Nÿx

I'm not sure what I am but those who 'found' me say I'm Transgenic. Whatever that means but I can't exactly contradict them.

Still, I know about Manticore and what they were doing there. I know about the escape back in '09 and Lydecker hunting them down. I know he captured two of the X-5's who escaped and what happened after he had them.

Krit told me everything with Syl filing in some blanks. Krit told me what I was and who killed the others like me, 'My Family'.

I don't remember meeting any of them, don't remember their faces, their names, what they like and no matter how many times they tell me- remind me, there's not one spark of memory; not even dreams. That's another thing that makes me different. I don't dream, at all nor do I sleep as much as the others do. A couple of hours a week and I'm ready to roll.

Isn't that weird though? My body doesn't need sleep so I don't dream. Well, maybe I do but it's not like regular dreams or what I've heard regular dreams are like, not how they described. There aren't any sounds or voices, no moving people or objects or changing scenery.

I get pictures. Fogged up, hazy, still life pictures. Sometimes it's a face other times a place but always the same. There's no variation in the sequence and I still don't know what it means.

I wonder who it is? Where is that place? Maybe I'll find the answers in Seattle?

At least that's were he said I should go. Not that news of Terminal City and the Transgenics there made it harder to avoid the trip.

I don't have a barcode, I'm not an X-5 but I'm one of them. One of Manticore's little experiments though I'm not sure how that's possible if what Krit said is true.

They destroyed the DNA lab so it shouldn't have been possible for me to exist. Max also died that night but she's in Terminal City so there goes that whole 'not possible' theory. Then again when is it possible for a 5'2", 130lb, 20 year old girl to rip through a stone wall or emit a 1002 ft EMP wave?

But here I am. Riding ever closer to my doom and into the mouth of the beast.

He sent me to help, to find his 'sister', save her if I have to and I'll do it because he saved me, took care of me until I could function properly and I was comfortable in my own skin.

He couldn't tell me much else about my past or my reason for being, not at first. All he did say was he found me in a tank, wires all over and a tube stuck down my throat.

Must've been a pretty sight for him to risk his neck and get me out of there even if he says that's not why.

He saved me to screw them over and took what files he could before trashing the place. i.e. Kaboom!

As it happens the files didn't yield much information aside of what I was made of and some cryptic little notes we figured out later. As in when I 'accidentally' knocked out the power with one of my EMP waves. So far I was the only one capable of doing that.

I was the prototype which if performed well in the field would generate plenty of offers for more and money for the good old United States government.

Makes me feel all warm and tingly inside to know how much my government cares.

Assholes.

So, I'm not an X-5 or an X-anything. Not a thing, not a normal person, I never had a mother not even a surrogate like the others. At least there's no mention of one in the files. I was just made. Born and raised in a test tube.

Maybe they thought that would control me, that I wouldn't want to escape... it sure as hell made it easier to train me then again everything was already in my DNA. All the little things I needed to know to survive imprinted in my genes.

But what gets me worse than knowing I was born in some test tube, knowing that I'm the only one of my series, that I was meant to be less than human... it's the Goddamn cat DNA!

Three times a year I have to make sure there's' enough trancs to keep me down if not out until the wave is over. Sometimes I think the lab coats went a little crazy with the feline genes.

Being in heat is no fun, whatever any one may think. Only another Transgenic could understand it, understand the feeling unless he's a guy.

Guys will never get it. Even when all they want is to get it.

I wonder what it'll be like. Seattle. I've never been anywhere besides the ranch outside of Los Angeles, not that I remember. Krit said I had to be careful because I'd been out twice on Manticore business. Any one could recognize me.

The city's not safe, not for us now that every homosapien is hunting for barcodes. One of the reasons no one really left the ranch. We didn't have much need to leave unless we wanted meat for dinner or milk for breakfast. Not so much after I got us the goat.

That still made me laugh. What a day that had been! I'll never forget the look on their faces. It was great!

-X-

AN: I'm reposting all the chapters since I've gone back and made corrections; in some chapters I've changed a few things or added more info.