THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND

I move my hand down the strangely-flickering tube, seeing only symbols.
That was my life - symbols of pieces, pieces of symbols.
Chemicals.
Definition.
Yet never once did I dare allow myself to remember - my son is dead.
Pain was a distant thing now, more a memory, faint and indistinct, shadows on my heart.
My hand is cool, partially from the synthetic amniotic fluid, mostly from the fact my blood and bone were no longer warmed by natural blood.
They don't understand.
Humanity is a riotious lot, bend on self-destruction and hatred.
They had always been so.
I watch the still figure in the tube, the feeding tubes and other necessities checked constantly by both the computer and my discerning eye.
In less than three generations, humans as they know themselves would be extinct.
I couldn't bear to think...to remember...but I did.
Hate in his eyes, fear in his heart.
Caused by me.
He didn't understand.
So he left me, and in truth I hated him for that.
It took time to reach a perspective.
Now it was fear in his eyes and hate in his heart.
I sigh, ignoring the attempts of one of my odious servants to report.
They could wait.
A snarl and crunch announced the impatiance of my well-hidden, favored child.
My son.
Ah, well. I think, ignoring the sounds of running, attempts to bring down my child, my son.
More crunches, a shriek.
Children do need to play. I think, idley.
My son.
His son.
His son's son...
In the end, the brothers and their brother.
Genetically possessed of restraint, something not even my finest simulators can produce. Self-control. And mutant powers that I cannot duplicate.
I finally call my son to my side, and he lopes to me, peers down into my eyes.
Tall and strong, dangerous and loyal, my only survivng son.
I touch his arm, see the serrated claws extend, then retract.
He watches me, and I feel a strange, brief warmth.
"What did you find, my son?" I keep my eyes on his, see him lift a hand, claws out.
"Find him." I instruct, holding his shoulders.
Sometimes he paid no attention, following his darker instincts.
He turned his strange, alien head to the exit, then started that way.
I turn back to watching the life in the tube.
A slight deviation from the norm, but a soldier, as the idiotic "military" had asked for.
Just that.
I never forgot a failure, it was both a gift and curse.
The system reported the genetic programming was complete.
I could deliver the male soldier to them in a day's time.
I feel my lips curve in an unfamiliar gesture.
Of course, it lacked free will.
And much of an intelligence.
A biological machine.
I hear my son take to the air and I turn to the equations dancing over the board.
My son would find Scott Summers and his siblings for me, and in due time I would be able to recover my son's mind from the shattered remnants that remained.
Scott did not understand.
Nor did his brothers.
Of course he did not, how could he?
Perhaps, at one point, if I had explained...
But that was against my nature, and it was against his to blindly obey.
I had erred.
Four Summers children, three I knew. One, despite my best efforts, remained a mystery.
I tapped the commands to begin a new sequance.
Tiresome, these soldiers. I thought, amused. One was interchangable with the other, and I had molded them as per the request given.
Six foot, two inches.
Dark blonde hair.
Blue eyes.
Muscular build.
Boring, I thought. There was no variety, as between others fitting the same description would have.
They were all soldiers, all precisely the same.
Even a madman had to have a sense of humor, and this was mine.
I rise, then turn to accept a report, lifting one eyebrow.
"We're ready, Sinister."
I smile inwardly, perhaps a mad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
Nathanial Essex wept silently over the loss of his first son, then the madness of his second.
Sinister rose and went through the door.
Sometimes I do not know which I am, in general it doesn't matter.
I have my own agenda, my own plans.
They didn't understand.
But then...
I didn't need them to...
Do I?