Although I did not know it, my face was blasted across every television set in the nation and the surrounding countries. Millions heard my screams for them to just leave us alone and for the first time, felt ashamed.
And finally, the famous Max Guevara signed a peace treaty. There were ninety of us crowded around a working television that someone had sneaked into the City, watching her on the news. A few of her living brothers and sisters stood with her, at attention like the soldiers they were born to be. They were smiling, though. As the leaders of Terminal City, they signed their names to the document. Max went last, and as she finished her name she grinned.
My mom was crying a little but managed to cheer as loudly as anyone. It was a proud moment for us as we watched the great Max Guevara. I hugged Steel, who had been very quiet those past few weeks since Dad died. Nevertheless, she laughed and cried and cheered her head off just like everyone else. We were what Manticore had intended us to be, but better and stronger in a purer and more wonderful way. We were the greatest.
We could now go outside the City for the first time ever. As the City's population prepared as one to walk through the gates as one for the first time, I certainly didn't feel like the greatest. I felt scared.
"Free?" asked Justin, coming into the room us three kids shared. Mom and Steel were packing our meagre belongings in the front room.
"That's what we are," I kidded.
"I have an idea. C'mon." He withdrew a penknife from a pocket and dropped to the ground, wriggling underneath one of the low cots we slept on. As I joined him, he began to scratch something into the skirting board.
He handed me the knife after a few minutes and I had my turn. I ran and fetched Steel and supervised her with the knife.
And then, we left.
As my primary family stood on the steps into the house and watched transgenics gather in the streets, Mom sighed. "I can't believe your dad didn't live to see this."
We were silent.
"Come on," she said, drawing herself up.
"Mommy, why don't you cry?" asked Steel, her voice confused.
I held Steel's hand for moral support as we drew closer to the gates. They had never looked so important before. There was a huge crowd just on the Outside, craning for a look at us.
The great CO, Zack Thompson, took his honour as the first X5 leader by unlocking the now gates.
We were breathless as we waited for the command to leave. Steel was almost crushing my hand. I went up on my tiptoes to see. It was a make-or-break point in transgenic history, like the death of X5 Eva or the burning of Manticore. And this time, I was there to see it.
"Move out," he called to us, and we began to walk toward the Outside.
It was clean and warm, with enough food and power and freedom for absolutely everyone, no matter what they looked like or who their parents were. It terrified me. As thousands of eyes stared at me, roving for barcodes or fangs or miscellaneous Manticore debris, I wanted nothing more than to be living inside Terminal City with both my parents and my siblings, not Outside with no dad and Ordinaries everywhere.
Tensely, I broke into a run alongside my family as we left the City. I turned around for a second as transgenics pushed their way through the crowd. My huge extended family was being split up, tossed around, separated. Reporters were waylaying older transgenics but Mom managed to sneak us through. She'd traded four nights of winnings in her poker games for some concealing makeup to cover her barcode.
Everything looked big and scary. For the first time my mom took us to a fast food restaurant. Steel, Justin and I gingerly nibbled cheeseburgers as she smiled at us.
"I didn't like them much when I first got out," she said in a worldly way. "They'll grow on you."
"It's Ordinary food," mused Steel, closely inspecting a French fry. "Mommy, what's this?"
"Potato. Eat it," said Mom shortly. We were attracting a lot of odd looks.
Transgenics were everywhere. I even spotted some old neighbours at a set of traffic lights and waved to them. The four of us sat on a bench in the park. I had a ratty pink backpack and Steel carried a plastic bag with her few possessions within. Justin and Mom shared a big suitcase. It was about noon by this time.
"Mom, where are we gonna sleep?" I asked, swinging my skinny legs. "Are we going back into the City like the neighbours?"
"Like hell," said Mom crisply. "I've slept in a leaky room the size of a closet for ten years with your father snoring in my ear. We'll rent an apartment for a little while."
"But we ARE going back, right?" said Justin.
"In due course. Let's move out."
Darkness fell as we toured around the city. Mom left the three of us in a bar where we challenged some teenagers to a game of pool. We were doing quite well until Mom came back in.
"I've found somewhere for us to stay," she said in a businesslike fashion. Steel was already rubbing her eyes as she dragged a complaining Justin and I out.
I looked up at the stars. This had been my first ever day outside the City. The world wasn't split down the middle or divided into two any more. There were things called 'suburbs' or 'sectors' and the streets of Seattle seemed to wind away into darkness forever and ever.
Steel was hiccupping and sniffling. I knew the feeling of my hand in hers would comfort her, but a terse, military, "Hurry it up!" came from my mother every time she lagged back with me.
About fifteen minutes later we traipsed through the doors of a seedy apartment building. Sullen eyes stared from the shadows as Mom collected a door key from a silent mass of man behind a hardwood desk.
The elevator was out. We climbed endless stairs until we found our room on the fifth floor, Room 503. Mom tried the key for eleven minutes until her patience seemed to snap and she kicked the door open.
There were three small rooms- a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and a living area where I guessed we would sleep. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling in the kitchen and the living area. Justin, Steel and I gaped.
"Um... let's explore," I volunteered and we spread out. The bathroom was a shower; sink and toilet all crowded into a positively illegal space. I gave the flush on the toilet an experimental pound with my fist.
It made some sucking noises and then a threatening clunk, filling up with water almost to the seat. I gave Mom a pained look.
"There's a bathroom block down the hall," she told me curtly.
My half-brother, sister and myself changed into our Terminal City version of nightclothes- oversized t-shirts too ripped for the adult men to wear. Mom laid out our blankets on the floor of the front room and went to the kitchen to sleep.
We didn't dare talk, as we knew Mom was probably awake. I stared at the ceiling and thought sulkily, In the City we had a room with cots. We had a tumbledown house and even though we had to share it with two other families, it had enough room for everybody. In the City we knew practically everyone... and we had our dad with us.
The world sucked.
For nine weeks we lived in there. Justin and I reached an unspoken timetable of taking Steel down the hall to the toilets because none of us dared to use our own, even in the depths of a cold and windy night. Mom got a job as a card dealer in a club and was often out late. She gave us money to go and get our own food- we were overwhelmed by the choice.
We didn't make friends with the other children. They knew by our abrupt arrival that we must be transgenics and made no effort to talk to us. We missed Dad terribly, but the adults had always unwittingly given us the message that we were never to cry. I certainly never saw my mom cry after the day we found our father's body on the street.
Justin and Steel became my best friends... my only friends. I felt so alone I would have happily jumped off the top of the building to see one familiar face. When I slept, I had nightmares and when I was awake, the whole world was a nightmare.
Mom bought us a small TV and the three of us would sit around in our pyjamas in the evenings, religiously watching everything, even though I loathed almost every programme and didn't understand the humour. One evening, the canned laughter of the studio audience sounding even sadder because none of us so much as moved, Mom stormed through the door, which didn't lock properly because of her kicking it open that time.
"Hi, Mommy. Did you have a good day?" asked Steel innocently.
"No, I certainly goddamn didn't!" seethed Mom, stamping into the bathroom. She took off her makeup and let down her hair (literally) before drifting back into the front room with us.
We were silent.
"What happened?" asked Justin and I simultaneously.
"You're too young to hear," she snapped. "Now, did you have a good day?"
We muttered and murmured.
"You should be in school," she mused. "You never missed even a day of school back in the City..."
"Mom, I don't want to go to an Ordinary school," I said in a panic. "They'll tease me."
"You'll have to," said Mom firmly. "You've been moping around here for weeks-"
"Well, no one will play with us!" protested Steel.
"- and anyone, no matter who their parents are, deserves an education. Besides, your teacher in the City is AWOL; she's been gone for about five weeks, so I've heard. I'm enrolling you in school!"
And so it came to be that Steel, Justin and myself were enrolled in Ackland Hill Elementary School. It was covered in graffiti and had a few ratty trees outside. Ordinary children were swarming in every direction, calling to their friends. I wished like anything that I was two years older or a year younger- anything so that I would have a friend.
The bell rang. Mom ushered the three of us inside. The front office was covered in children's artwork- painted puppets and prints leered down at me from every corner. I suddenly felt very small and weak. In my mind I ran amok, smashing and ripping and tangling everything in my path. Outwardly, I cowered behind my mother.
I drifted through this alternate reality that was an Ordinary school and found myself finally in front of the class. A woman with a sarcastic smile told me, dearie, to please introduce myself to the class.
I blinked at them, their eyes trained on me, knowing somehow that I wasn't one of them. It was like I was standing on the other side of frosted glass.
I cleared my throat. "M-My name is Free Xavier and I'm eight years old. I like to... I mean, I... I..."
I blushed.
"Oh, but tell us where you've come from, Free, I'm sure the class is just DYING to know, Free, and what a pretty name that is..." burbled the teacher.
I was willing to say anything to get her to shut up. "Terminal City," I muttered. I didn't see, even by then, what was so wrong with the place I grew up.
There was a communal gasp and suddenly every child was waving a hand in the air.
I looked like them. I talked like them. I had no barcode or fur or gills. I was strong, everyone knew, and faster than they could ever dream of being. I could scale buildings before I knew how to walk and I thought nothing strange of having my mother give Justin a pistol to ward off reporters when we went for a walk near the perimeter fence. But by the two words of my birthplace I was instantly more separated from the Ordinary children than I could ever have dreamed to be.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
And finally, the famous Max Guevara signed a peace treaty. There were ninety of us crowded around a working television that someone had sneaked into the City, watching her on the news. A few of her living brothers and sisters stood with her, at attention like the soldiers they were born to be. They were smiling, though. As the leaders of Terminal City, they signed their names to the document. Max went last, and as she finished her name she grinned.
My mom was crying a little but managed to cheer as loudly as anyone. It was a proud moment for us as we watched the great Max Guevara. I hugged Steel, who had been very quiet those past few weeks since Dad died. Nevertheless, she laughed and cried and cheered her head off just like everyone else. We were what Manticore had intended us to be, but better and stronger in a purer and more wonderful way. We were the greatest.
We could now go outside the City for the first time ever. As the City's population prepared as one to walk through the gates as one for the first time, I certainly didn't feel like the greatest. I felt scared.
"Free?" asked Justin, coming into the room us three kids shared. Mom and Steel were packing our meagre belongings in the front room.
"That's what we are," I kidded.
"I have an idea. C'mon." He withdrew a penknife from a pocket and dropped to the ground, wriggling underneath one of the low cots we slept on. As I joined him, he began to scratch something into the skirting board.
He handed me the knife after a few minutes and I had my turn. I ran and fetched Steel and supervised her with the knife.
And then, we left.
As my primary family stood on the steps into the house and watched transgenics gather in the streets, Mom sighed. "I can't believe your dad didn't live to see this."
We were silent.
"Come on," she said, drawing herself up.
"Mommy, why don't you cry?" asked Steel, her voice confused.
I held Steel's hand for moral support as we drew closer to the gates. They had never looked so important before. There was a huge crowd just on the Outside, craning for a look at us.
The great CO, Zack Thompson, took his honour as the first X5 leader by unlocking the now gates.
We were breathless as we waited for the command to leave. Steel was almost crushing my hand. I went up on my tiptoes to see. It was a make-or-break point in transgenic history, like the death of X5 Eva or the burning of Manticore. And this time, I was there to see it.
"Move out," he called to us, and we began to walk toward the Outside.
It was clean and warm, with enough food and power and freedom for absolutely everyone, no matter what they looked like or who their parents were. It terrified me. As thousands of eyes stared at me, roving for barcodes or fangs or miscellaneous Manticore debris, I wanted nothing more than to be living inside Terminal City with both my parents and my siblings, not Outside with no dad and Ordinaries everywhere.
Tensely, I broke into a run alongside my family as we left the City. I turned around for a second as transgenics pushed their way through the crowd. My huge extended family was being split up, tossed around, separated. Reporters were waylaying older transgenics but Mom managed to sneak us through. She'd traded four nights of winnings in her poker games for some concealing makeup to cover her barcode.
Everything looked big and scary. For the first time my mom took us to a fast food restaurant. Steel, Justin and I gingerly nibbled cheeseburgers as she smiled at us.
"I didn't like them much when I first got out," she said in a worldly way. "They'll grow on you."
"It's Ordinary food," mused Steel, closely inspecting a French fry. "Mommy, what's this?"
"Potato. Eat it," said Mom shortly. We were attracting a lot of odd looks.
Transgenics were everywhere. I even spotted some old neighbours at a set of traffic lights and waved to them. The four of us sat on a bench in the park. I had a ratty pink backpack and Steel carried a plastic bag with her few possessions within. Justin and Mom shared a big suitcase. It was about noon by this time.
"Mom, where are we gonna sleep?" I asked, swinging my skinny legs. "Are we going back into the City like the neighbours?"
"Like hell," said Mom crisply. "I've slept in a leaky room the size of a closet for ten years with your father snoring in my ear. We'll rent an apartment for a little while."
"But we ARE going back, right?" said Justin.
"In due course. Let's move out."
Darkness fell as we toured around the city. Mom left the three of us in a bar where we challenged some teenagers to a game of pool. We were doing quite well until Mom came back in.
"I've found somewhere for us to stay," she said in a businesslike fashion. Steel was already rubbing her eyes as she dragged a complaining Justin and I out.
I looked up at the stars. This had been my first ever day outside the City. The world wasn't split down the middle or divided into two any more. There were things called 'suburbs' or 'sectors' and the streets of Seattle seemed to wind away into darkness forever and ever.
Steel was hiccupping and sniffling. I knew the feeling of my hand in hers would comfort her, but a terse, military, "Hurry it up!" came from my mother every time she lagged back with me.
About fifteen minutes later we traipsed through the doors of a seedy apartment building. Sullen eyes stared from the shadows as Mom collected a door key from a silent mass of man behind a hardwood desk.
The elevator was out. We climbed endless stairs until we found our room on the fifth floor, Room 503. Mom tried the key for eleven minutes until her patience seemed to snap and she kicked the door open.
There were three small rooms- a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and a living area where I guessed we would sleep. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling in the kitchen and the living area. Justin, Steel and I gaped.
"Um... let's explore," I volunteered and we spread out. The bathroom was a shower; sink and toilet all crowded into a positively illegal space. I gave the flush on the toilet an experimental pound with my fist.
It made some sucking noises and then a threatening clunk, filling up with water almost to the seat. I gave Mom a pained look.
"There's a bathroom block down the hall," she told me curtly.
My half-brother, sister and myself changed into our Terminal City version of nightclothes- oversized t-shirts too ripped for the adult men to wear. Mom laid out our blankets on the floor of the front room and went to the kitchen to sleep.
We didn't dare talk, as we knew Mom was probably awake. I stared at the ceiling and thought sulkily, In the City we had a room with cots. We had a tumbledown house and even though we had to share it with two other families, it had enough room for everybody. In the City we knew practically everyone... and we had our dad with us.
The world sucked.
For nine weeks we lived in there. Justin and I reached an unspoken timetable of taking Steel down the hall to the toilets because none of us dared to use our own, even in the depths of a cold and windy night. Mom got a job as a card dealer in a club and was often out late. She gave us money to go and get our own food- we were overwhelmed by the choice.
We didn't make friends with the other children. They knew by our abrupt arrival that we must be transgenics and made no effort to talk to us. We missed Dad terribly, but the adults had always unwittingly given us the message that we were never to cry. I certainly never saw my mom cry after the day we found our father's body on the street.
Justin and Steel became my best friends... my only friends. I felt so alone I would have happily jumped off the top of the building to see one familiar face. When I slept, I had nightmares and when I was awake, the whole world was a nightmare.
Mom bought us a small TV and the three of us would sit around in our pyjamas in the evenings, religiously watching everything, even though I loathed almost every programme and didn't understand the humour. One evening, the canned laughter of the studio audience sounding even sadder because none of us so much as moved, Mom stormed through the door, which didn't lock properly because of her kicking it open that time.
"Hi, Mommy. Did you have a good day?" asked Steel innocently.
"No, I certainly goddamn didn't!" seethed Mom, stamping into the bathroom. She took off her makeup and let down her hair (literally) before drifting back into the front room with us.
We were silent.
"What happened?" asked Justin and I simultaneously.
"You're too young to hear," she snapped. "Now, did you have a good day?"
We muttered and murmured.
"You should be in school," she mused. "You never missed even a day of school back in the City..."
"Mom, I don't want to go to an Ordinary school," I said in a panic. "They'll tease me."
"You'll have to," said Mom firmly. "You've been moping around here for weeks-"
"Well, no one will play with us!" protested Steel.
"- and anyone, no matter who their parents are, deserves an education. Besides, your teacher in the City is AWOL; she's been gone for about five weeks, so I've heard. I'm enrolling you in school!"
And so it came to be that Steel, Justin and myself were enrolled in Ackland Hill Elementary School. It was covered in graffiti and had a few ratty trees outside. Ordinary children were swarming in every direction, calling to their friends. I wished like anything that I was two years older or a year younger- anything so that I would have a friend.
The bell rang. Mom ushered the three of us inside. The front office was covered in children's artwork- painted puppets and prints leered down at me from every corner. I suddenly felt very small and weak. In my mind I ran amok, smashing and ripping and tangling everything in my path. Outwardly, I cowered behind my mother.
I drifted through this alternate reality that was an Ordinary school and found myself finally in front of the class. A woman with a sarcastic smile told me, dearie, to please introduce myself to the class.
I blinked at them, their eyes trained on me, knowing somehow that I wasn't one of them. It was like I was standing on the other side of frosted glass.
I cleared my throat. "M-My name is Free Xavier and I'm eight years old. I like to... I mean, I... I..."
I blushed.
"Oh, but tell us where you've come from, Free, I'm sure the class is just DYING to know, Free, and what a pretty name that is..." burbled the teacher.
I was willing to say anything to get her to shut up. "Terminal City," I muttered. I didn't see, even by then, what was so wrong with the place I grew up.
There was a communal gasp and suddenly every child was waving a hand in the air.
I looked like them. I talked like them. I had no barcode or fur or gills. I was strong, everyone knew, and faster than they could ever dream of being. I could scale buildings before I knew how to walk and I thought nothing strange of having my mother give Justin a pistol to ward off reporters when we went for a walk near the perimeter fence. But by the two words of my birthplace I was instantly more separated from the Ordinary children than I could ever have dreamed to be.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.