series prisoner and torched some buildings.
Suddenly, Mom burst into the room. She had a gun in her hand and was wild-eyed.
"Where's Dad?" I asked. We weren't even hiding in our own home. Mom had screamed at the three of us to run as she and her friends (the ones she liked to play cards with) had run off after the other fighters. We'd hidden in our home at first, but had heard the door being broken down and run upstairs to hide before escaping out of a window. Steel had seen Mom in an alley and had given the military sign language for BROWN HOUSE, LEFT SIDE- meaning we were going to go hide in a brown house on the left side of the City. It was a miracle to me that she'd found us, but she was alone.
Mom bit at her lip. "I don't know, he's gone to help with barricading the gates so no more can get it. Now, kids, we're going to run as fast as we can. Fists up."
"Why?" whispered Steel as we followed Mom out the door of the house.
"If we look like we can fight, then there's less of a chance of being attacked," explained Justin.
Red Xs had been spraypainted onto every wall. The street was nearly deserted now.
A yell ripped the near-silence as we dithered by the door.
"It's an X5! Don't let it get away!"
I realised in a sickening second that they meant Mom. Mom bellowed, "Go, go, go!" and the three of us took off.
Amazingly, there were enough anti-transgenics to take down even Mom. They held her on the ground. She screamed at us to run.
"Mommy," whispered Steel fretfully. She couldn't keep up with us, she was too small.
"We have to get outside the city," said Justin as we took a shortcut down an alley.
"Outside? Are you crazy?" I asked, my voice unnaturally high. "Outside we'll be killed in days!"
"Yeah, well, in the City we'll get killed in hours. Just be thankful that Mom and Dad aren't anomalies, otherwise everyone would know what we are."
"Hello, kids," said an eerie voice as we came to a dead end, panting.
I gasped and pressed up against the wall as a man holding a gun appeared behind us, seemingly out of nowhere. He grabbed a huge piece of wood propped up against the wall and pulled it down, jamming it between the two narrow walls.
"Gonna kill me?" he asked softly, his eyes never leaving our terrified faces. "Gonna drink my blood or something, sacrifice me to your animal gods?"
"We're not like that," said Steel, who was quaking. Her voice was strong, though. I had never been so proud of my little sister. "We're people. You don't even know what we're like."
She suddenly collapsed, in the grips of a seizure. "Steel!" I cried, bending to pick her up.
"Don't," said the man. "I'll do the little one a favour... dispose of her first, while she doesn't know what's happening. That's humane. But you wouldn't know what that means, would you?"
"M-My pills," slurred Steel. "They're in my pocket..."
Anguished, I looked at Justin, whose face was set. He looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. We had no way out.
He cocked the gun and as Steel twitched on the gravel, I heard her whimper in fear.
"Leave her alone," said Justin. "She's just a little girl. You want to kill a transgenic, kill me." I saw suddenly why Dad said he reminded him of the great CO, Zack. He was ten years old and would have given his life for us.
"If you want," shrugged the man, and aimed the gun. I shut my eyes in fear, and dropped to the ground, finding Steel's small thin hand. I looked at Justin again. He knew what my eyes were saying to him. I love you, my face cried to him as he prepared to die.
I knew somehow that he returned the sentiment.
And suddenly, something dropped from overhead to save our lives. It was female, looked human. She landed in front of us and held up her fists, looking menacing. Her back was to us.
She kicked the gun from the assassin's hand, sent it flying. There was silence.
"You bitch," snarled the man, backing away. He knew he was no match for an adult X-series.
This heroine made no answer. Her foot, complete with wicked army boot that she must've paid a month's rations for in the broken transgenic city, flew out once again and caught him in the forehead, sending him flying.
Kick, punch, jab. This was the kind of savage beauty that I always seemed to see when I watched a transgenic fight. Her movements were almost impossible to see, the way her fists and feet shot out like a machine. There were several cracks as his bones snapped and finally he crumpled to the ground. He didn't seem to be dead.
She turned around.
"Mom?" asked Justin in confusion.
She cocked her head silently and then shook it, pointing at Steel. We found her pills and put a few into her mouth. She still gave the occasional twitch, but her eyes were focused and she responded to commands. I hoisted her up easily and looked to the woman who looked exactly like Mom.
And yet, she didn't. She was young, only about twenty-four. Combined with the fact that she couldn't talk, I took her to be an X7 clone and left it alone.
She frantically beckoned us and we followed. Within a few minutes Steel and I were running, her arm around my shoulder. She broke away soon enough and ran in sync with Justin and I. The assumed X7 seemed to be making an effort to run slower so we could keep up.
Everything went by in a blur until I found myself in a tiny room in Mom's arms, having the life hugged out of me. She had a gash over her eye.
"How will we tell people who saved us?" I wondered aloud, looking at the woman who looked like Mom.
She smiled a beautiful smile and did something I will never be able to forget. "Some call me Eva," she said hoarsely and darted out the door.
To this day I am convinced it was a ghost. Spirituality is not a strong point with transgenics- our own reality is too black and white for us to believe in things we cannot see. But I saw her. She was living and breathing and she saved us.
Mom had to leave us again, but dropped in every few hours to ease our minds. And finally sector police saw fit to stop the riot in case it spilled out into Seattle.
As the four of us- Mom, Steel, Justin and myself- wandered down a street, there were reporters and people with cameras everywhere. We ignored them as best we could, but now we weren't on opposite sides of a fence. They had invaded us.
Transgenics hauled their dead from almost demolished homes. Hateful red Xs were daubed along every sidewalk and a couple of transgenics had been lynched from their own doorways.
"Dad!" yelled Justin as he spotted him on the ground. I will never be able to purge the image and sound from my mind. It haunts my dreams.
My mother shot over to Dad, turning him onto his back. I remember thinking how glad I was that his eyes were closed, and thinking it was odd that I, a mature eight years old, found dead eyes scary.
"Splint?" I heard her say. Her voice began to strain with worry as she talked. "Oh, no. Oh God. Splint? Splint, wake up, please! Splint, can you hear me? Oh, God, please wake up! Please!"
And it hit me then that that was the first time in my entire life that I had ever seen my mother cry. She sobbed my dad's name into the air and held onto his shirt, laying her head on his chest. Justin and Steel and I stood behind her.
Justin had immediately burst into tears. I instictively moved my hand to hold Steel's, but she had started forward, probably to try and comfort Mom. She found she couldn't walk any further and just stood there, gazing at her father in confusion. Her beautiful dark eyes were just like Dad's.
My mouth was open. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to be hurt so badly I would die too, so I could go with him. But I couldn't make it hurt. I felt like my skin was metal, or ice. I felt nothing.
Something grew inside of me. Perhaps it was listening to Justin and Mom cry, or having no hand in mine to make me feel as if I wasn't all alone. I felt like I boiled inside, and very slowly I shook.
And as I looked up, my eyes shining with tears, I found myself staring at a woman with a camera, taping us. I couldn't take it. It was the last straw. I snapped.
"LEAVE US ALONE!" I screamed at her. "Haven't you done enough? Haven't you people on the Outside done enough?"
I saw suddenly that the woman could barely hold up the TV camera. Her shoulders were slumped and a tear rolled from her eye. For the first time, she did not see us as monsters. She saw us as a family thrown into an awful situation.
"I- I'm sorry," she whispered, gazing at our dead father in a mixture of fear and sadness.
"Just- leave us alone," I ordered, beginning to cry like the child I was supposed to be. "We never did anything to you."
It was another of many firsts as the woman with the camera actually heeded my plea, the plea of a second-generation X5. She backed away, eyes wide in an awesome terror and began to run, leaving us with our grief.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
I wondered in terror why I did not feel brave as my brother Justin crouched next to me with Steel behind us, as we waited for Mom and Dad to come back and give the all-clear for us to start running again.
I was eight years old and a full-fledged war was going on in the City street. X-series and animal-humans were fighting outside. Usually, to watch a transgenic fight was a thing of savage beauty because they were so strong, so fast- they had spent their young lives diligently training and it showed.
The gates of Terminal City had been broken open, and the Ordinary scum of the Outside had swarmed in. They'd taken some second-generation X-series prisoner and torched some buildings.
Suddenly, Mom burst into the room. She had a gun in her hand and was wild-eyed.
"Where's Dad?" I asked. We weren't even hiding in our own home. Mom had screamed at the three of us to run as she and her friends (the ones she liked to play cards with) had run off after the other fighters. We'd hidden in our home at first, but had heard the door being broken down and run upstairs to hide before escaping out of a window. Steel had seen Mom in an alley and had given the military sign language for BROWN HOUSE, LEFT SIDE- meaning we were going to go hide in a brown house on the left side of the City. It was a miracle to me that she'd found us, but she was alone.
Mom bit at her lip. "I don't know, he's gone to help with barricading the gates so no more can get it. Now, kids, we're going to run as fast as we can. Fists up."
"Why?" whispered Steel as we followed Mom out the door of the house.
"If we look like we can fight, then there's less of a chance of being attacked," explained Justin.
Red Xs had been spraypainted onto every wall. The street was nearly deserted now.
A yell ripped the near-silence as we dithered by the door.
"It's an X5! Don't let it get away!"
I realised in a sickening second that they meant Mom. Mom bellowed, "Go, go, go!" and the three of us took off.
Amazingly, there were enough anti-transgenics to take down even Mom. They held her on the ground. She screamed at us to run.
"Mommy," whispered Steel fretfully. She couldn't keep up with us, she was too small.
"We have to get outside the city," said Justin as we took a shortcut down an alley.
"Outside? Are you crazy?" I asked, my voice unnaturally high. "Outside we'll be killed in days!"
"Yeah, well, in the City we'll get killed in hours. Just be thankful that Mom and Dad aren't anomalies, otherwise everyone would know what we are."
"Hello, kids," said an eerie voice as we came to a dead end, panting.
I gasped and pressed up against the wall as a man holding a gun appeared behind us, seemingly out of nowhere. He grabbed a huge piece of wood propped up against the wall and pulled it down, jamming it between the two narrow walls.
"Gonna kill me?" he asked softly, his eyes never leaving our terrified faces. "Gonna drink my blood or something, sacrifice me to your animal gods?"
"We're not like that," said Steel, who was quaking. Her voice was strong, though. I had never been so proud of my little sister. "We're people. You don't even know what we're like."
She suddenly collapsed, in the grips of a seizure. "Steel!" I cried, bending to pick her up.
"Don't," said the man. "I'll do the little one a favour... dispose of her first, while she doesn't know what's happening. That's humane. But you wouldn't know what that means, would you?"
"M-My pills," slurred Steel. "They're in my pocket..."
Anguished, I looked at Justin, whose face was set. He looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. We had no way out.
He cocked the gun and as Steel twitched on the gravel, I heard her whimper in fear.
"Leave her alone," said Justin. "She's just a little girl. You want to kill a transgenic, kill me." I saw suddenly why Dad said he reminded him of the great CO, Zack. He was ten years old and would have given his life for us.
"If you want," shrugged the man, and aimed the gun. I shut my eyes in fear, and dropped to the ground, finding Steel's small thin hand. I looked at Justin again. He knew what my eyes were saying to him. I love you, my face cried to him as he prepared to die.
I knew somehow that he returned the sentiment.
And suddenly, something dropped from overhead to save our lives. It was female, looked human. She landed in front of us and held up her fists, looking menacing. Her back was to us.
She kicked the gun from the assassin's hand, sent it flying. There was silence.
"You bitch," snarled the man, backing away. He knew he was no match for an adult X-series.
This heroine made no answer. Her foot, complete with wicked army boot that she must've paid a month's rations for in the broken transgenic city, flew out once again and caught him in the forehead, sending him flying.
Kick, punch, jab. This was the kind of savage beauty that I always seemed to see when I watched a transgenic fight. Her movements were almost impossible to see, the way her fists and feet shot out like a machine. There were several cracks as his bones snapped and finally he crumpled to the ground. He didn't seem to be dead.
She turned around.
"Mom?" asked Justin in confusion.
She cocked her head silently and then shook it, pointing at Steel. We found her pills and put a few into her mouth. She still gave the occasional twitch, but her eyes were focused and she responded to commands. I hoisted her up easily and looked to the woman who looked exactly like Mom.
And yet, she didn't. She was young, only about twenty-four. Combined with the fact that she couldn't talk, I took her to be an X7 clone and left it alone.
She frantically beckoned us and we followed. Within a few minutes Steel and I were running, her arm around my shoulder. She broke away soon enough and ran in sync with Justin and I. The assumed X7 seemed to be making an effort to run slower so we could keep up.
Everything went by in a blur until I found myself in a tiny room in Mom's arms, having the life hugged out of me. She had a gash over her eye.
"How will we tell people who saved us?" I wondered aloud, looking at the woman who looked like Mom.
She smiled a beautiful smile and did something I will never be able to forget. "Some call me Eva," she said hoarsely and darted out the door.
To this day I am convinced it was a ghost. Spirituality is not a strong point with transgenics- our own reality is too black and white for us to believe in things we cannot see. But I saw her. She was living and breathing and she saved us.
Mom had to leave us again, but dropped in every few hours to ease our minds. And finally sector police saw fit to stop the riot in case it spilled out into Seattle.
As the four of us- Mom, Steel, Justin and myself- wandered down a street, there were reporters and people with cameras everywhere. We ignored them as best we could, but now we weren't on opposite sides of a fence. They had invaded us.
Transgenics hauled their dead from almost demolished homes. Hateful red Xs were daubed along every sidewalk and a couple of transgenics had been lynched from their own doorways.
"Dad!" yelled Justin as he spotted him on the ground. I will never be able to purge the image and sound from my mind. It haunts my dreams.
My mother shot over to Dad, turning him onto his back. I remember thinking how glad I was that his eyes were closed, and thinking it was odd that I, a mature eight years old, found dead eyes scary.
"Splint?" I heard her say. Her voice began to strain with worry as she talked. "Oh, no. Oh God. Splint? Splint, wake up, please! Splint, can you hear me? Oh, God, please wake up! Please!"
And it hit me then that that was the first time in my entire life that I had ever seen my mother cry. She sobbed my dad's name into the air and held onto his shirt, laying her head on his chest. Justin and Steel and I stood behind her.
Justin had immediately burst into tears. I instictively moved my hand to hold Steel's, but she had started forward, probably to try and comfort Mom. She found she couldn't walk any further and just stood there, gazing at her father in confusion. Her beautiful dark eyes were just like Dad's.
My mouth was open. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to be hurt so badly I would die too, so I could go with him. But I couldn't make it hurt. I felt like my skin was metal, or ice. I felt nothing.
Something grew inside of me. Perhaps it was listening to Justin and Mom cry, or having no hand in mine to make me feel as if I wasn't all alone. I felt like I boiled inside, and very slowly I shook.
And as I looked up, my eyes shining with tears, I found myself staring at a woman with a camera, taping us. I couldn't take it. It was the last straw. I snapped.
"LEAVE US ALONE!" I screamed at her. "Haven't you done enough? Haven't you people on the Outside done enough?"
I saw suddenly that the woman could barely hold up the TV camera. Her shoulders were slumped and a tear rolled from her eye. For the first time, she did not see us as monsters. She saw us as a family thrown into an awful situation.
"I- I'm sorry," she whispered, gazing at our dead father in a mixture of fear and sadness.
"Just- leave us alone," I ordered, beginning to cry like the child I was supposed to be. "We never did anything to you."
It was another of many firsts as the woman with the camera actually heeded my plea, the plea of a second-generation X5. She backed away, eyes wide in an awesome terror and began to run, leaving us with our grief.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.