Reality Check

By Rowe

Disclaimer: DA characters belong to Fox and J.Cameron.

A/N: Thankyou to the wonderful beta job of Roonblah

Chapter 8. Horror fills the eyes.

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The taste of blood in his mouth set his spirit soaring. Fresh kills always did. It wasn't something he should enjoy. He understood that. But it brought him closer to the past, and for just a few seconds he could feel like he was back with his unit. He looked down at the body and felt a sense of euphoria. It was at these times that he could actually revel in what he was. Superior. Faster, stronger…better. He placed his offering in the cloth and stood, reluctant to leave this feeling behind. As the dawn approached he knew he had to leave. Turning he moved back through the brush, back to his lair. He would sleep and then he would go visit her with his grisly donation.

As the warehouse came into sight the feeling of predator began to subside. Once again he was just a man. This change always left him feeling a little bereft. He felt so much less than whole. Placing the offering on the ledge near his weapons, he replaced the gun he had armed his prey with. They were always too slow. Never managed to get him, well at least not yet. He stripped off and moved over to his bunk. The weariness was beginning to overcome him as the adrenalin in his system was being sopped up. Such a tremendous high was always followed by a depressing low. He liked to sleep to avoid that. His eyes closed and he blocked out the familiar world surrounding. He remained alert enough to sense any changes but for now he needed rest. His brain began to shut down and quickly sleep took hold of him.

Tight restraints were holding him down. His face felt bruised and he was sure that he felt blood trickling slowly from the corner of his mouth. He could smell the antiseptic stench. Overly bright clinical lights were glaring down from overhead. As these lights shut off he felt a cold metal clamp grasp onto his face, prying his eye lids wide. Ben fought the pain in his mind. As the red light shot into his opened iris, he screamed in pain. The shock to his system woke him. His hands were clawing at his face in an attempt to remove the imagined implements of torture. The remnants of the nightmare were still hovering in his mind. The pain had seemed so real. He knew where it was, he knew it was what they would do to him.

Time had come to move on. Try and escape this impending feeling of dread that was hanging over him. For the first time since he had escaped in '09, he wasn't too sure whether Manticore was where he belonged. This troubled him more than he wanted to think about. He quickly scrubbed the unbidden tears away. Without Manticore, he was nothing. He was losing himself a little more every day. Now he just needed to work out how to find his sense of self again.

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He didn't want to go back. Deep in the back of his mind he knew what they would do to him. It was part of how they had controlled them as they had gotten older. Thinly veiled threats of how much worse life could be. As they had reached puberty and the animal natures had taken a stronger hold, fear had been the only rein by which the guards had been able to contain them. Now, even numb from the shock, he felt the icy fingers of fear grabbing hold and twisting his gut cruelly. They knew he had failed, but did they know the full extent of his betrayal?

The ride back was carried out in sombre silence. The tension in the vehicle was heavy. Like a condemned man he was being conveyed to his executioner; back to the world that had created him and could just as easily destroy him. His mind was like a damaged video; replaying on loop the last moments he had spent trying to reason with Rachel. How could he have done it better? What could have saved her? He contained the sobs, he was a soldier. Instead, the tears slid down his face silently.

As the main gates swung into view, he uttered one word. It sounded more like the whimper of a beaten animal.

"No!"

The horrors that faced him had cracked open the shell of shock.

They dragged him unwillingly into the complex and threw him roughly into his cell. His hand unclenched to reveal the treasure he had contained within. Rachel's locket, his last link to another world. One he was forever to be excluded from.

Sandoval was waiting. He saw his secondary handler approach the stern faced man and they were obviously discussing him, just outside the range of the transgenic hearing. The anger he could sense and the glances of disgust thrown his way disclosed his fate long before the words confirmed it.

The horrors of psyops awaited him again. This time they would be a little more extensive in their attempts to unmake his mind and rebuild it for their own amusement. Manticore never took betrayal well. Sometimes death was the better option.

Inside the torture chamber of psyops, time held no meaning. He had lost his sense of how long they held him there. It seemed like days, but could have been but hours. As the laser bore sharply into his pupil and penetrated deep into his brain, he fought hard. He would hold onto her, to her memory, for as long as he could. The time shifted like desert sand till he could hardly remember who he was let alone what he was resisting for, but still his instincts told him to fight on.

As he was dragged limply along seemly endless corridors filled with row upon row of cells, faces inhuman and fantastic, assaulted his addled mind. His battered and bruised body was in far better shape than his tortured mind. Unmerciful hands dropped him callously onto the bunk of the solitary cell and left him to rot.

In the haze of his thoughts he could vaguely make out the Colonel, Lydecker standing at his feet. The face of the form beside him was …his own. He dismissed it as just another phantom, like the monsters that surrounded him. As he let consciousness slip from his grasp, but still holding tightly to the sanity that they had tried to rip away with their drugs and devices, he heard the words penetrate his fogginess.

"Let me tell you a little story….."

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As the new cell came into focus, Cain realised his situation may have been changed from bad to worse. The steel door was solid, but a small grated window brought to his ears the sounds of heavily booted footsteps echoing through the cement walled halls. The precision of the sound suggested marching. A military operation? Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it of the remnant effects of the sedative, he shifted around so that he could take in the rest of his surrounds. Turning around on the bunk, he noticed a set of neatly folded clothes piled on the floor. Grey fatigues. Looking down at his torn and dirty clothes, he took the hint and changed. He liked to feel clean and this gruesome smell of blood, even if it was his own, was setting his stomach churning again.

He could also smell his own fear. It radiated around the room, enveloping him a blanket of sour. Sitting with his back against the wall, he pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. Now all he could do was wait. Wait for them to make the next move. He wasn't too sure who "them' was, or why they were interested in him. His visions appeared to have subsided since they had injected him. That brought with it some relief. At least it left his mind clear enough for him to assess what his options were.

As he contemplated this, the cell door slid open. Cain quickly scrambled to his feet and moved to the back of the cell. Not too sure of who he would be facing. The craggy blonde man from the lockup stepped though the doorway, flanked one again by several burly, armed men. He appeared to take in Cain's appearance with approval.

"Welcome Son. This will be your new home." His smile was warm and appeared friendly but Cain was still very suspicious of this man. Last time they had managed to inject him, he wouldn't let his guard down again quite so easily.

"I need you to meet someone. He will help me explain this all to you before you are fully brought back to the fold." The man stepped back into the hall and the guards indicated that he was to follow.

As he followed along the concreted corridors, fully aware of the presence of the two men behind him at his shoulders, he felt calm for the first time in a long while, since the dreams had begun. Something, somehow, felt right.

Cain looked down at the man Lydecker was showing him. He had seen all manners of monsters that were held down here in the basement. Terrifying creatures peering out through the bars at him. Some growling, others making sounds that set the hairs on the back of his neck on end. This, however, was the most horrifying of all. Through the bruises and swelling he could still make out this man's features. So familiar to him, because they were his own. He turned to Lydecker with a look of disbelief.

"What type of scam are you trying to pull? Who are you people?" He backed away from the Blonde man straight into the chest of one of the guards.

The blonde man held up his hands in a sign of placation. He started to talk as Cain's gaze once again fell to the battered body thrown across the bunk in front of him. Finally Cain's mind focused on the words, and he listened to a tale so fantastic that it sounded like the plot from someone's futuristic sci-fi show.

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The news had come through that 493 had been busy again. He had produced victim number 4 in Miami, and if his hunches were correct, it would be time to move on. The pattern that seemed to be developing was that there were an ever-increasing number of victims at each site: two in Chicago, three in New York, and now four in Miami. Renfro was beginning to really fret over this whole thing. She had been in his face and behind his back, now she was kicking his arse. He needed to get this dealt with, it had gone on far too long.

He has seen what they had done to 494. It wasn't pretty but it was better than what they could have done. His mind, though shut away inside, hadn't been totally destroyed. The stupid boy had fought them, both mentally and physically, making it harder on himself.

Now he had 495 with him. Having seen that he used his own initiative to change was promising. Seeing him dressed in the fatigues had given Deck hope that this could all work out. He looked like a soldier, even though his mind and body were undisciplined. It would take a lot of work but first he need to be prepped.

Lydecker could see that 495 was seriously having problems coping with the image of 494 before him. He needed him to listen and having the evidence in front of him was the only way he would ever believe the truth.

"Let me tell you a little story….." He began slowly and with a light tone. No need to frighten the boy further.

"Once upon a time, three baby boys were born. All three were exactly the same, sharing the usually unique gene code of creation, all had the same DNA. Though their lives were separate, still they remained intricately linked." Deck watched as Cain let the words sink in.

"You are one of those babies. Your heritage is more than human. Those sensations you are experiencing, they are the awakening of your true nature, of the core of who you are." He paused and watched the X5 nodding as if things were starting to gel in his mind.

"And let me guess," Cain pointed at 494's prone figure, "he was another. So who am I really? What am I really? Why are you…."

Deck cut him off as the flood of questions became more desperate. Soothingly he addressed the man. "You are one of my gifted children. We sent you out into the world but it is time you came home. You need to learn who you are, so you can become what you should always have been, a superior soldier."

At the look of horror on Cain's face at the mention of soldier, Deck tried to reason with him. "I suspect you know of your enhanced senses. Do you smell things far more acutely, see things more clearly?" At the nod, he continued on. "What you may not have realised is that your mind and body are drastically different to mine. Yes, they may look the same. You are far more than you appear." Deck lead them out of the room. Watching as Cain took one final look at 494 before they closed the doors and left him in solitary.

As Deck led them out along the corridors again he continued his explanation. "You were made to be faster, stronger, smarter than the ordinary human." "How?" Cain's question was simple but was important.

"Recombinant genetics, you are the sum of many parts. Your genetic code contains elements of several species. It allows you to access their abilities as your own." At the scoffing noise that was emitted by 495, Deck decided on a new tack and they turned towards a set of stairs leading to a door. "It's true. Come I will show you how different you are."

They stepped out into the bright light, onto the parade grounds. Military drills were being carried out in several quadrants.

"These people are the same as you, they are what you will become."

A figure moved past at such a speed that all he could see was a darkened blur. The shock on Cain's face was quickly replaced by a look of dismay. The strangled question that escaped from him revealed that what Deck had been telling him had finally been acknowledged.

"I am not human, am I?"

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