Chapter Sixteen
Fail had been in the tank for three days and a half, helpless as the images flashed in her mind.
A five-year-old Fail was on her knees watching the flames devour the orphanage. Bodies were all over and blood stained her clothing. Tears stained her face and her breath caught as a winged figure stood over her. The winged figure was a boy, a teenager exactly, with red hair and multi-colored wings. He pulled a gun, aimed at the crying Eraser, and shot her in the head, no hesitation whatsoever.
Now that image was stamped into her mind, and she couldn't seem to remember the exact memory.
Nine years of age, Fail was walking down the halls of Itex. She had her hands behind her back and she was humming a simple tune, when she froze to a stand still. "Good bye F0871" a voice said. Fail looked through the crevice of a door to see a person dressed all in back with black wings folded on his back, with a knife at an Eraser's throat, her younger brothers throat. The knife slid across the boys neck and blood spattered the walls, and spattered Fail's face.
She hadknow that her younger brother, F0871, had died from an experiment, not by murder, but now, she thought he had died by the hands of a cold-blooded killer.
Fail at thirteen, with ten Erasers, in a forest, battling against something in the shadows. Merc was there, as with Claw, and Joe, but they were all wounded and Fail had a bullet in her arm. She advanced on the shadow only to feel pain in her abdomen. She looked down to see a steel dagger in her stomach. She looked up to the grinning face of a blond-headed girl with pink highlights, before sinking to the ground, in great pain.
Fail accepted the image as the truth, accepted it, and felt a burning hate for the girl, for the others like her, for them all.
Fail was in a cell, collar and clamps around her wrists and ankles, and many claw marks. A dark girl walked in with a smug grin on her face.
"Hullo" she said, looking down on Fail "time to go and get shot"
Fail tensed at the memory of that girl, the dark young girl that had caused her so much pain for most of her life.
She was walking down a hall when she saw a device on the wall. Numbers on it blinked, counting down from 00:02:46 and then it reached 0, and Fail was blasted back. She woke with a Blond-headed boy and a white winged girl standing over her, both grinning widely before she had slipped into unconsciousness again.
Fail wondered how someone so small could make a bomb big enough to destroy her home, to blast her into an abyss, and for them to be happy and smiling about it. She clenched her hands into fists at this, and gritted her teeth, wanting to cause as much pain as she could to them as she could to anyone else who would cause her pain and cross her path.
Fail was thrown against the back of a cave. She had many open wounds and two gashes under her left eye that stung badly from the tears that flowed down her dirt covered face. Her lip was split and was bleeding, and many small wounds decorated her arms, hands, legs and feet and her neck was red from smeared blood. Her nose was broken and her eyes were glowing bright with rage but fading with pain. She looked up from the cave floor to see the silhouette of a boy. Then the sun passed over him and she could see his face clearly. His eyes were blind but somehow, he was looking at her, as if he actually had sight. He was grinning widely, before grabbing Fail by the shirt and lifting her up off the ground, to drag her to the mouth of the cave to reveal a cliff far up from the ground, far far up. He dragged her to the edge of the cliff, lifted her up to be eye-level with her, and grinned wider.
"Heres your death" he said before throwing her over the cliff. He looked down on her as she fell, before drawing a gun and shooting at her, the bullet striking her pain-filled heart that beat slower and slower.
Fail jolted upwards, breaking through the surface of a greenish liquid. She gripped the side of the tank, taking in deep and frantic breaths. She whirled around when she heard a voice. She saw a boy with dark hair, tan skin, and golden eyes. He was grinning at her.
"Welcome back"
"Sir" A woman with her dark hair tied in a messy bun on top her head and with glasses that reflected the sunlight from the windows, peered through the double doors to look at the man behind the desk.
"Theres a woman out here to see you, Anne from Itex in Florida" she said. The man nodded to his secretary.
"Send her in"
Anne walked into his office to sit down in the chair across from the desk.
"So, Anne of Itex, what brings you here"
"Well you surely know Clyde" Anne replied tersely "The Pack is truly an astounding place, but I need to know if F0873 is secure here" she said, making a brow lift above Clyde's left eye.
"She's escaped several times before, in Itex, and in The School, what makes The Pack so different?"
"Well... if you don't mind me saying, The Pack has better security. Our guards are Erasers, trained by this facility from the experts of weapon and hand to hand combat. F0873 is an outstanding organism, strong yes, but she is weak in numbers and skill" he said, receiving a nod from Anne.
"And, Clyde, since she is now in your hands, I want to know exactly what is to happen to her, and how this whole Reeducation thing works" she said, folding her hands onto her lap.
"Ah... yes, that" Clyde said, fingering a pen on his desk. "Well, reeducation is a subject not to be messed with. It alters the memories of the subject and may change all personality, past, and ways of cooperation. With F0873, we would have to alter fourteen years of memory."
"So you are changing the subjects memory?" Anne asked, giving an inquisitive look to Clyde, boss of The Pack.
"No, no" Clyde said, waving his hand as if to dismiss her words "That is impossible, we are simply altering former memories and perhaps adding some since no one remembers every split second of their lives" he said "we simply add images to existing memories."
"And how exactly do you do that?"
"We take an existing memory, take it apart and add beings or objects of that memory, into a new one that is practically the same as the previous. We could add one of those winged people you speak of, or we can add you, or another whitecoat. Depending on the memory, we could possibly make the subject love or hate the person or thing put into the memory. We do this by sending shock waves into the brain that carry the images we make. For F0873 we made an undying hatred towards the flock especially to the blind one"
"Why the blind one?" Anne asked, cocking her head to the side "Why not the leader, Maximum Ride?"
"Because" Clyde began "she had a fondness for him"
"The Erasers didn't report anything to me and-"
"Because they didn't have orders to report what they see, they just had orders to capture the blind one and return to me. I command Erasers, they follow the orders I give them and follow the orders of those I appoint themto. I gave you ten Erasers just for the capture of the blind flock member, and that was all. Once they saw him in Itex they immediately return to me less they have more orders by the one that I appointed them to" Anne nodded in understanding.
"and who will F0873 be appointed to?" She asked "after her reeducation?"
"Well" Clyde grinned "she will be appointed to herself"
"But thats a risk!" Anne said, going wide-eyed slightly.
"Indeed it is. But, you see, we can't make her past life into one of living in The Pack, she lived most of her life in School and in Itex and only a couple hours in The Pack, we can't alter the place they remember being raised in, and we can't change the way they cooperate to authority, which, for F0873 is awfully little respect" he said, looking out the window to the pine forest and peaks.
"So she will be taught, and she will be under her own control, and she will probably cooperate in anything including the flock, for want of revenge for the memories we've made."
"I see..." Anne said, standing up and grabbing her luggage. She opened her mouth to say something but the secretary already walked into the room, interrupting any other begins of a conversation.
"I will show you to your room" she said, gesturing to the door. Anne nodded before looking at Clyde. She turned to follow the secretary out the door to her room. Once the door closed Clyde grinned and intertwined his hands together.
"We'll see how well she does in training" he said to himself, before the phone rang. He pushed the speaker button and a voice echoed in the office.
"She's awake" it said, making a smile reach Clyde's face.
"Good" he said "Give her the tour of the first level and we'll start combat training."
"Sir, so soon? She just woke up and is probably exhausted"
"I don't think so" Clyde replied to the phone "I think she's strong enough and if not..." he paused, letting silence follow, before beginning again.
"Her rage and memories should fuel her."