Chapter IV

"You're not human!"

My eyes filled with tears as I looked up at him. "Nobody's perfect." I sniffled, trying not to cry again. "You have no idea what it's like," I whispered, my voice cracking. I tried to continue, but it was either cry or suffocate inside myself. I sobbed, unable to control the flow. I covered my face and just cried and cried until I felt sick and had to make myself stop. I gasped in a breath, and realized that Crane was holding me in his arms. I was confused. I thought he would have hated me when he found out the truth. Everyone else did. But then, Jonathan Crane was different from all those…others. He was better. He understood.

I buried my face in his arm and cried. He stroked my hair calmingly, soothingly, though I could sense the wonder in him. He knew part of my dirty little secret. He'd want to know the rest. He'd want to know who – what – I was. At the moment, though, I found it hard to care. I just cried. Somehow, though, I managed to notice that Crane actually had a nice build under all the Armani. Slim but strong, like a rapier. It was comforting to have those strong arms around me – arms that didn't look like weapons but were. I felt safe in those arms.

Finally the tears began to ebb and stopped after a while, and I lay hiccoughing against him. He kept stroking my long white hair, rocking me from side to side slowly like my mother used to until I was calm.

"What happened to you?" he asked gently. "You can tell me, Sirena."

"Huh, Sirena," I said contemptuously. "That's not a name; that's an acronym for Super Intelligent Realistically Enhanced Neurological Anthropoid. And I'm not really a daughter to the man and woman who created me; I'm more of a science project."

"What are you?" asked Crane.

"Government funding," I said bluntly. "I'm what the people's tax dollars are paying for. I'm a genetically enhanced supercomputer in human form with a pituitary gland to make me grow like a 'normal' human child. I'm flesh and blood, born of a sperm and an egg, but not, by dictionary definition, human. I was designed for research and experimental purposes, but then something happened that wasn't supposed to: I developed thoughts and feelings independent of what They wanted me to think and feel. I felt pain and fear when they used me for their experiments. Do you know what it's like to have ten to fifteen seizures in one day? It's horrible." I broke off for a moment and showed him my bare arms, which were dotted with bruises and scars from multiple injections. "Look at these! Do you think Nature did this? The only reason I don't have brain damage is because I've been given "enhancements" that make me heal a lot faster than normal people. They were testing chemicals for the armed forces, things that would make then infinitely stronger than regular humans, heal at super speed, be more cunning, more strategical. They couldn't test on people, though, because of the possible side effects. So they grew me. The started more experiments in addition to the army stuff. You may or may not have noticed at some point during my sojourn at Arkham that I only have eight toes. There was only one problem: the man and woman who contributed the egg and sperm that I was born from fell in love with me. They treated me like their real daughter, and demanded the tests be terminated because I was suffering so much from the after-effects. The board appeared to agree in good grace, but then there was an "accident"-" here I made air quotes around the word "-in the HAZMAT lab. Mom and Dad were exposed to a sample of the Ebola Virus, and since there's no cure for it they died. And then, before I even had a chance to mourn for them, it was back to the experiment table for me. I fought back this time; I kicked and struggled until they had to restrain me, telling me over and over that this was why I was created, this was my only purpose in life. So I did the only thing I could. I pretended to accept all this for a while, until I had a chance to escape. I seized a scalpel and slashed the throat of the "scientist" who was with me at the time, stole his security badge, and ran for it. To make an already-long story shorter, I've been running for my life ever since and ended up in Arkham because I thought I'd be safe there. I may have been wrong, though, because when I woke up in the motel I stayed in last night someone had moved me and taken off my sneakers. So now I'm back where I was to begin with: cold, scared, desperate, and alone." I stopped and caught my breath. Damn it, I was going to start crying again. I rubbed my eyes, trying to control the tears that threatened to smother me, choking and coughing. I pulled away from Crane and pulled my knees up to my chin morosely. I didn't want to hear him say what I knew he would. I didn't want to hear him tell me to get out, to get away from him. I shivered, cold without the blankets over me. To my surprise, Crane took off his suit coat and put it around me. He was staring at me in abject shock, but he was still helping me for some reason. I was confused, but whispered a cracked "thank you" as I pulled the coat closed around me.

"How did you survive all those chemicals?" he asked softly.

"Those and all the diseases that they don't have cures for yet," I said quietly. "Whenever they were done with a certain chemical or disease, they'd give me a transfusion, flushing out all the contaminated blood and giving me new blood. Not fun."

"I can only imagine," said Crane softly, wonderingly. "I always knew there was something about you that wasn't quite…normal, but I never expected this…"

"No one ever does," I replied glumly. I started to rise. "I'll leave if you want me to."

"No, not at all," said Crane, gently pulling me back down on the bed. "Why would I want you to leave?"

"Everyone hates me if they find out what I am," I said. "I thought that…"

"No," said Crane gently. "I wouldn't do that. Not to you. This may sound strange, and I'll admit that it is, but you were always my favourite in Arkham. I found that I couldn't think of you as just another patient. Honestly, I don't think I ever really believed that you were insane and now I know that you're not."

I looked up at him curiously. "You're taking this awfully well. I wouldn't have expected you accepted all this so easily."

Crane looked sad. "That's because I have a secret of my own." He shifted on the bed, turning to face me better. "I helped create you, Sirena. I worked on the S.I.R.E.N.A. project."