Chapter 8

Within a dark cave Skyler sat atop of a rock surveying her surroundings. She knew she was not truly in a cave, but she wasn't sure if she was dead or in some sort of dreamscape. The cave ceiling was covered in diamonds giving the illusion of the night sky. Skyler could not see the ground of the cave due to fog that flowed through and over the rocks like a river. She had been in this cave for what seemed like days, but it was hard to get any reference to time in this place. Her white tank top had a large blood stain on her abdomen and blood trickled out the knife wound she had received. Out of the fog river a young girl appeared.

"Mara." Skyler said recognizing the young girl.

Mara smiled as she seemed to float above the fog. "Does it hurt?" She said as she pointed to Skyler's stomach.

Looking down at her wound Skyler shrugged. "Not in this place." Skyler paused for a moment before asking the tough question. "Am I dead or dreaming?"

Mara cocked her head to the side. "Is there a difference? What is death but an endless dream?"

"I would argue they are different. You can wake up if you are dreaming. Death is final." Skyler said as she rubbed her stomach.

Mara smiled at Skyler's answer. "To die, to sleep; To sleep perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?" Mara quoted Shakespeare as she moved closer to Skyler. "Dreams and death are very similar. Death frightens us because we do not know what to expect of death. It seems final because no one returns from this endless dream to tell us what the journey will be like. But death is not final. It's just the beginning of another journey. It's the path to rebirth."

Skyler's head was beginning to spin with all of this philosophical talk. She knew that she would not get a straight answer from Mara no matter how many ways she asked the question. All she could hope for was that she wasn't in an endless dream.

XXXXXX

Jean Grey dressed Skyler's wounds and checked her vital signs as Skyler laid unconscious on the bed in the infirmary. When she was finished checking up on Skyler Jean walked to the medical lab where the Professor was waiting.

The Professor looked to Jean with a combination of sadness and bewilderment over the unfortunate turn of events. "What happened?" The professor asked.

Jean shook her head. "I don't know. I was in my office dropping off a few things that I had received from the conference when I felt a telepathic shockwave. I had allowed Skyler to take a walk around the school grounds so she could decompress. After the shockwave I felt overwhelming fear come over me as if I was feeling someone's emotions. I ran to the backyard where I discovered Skyler laying on the basketball court with what appeared to be blood coming from a wound on her stomach. I immediately levitated her to the infirmary and treated her."

The Professor scowled as he heard Jean's version of the events. He knew that people with telepathic abilities when threatened can unwittingly send off a telepathic shockwave that can disable anyone who is attacking them. "And the wound she received is a knife wound?"

Jean nodded. "Yes. But who would want to hurt this young girl?"

"I don't think we'll be able to answer that question until she awakes up." The Professor replied as he began to leave the room with Jean close on his wheels. "But I'm afraid that we will have to invade her privacy. If someone entered our school grounds to kill her, we need to find out who attacked her before any else gets hurt. As soon as she is strong enough I will search her mind to see who attacked her."

Jean and the professor proceeded to Skyler and April's room. They began to search through her things to find any clues about who may have hurt Skyler the night before. Jean moved Skyler's bed from the wall to check behind it, but stopped when she heard something fall from underneath the bed. Jean knelt down and looked under Skyler's bed where she found a small memory stick.

"I found something Professor." Jean said as she stood up holding the memory stick up for the Professor to see. "It's an electronic storage device. There could be something on it that would give us some background on Skyler."

The Professor took the memory stick from Jean and looked at it. "Let's plug it into my computer and see what is on this storage device."

When Jean and the Professor arrived at the Professor's office they immediately plug in the storage device into the UBS port on his computer. Once it loaded the Professor was stopped by an encryption code. "This could take awhile for me to crack." The Professor said. "When the others return from the camping trip we need to have a team meeting. Hopefully by then I will have cracked the code."

XXXXX

The next day the rest of the staff and students returned from their camping trip. April and Bryce were looking forward to sharing their stories with Skyler when Jean told them the terrible news. To say the news was a shock would be an understatement. April and Bryce upon hearing the news went straight to Skyler's bed side.

April laid a hand on Skyler's forehead. "I thought I told you to stay out of trouble."

Bryce sat down next to Skyler on the opposite side of April. "Hey, we brought you back something from the camping trip." Bryce set down an antler on an end table next to Skyler's bed. "It may not seem like much, but we felt bad that you couldn't come on the camping trip."

"I'm sorry I got so mad at you." April said as tears rolled down her face. "You're one of my best friends and I love you very much."

Bryce looked to April. "She knows we love her. And when she wakes up we will remind her how much she means to us."

XXXXXX

In the briefing room located under the mansion, the X-men began their meeting to discuss the stabbing of Skyler. The Professor was able to crack the encryption code and a plethora of information was reveled. Jean and the Professor analyzed the information and prepared a presentation that Jean would present to the rest of the group.

The slide show started with a picture of aerial photos of a military base located in a wooded area. Jean narrated the slide show to her fellow teammates.

"This is a picture of a secret military compound located in the Cascade Mountains. The area is hard to access given its location. Approximately, 30 years ago the military was looking at using genetic engineering to make better solders. They hit some road blocks when they tried to manipulate DNA in adult human beings. All of those individuals died as a result of that manipulation. The researchers' realized that any manipulation to the genetic code in humans would have to be done before fertilization."

Jean changed to the next slide showing an egg contents being empted and new genetic material being replace.

"The scientist used endonucleases to clip the DNA in certain areas. They had already mapped some of the genes and were looking to enhance some genes while adding new ones. Once the DNA was clipped they heated and cooled the DNA to insert their genes into the DNA. They then took this modified DNA and inserted it into a human egg that had its contents sucked out. They then stimulated the egg using electrical pulses so that the egg would begin to divide. They then took those eggs and implanted them into surrogate mothers and the fetuses were allowed to develop."

Jean changed the slide to show a nursery full of babies.

"Most of the fetuses were brought to term and then taken from their surrogate mothers and raised in different complexes. There were five generations of these genetically engineered fighters. All of them had long canines, but what indicated their generation was the color of their eyes and an ID number on the back of their left ear. The first generation have bright blue eyes, the second generation have bright green eyes, the third generation have purple eyes, the fourth generation have yellow eyes, and the fifth and final generation have red eyes."

Logan sat up in his chair and looked at the slide show. "Are you sure Skyler is from this program? She has long canines, but her eye color is brown."

"Skyler has been wearing contacts. Her true eye color is red. She is a fifth generation." Jean answered Logan's question.

The next slide was that of an ID Number that was tattooed on the back of Skyler's ear.

"All of the children from this program, which is known as Dante1321, have an ID number that is tattooed behind their left ear. Skyler's ID number is DA10516. The DA stands for Dante's Assassins. That's what they called the kids because of their demonic like appearance. The first number stands for what complex she was in. She was in the first complex as indicated by the number one. They mixed the generations in the complexes so the older kids would teach the younger ones. The second number is meaningless, but the third one indicates what generation the individual is from. Skyler is from the 5th generation. The last 2 number tell us that Skyler was the 16th child born in that generation."

On the next slide there were multiple graphs displaying their increase abilities.

"As you can see from the graphs these kids have excellent eye sight both in the day time and at night. There hearing is also above average. On the bell curve of human strength for age and gender each of them are on the high end. That's why if you look at the females from this program they have some masculine features."

"So they were created to be the perfect fighter." Scott interjected.

"Yes and No." Jean replied. "While they were genetically enhanced to be stronger, faster, and more agile that alone did not make them good fighters. It's a classic nature vs. nurture debate. Are we a product of our genes or our upbringing? These kids were intensely trained in various fighting styles and military styles. If these kids had been placed in a normal home they would not be good fighters. They might excel in sports and other athletics but that's about it."

"How many are there?" Ororo asked.

"Originally, there were 1,000." Jean replied.

"1,000?!" Scott, Ororo, and Logan yelled in unison.

Jean nodded. "But currently there are only 500."

Logan leaned back in his chair. "I'm afraid to ask what happed to the 500 who did survive."

The professor took over the conversation. "According to this data the 500 kids who died were struck down by some virus. It doesn't tell us what the virus was all we know is that the virus was very contagious and deadly."

Logan was doing everything in his power to suppress his anger. He knew all too well the damage that could be caused by scientist who set aside ethics in order to do something that has not been done before. "So are these complexes still open and how did Skyler break free?"

"According to this data the kids escaped three years ago. The various complexes banded together to overpower their supervisors. Who knows where they are now." The professor answered.

Scott stood up from his seat and looked at the slides projected on to the giant screen. "Who gathered all this information?"

Jean picked up a piece of paper and looked for the answer. "One of the kids from the program named Jack. Apparently he gathered all this information to use as leverage against the persons in command of the program. Unfortunately, Jack was killed a week ago. He is the kid from the news. He states in this program that he believes that the military has sent out assassins to kill him because of the information he stole."

"That would make sense. If this information got out there would be a public outcry. Especially, if they found out that genetically engineered fighter were created and then escaped from a military compound. The public would panic." Ororo said.

"Professor, do you think that Skyler was in contact with this Jack? And if she was the person who killed Jack must have tried to kill Skyler." Scott said as she turned from the screen to the Professor.

"I believe so, but we won't know for sure until Skyler wakes up. I plan to go through Skyler's memory of the night when she was attacked to see who the culprit is. But right now she is too weak so we will have to wait. In the mean time I would like the children to stay in the mansion and not go outside unless they have one of us supervising them."

The X-men nodded and left the briefing room to attend to their other duties. All of them had a sense that the stabbing of Skyler and the murder of Jack was not a simple assassination. Something else was brewing and all of them knew it.

This chapter is a little shorter and mostly background. Next Chapter the X-men will discover Skyler's true attacker. This discovery will lead to many new questions. Thanks for the reviews and I'm glad you guys are enjoying this fic. Happy holidays and I will update sometime after Christmas.