An Unauthorized Genetic Experiment: episode two.
Author: Chippewa Livingston Archive: Please ask Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
6. Peace Talks
Apparently I have superwoman strength and no superwoman tolerance to hormones. Maybe it's all the meddling Manticore did with evolution or maybe every female goes through this hell.
Manticore with its hard surfaces and high fences was never really home. The people there made sure of it. They had a habit of moving us around changing the settings and conditions of our environment so we would not form attachments.
My unit stayed the same though. I'd spent years learning to function as an appendage of the body that was my contingent. When the higher ups showed us off to foreign big shots it was always the way we performed flawlessly together, like we had the terrifying hive consciousness of the later generations, which impressed them. Afterwards, they could scarcely believe we were capable of individual thought.
I knew everyone in my contingent, all their strengths and weaknesses. Still, I had always thought of myself as separate, something more than a number. Years of conditioning and training tried to dispel this dangerous path of thinking so I built a wall between myself and my fellows. It was a hard wall and crack free but somewhere along the line roots grew under my wall roots that had just been singed.
Unable to deal with the irrational feelings of loss I followed Mikah to the kitchen. Or maybe it was my hormones again insisting that I eat my own body weight in food every day!
Nathan's girlfriend was vigorously tossing the vegetables in a frying pan. A little too vigorously, they were flying out of the pan to scatter on the stove top. "Are you alright?" It was something Roxie would say.
"Yes." More produce flew, some to the floor. "Asha just has this way of twisting everything!" If the vegetables weren't dead before Mikah was making a valiant attempt to remedy that. Arguing about pacifism made her awfully violent.
"What happened to those people was terrible." How did this girl think her simpering and sighing helped the dead? Pacifists were all so eager to patiently wait out all the troubles of the world and let it all go to hell in the mean time. "Burning and all that. I've bet you've seen a lot of that in your hospital or whatever."
She nodded gravely. "It's revolting. I don't understand how one human can do that to another."
"I don't know." There are much worse things one being can do to another. There are unspeakable torments inflicted then overlooked because they ultimately benefit society. When the ends are power and wealth it doesn't matter much what the means were.
"I just feel so awful for them and Asha…"
If she said more I didn't hear. What did her sympathy matter? She didn't know who 'they' were or even what they were.
Footsteps moved in the short hallway and the other three came in, crowding the kitchen. "We finished '20 Questions'," Nathan announced, "dinner ready?
I didn't even want to think what dinner table conversation would like in this house.
Author: Chippewa Livingston Archive: Please ask Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
6. Peace Talks
Apparently I have superwoman strength and no superwoman tolerance to hormones. Maybe it's all the meddling Manticore did with evolution or maybe every female goes through this hell.
Manticore with its hard surfaces and high fences was never really home. The people there made sure of it. They had a habit of moving us around changing the settings and conditions of our environment so we would not form attachments.
My unit stayed the same though. I'd spent years learning to function as an appendage of the body that was my contingent. When the higher ups showed us off to foreign big shots it was always the way we performed flawlessly together, like we had the terrifying hive consciousness of the later generations, which impressed them. Afterwards, they could scarcely believe we were capable of individual thought.
I knew everyone in my contingent, all their strengths and weaknesses. Still, I had always thought of myself as separate, something more than a number. Years of conditioning and training tried to dispel this dangerous path of thinking so I built a wall between myself and my fellows. It was a hard wall and crack free but somewhere along the line roots grew under my wall roots that had just been singed.
Unable to deal with the irrational feelings of loss I followed Mikah to the kitchen. Or maybe it was my hormones again insisting that I eat my own body weight in food every day!
Nathan's girlfriend was vigorously tossing the vegetables in a frying pan. A little too vigorously, they were flying out of the pan to scatter on the stove top. "Are you alright?" It was something Roxie would say.
"Yes." More produce flew, some to the floor. "Asha just has this way of twisting everything!" If the vegetables weren't dead before Mikah was making a valiant attempt to remedy that. Arguing about pacifism made her awfully violent.
"What happened to those people was terrible." How did this girl think her simpering and sighing helped the dead? Pacifists were all so eager to patiently wait out all the troubles of the world and let it all go to hell in the mean time. "Burning and all that. I've bet you've seen a lot of that in your hospital or whatever."
She nodded gravely. "It's revolting. I don't understand how one human can do that to another."
"I don't know." There are much worse things one being can do to another. There are unspeakable torments inflicted then overlooked because they ultimately benefit society. When the ends are power and wealth it doesn't matter much what the means were.
"I just feel so awful for them and Asha…"
If she said more I didn't hear. What did her sympathy matter? She didn't know who 'they' were or even what they were.
Footsteps moved in the short hallway and the other three came in, crowding the kitchen. "We finished '20 Questions'," Nathan announced, "dinner ready?
I didn't even want to think what dinner table conversation would like in this house.