Chapter Two: The X5's
There were 12 of us in all. We were the first successful group of the X series. To Manticore, and more specifically, Vivadyne Research, we were their hope for a better generation of soldiers. To each other...we were siblings. Of course technically speaking we weren't genetically related in any way, shape or form. Hell, they probably didn't even use the same feline DNA in us. But whatever...It never mattered to us...even after we found out that normal brothers and sisters were related. We were all we had.
I was...no, I am X5-701. That's what I've always been. 331366001701 is my barcode number. We all had them. That's what they referred to us as...numbers. Nothing human, nothing they could possibly relate to. We had to name ourselves. That was actually quite funny. It was...a challenge, to name ourselves. Especially when we didn't even know how to go about doing that. We didn't know that there were a ton of names we could have picked. And we certainly didn't know that inanimate objects weren't used as inspiration for names. That was one of our happier times. Our names may have turned our rather...uniquely, shall we say, but be that as it may, they're our names, and that's what matters. They were something to call ourselves other than our designations. They made us feel human...something other than perfect little soldiers.
Anyways, I'm starting to get off topic. It's such an easy thing to do, especially since it's such a hard thing to remember...
Lydecker was head of Manticore at the time. Colonel Donald Lydecker. He was strict, harsh, and we hated him. Well, not at the beginning. We didn't start to hate him until later on. The feeling wasn't mutual though. To him, we were his pride and joy. We were the fastest, strongest and most agile of all the transgenics to come out of Manticore. We could, and still can, run faster, hold our breath longer and hear farther. We were the best. Simple as that. All this may not seem so awful, right? Well, let me tell you, I'm giving you the censored reader's digest version. It was no paradise. The price was high. Higher than any of us would have chosen to pay, if we'd been given the choice of course.
What hurts most, even now after so much time has passed, is the fact that we'll never be normal. The one thing that we all wanted so badly always remained just beyond our grasp, because no matter how hard we tried, we were different. We always would be. The barcode is our constant reminder of that. It's etched into our DNA-It can't be removed...can't be forgotten.
Everything was fine at the beginning. I mean, we never loved Lydecker or anything, hell, we didn't even know what love was. We didn't even like him really. We tolerated him. Yeah, tolerated's the right word. But the only reason we tolerated him was because he was our commander. We had never questioned that. That's how it worked. It's what we'd been taught. But around November of '09 things started to happen...and our tolerance of Lydecker, and Manticore as a whole, turned to outright hate.
We were out on some training exercise one day. There had been something in the atmosphere that day. Something foreboding. I remember I had had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach just before we had left the barracks. I think we all sensed something that day. It was like a premonition of what was to come. It had been very quiet. We were all doing are very best not to make a sound. It wasn't a calm silence though. The kind of silence that you get when everyone is occupied...or distracted if you will. It was a restless silence. One that whispered of bad things to come. Unfortunately our instincts proved all too true.
We were all relatively close together. There had been a raven in a tree nearby that screeched suddenly. I never did figure out why it did that. We had been too quiet to startle it. It was as if it was warning us...no, it was an omen, a bad one...still is. I guess that's a bit superstitious, but anyway...It caught us all off guard. Brin must have been really tense. She pulled the trigger so...so suddenly. No one saw it coming. Not even Zack. All we knew was that Jace was bleeding, bad. We all did our best, especially Jondy who was good at field med. But there was nothing any of us could have done. Everything happened so fast. It was all a blur.
That hurt. It was our first memorable loss. We had lost others very early on, when they had been taken away to be experimented on, but we were too young to understand what that meant. I wish we could have gotten to know those ones. It always makes me sad to think I had other siblings, but I just never got to know them. Anyways, you could say that the death of Jace marked the beginning of the end...depending on whether you're a pessimist or an optimist. You know, is the glass half full or half empty? That kind of thing. To me, it was the end an era, and the start of something much worse.
There were 12 of us in all. We were the first successful group of the X series. To Manticore, and more specifically, Vivadyne Research, we were their hope for a better generation of soldiers. To each other...we were siblings. Of course technically speaking we weren't genetically related in any way, shape or form. Hell, they probably didn't even use the same feline DNA in us. But whatever...It never mattered to us...even after we found out that normal brothers and sisters were related. We were all we had.
I was...no, I am X5-701. That's what I've always been. 331366001701 is my barcode number. We all had them. That's what they referred to us as...numbers. Nothing human, nothing they could possibly relate to. We had to name ourselves. That was actually quite funny. It was...a challenge, to name ourselves. Especially when we didn't even know how to go about doing that. We didn't know that there were a ton of names we could have picked. And we certainly didn't know that inanimate objects weren't used as inspiration for names. That was one of our happier times. Our names may have turned our rather...uniquely, shall we say, but be that as it may, they're our names, and that's what matters. They were something to call ourselves other than our designations. They made us feel human...something other than perfect little soldiers.
Anyways, I'm starting to get off topic. It's such an easy thing to do, especially since it's such a hard thing to remember...
Lydecker was head of Manticore at the time. Colonel Donald Lydecker. He was strict, harsh, and we hated him. Well, not at the beginning. We didn't start to hate him until later on. The feeling wasn't mutual though. To him, we were his pride and joy. We were the fastest, strongest and most agile of all the transgenics to come out of Manticore. We could, and still can, run faster, hold our breath longer and hear farther. We were the best. Simple as that. All this may not seem so awful, right? Well, let me tell you, I'm giving you the censored reader's digest version. It was no paradise. The price was high. Higher than any of us would have chosen to pay, if we'd been given the choice of course.
What hurts most, even now after so much time has passed, is the fact that we'll never be normal. The one thing that we all wanted so badly always remained just beyond our grasp, because no matter how hard we tried, we were different. We always would be. The barcode is our constant reminder of that. It's etched into our DNA-It can't be removed...can't be forgotten.
Everything was fine at the beginning. I mean, we never loved Lydecker or anything, hell, we didn't even know what love was. We didn't even like him really. We tolerated him. Yeah, tolerated's the right word. But the only reason we tolerated him was because he was our commander. We had never questioned that. That's how it worked. It's what we'd been taught. But around November of '09 things started to happen...and our tolerance of Lydecker, and Manticore as a whole, turned to outright hate.
We were out on some training exercise one day. There had been something in the atmosphere that day. Something foreboding. I remember I had had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach just before we had left the barracks. I think we all sensed something that day. It was like a premonition of what was to come. It had been very quiet. We were all doing are very best not to make a sound. It wasn't a calm silence though. The kind of silence that you get when everyone is occupied...or distracted if you will. It was a restless silence. One that whispered of bad things to come. Unfortunately our instincts proved all too true.
We were all relatively close together. There had been a raven in a tree nearby that screeched suddenly. I never did figure out why it did that. We had been too quiet to startle it. It was as if it was warning us...no, it was an omen, a bad one...still is. I guess that's a bit superstitious, but anyway...It caught us all off guard. Brin must have been really tense. She pulled the trigger so...so suddenly. No one saw it coming. Not even Zack. All we knew was that Jace was bleeding, bad. We all did our best, especially Jondy who was good at field med. But there was nothing any of us could have done. Everything happened so fast. It was all a blur.
That hurt. It was our first memorable loss. We had lost others very early on, when they had been taken away to be experimented on, but we were too young to understand what that meant. I wish we could have gotten to know those ones. It always makes me sad to think I had other siblings, but I just never got to know them. Anyways, you could say that the death of Jace marked the beginning of the end...depending on whether you're a pessimist or an optimist. You know, is the glass half full or half empty? That kind of thing. To me, it was the end an era, and the start of something much worse.