NICA
Seattle, September 2040
They waited until it was quiet down there, then crept out unnoticed to an emergency exit on the side and looked around first. Joshua knew exactly where they could safely spend the night and was already looking for the next opportunity to climb down into the sewers. They had to go a little further away into the dark alleys because the construction had come a long way over the last 15 years and the buildings were no longer as dilapidated as they were back then and so were the streets around them. However, progress in the narrower streets was not yet that great and so Joshua soon opened one of the bars that gave access to Seattle's underworld.
They descended low and walked behind each other in silence for some time until they reached a larger room.
"Stay here," Joshua sat down and buried his head between his large hands.
Yara sat down next to him.
What's wrong Josh?"
"Joshua hates to kill."
Seth and Ben also sat down with him. Ben even closer than he was comfortable with and they tried to understand but also felt the deep pain that Joshua felt after their actions earlier. Yara held his hand and reached for Seth's hand as well. Ben enjoyed the moment of togetherness because he knew soon he would have to explode the bomb that was ticking inside him.
But now it was time to think and discuss the next steps and to relax a bit. They lay down on the floor next to each other and stared at the ceiling. At the moment everyone could only dwell on their own thoughts and each of the four accepted the calm. One by one they nodded off. Ben was startled after a while, what was that noise. Then he jumped up and grabbed his backpack that someone was tampering with. It didn't take him long to look into the darkness and see a girl who had just grabbed her tryptophan and was trying to escape. He had the presence of mind to jump up and just caught her arm. She was strong, incredibly strong, she was like him, in a brief moment her hair flew to the side and he saw the Y2 flashing out from under her wild blonde curls that hadn't been combed for a few days. He didn't let go and pushed her against the wall. His brother, Joshua and Yara were also awake by the noise and came to his aid. They held the girl, who had angry, sparkling eyes, and she slowly realized who she was dealing with.
"If I could have imagined that you were also transgenic, who else would carry around tryptophan?"
"Do you need it urgently?"
Ben knew what it felt like to be a junkie looking for it when you didn't take it or couldn't take it regularly. He felt a strange connection that was unknown to him.
"What's your name? "Just answer my brother's question," Seth hissed angrily at her.
"My name is Nika, yes I need this stuff, if I had it, you wouldn't have had a chance to pin me down here".
"Do you promise not to crumble if I give you something?"
Ben asked her with a pleading look. She nodded and looked at him strangely. Seth watched those looks and knew in that moment that Ben felt some strange connection to her, whatever that was, he wanted to help his brother.
They let go of the girl who called herself Nika and she pounced on the capsule that Ben was holding out to her.
"If you stay with us for a while, I'll share it with you," said Ben and also took a capsule in solidarity with her.
He handed her a water bottle and they stood facing each other, swallowing at the same time. Afterwards, they looked at each other as if they had just formed a blood brotherhood.
Nika sat down, she didn't look like she was afraid, on the contrary, she looked Seth straight in the eyes, wasn't afraid of Joshua and Yara could hardly hold her gaze either. She radiated a power that impressed Ben and at the same time he felt drawn to her like never before to a stranger. He sat down next to her and asked quietly:
"Would you tell me what you are"?
She began to tell the story. It was created in a secret Manticore project that was run together by Manticore and the Familiars breeding cult. The breeding cult of the Familiars was aimed The aim is to bring only the strongest together to produce offspring that should be equipped with the best possible genetic material. At that time, however, after the prisoners had been made submissive with drugs for several months, one of the prisoners managed to overcome this drug. Back then, in a kind of frenzy between being awake and still in a daze, the young man attacked all of the laboratory workers, left a trail of dead in Manticore and freed all of the X5 prisoners at the time. None of the offspring conceived back then were ever found by Manticore because he destroyed all the files with names and pictures and when all the transgenics were safe he blew up the archive. A year later, another incident occurred in which one of the transgenics' best and most famous friends was kidnapped and died. After that, the "Eyes only" channel also fell silent.
"I think Logan was Eyes only," Nika added at the end of her story.
"Logan? Logan Cale?"
"Why do you ask? Did you know him? You were only just born then. What's that supposed to mean?"
"He is..was..our father!"
Seth didn't know how to handle this news at the moment. He buried his head between Yara's hair and you could only hear him breathing. He was crying, Ben knew that, he felt like crying too. He turned away and was about to walk away, as he always did when something got too much for him, when Nika grabbed him by the wrist:
"But it's not yours."
"What's the point," he replied sharply and tore himself away.
It was what he had been carrying around for a long time but he couldn't let it happen at this moment when his brother was grieving. He didn't want to leave him alone, didn't want to abandon him in this difficult moment.
Nika recognized his anger and desperation immediately. She nodded and he sat down next to her again. Like a silent agreement, she withdrew at that moment but tilted her head and quickly whispered something else to him:
"You're a Y2."
Yara had taken Seth in her arms and was stroking his shaggy dark blonde hair, which had now become a little too long.
Suddenly he turned to Joshua: "Did you know…?"
"Joshua knew," the giant looked at Seth and whined, "I didn't know how to say that."
"And Mom?"
"Little friend Max is alive".
You could still see Seth's sadness and at the same time the relief that Max at least had the chance to find her mother again.
"Max is your mother?" Nika asked incredulously.
"Yes, she is our mother, but we haven't seen her for almost 16 years."
"That explains your tattoos, you carry the genes of Sandeman's writings."
We've already learned all about that, said Seth, rolling up his sleeves. His tattoos were almost complete because September was coming to an end and by his birthday on the first of October the spook was over again. They had taken photos of the tattoos every year but they were always the same marks every year. They gradually became visible in the four weeks before his birthday. A little more every day. Seth had tried to hide it for years but this year he turned 18 and therefore came of age and had decided that it was now part of his life and he shouldn't hide anymore. There were pictures and writings, he even looked pretty daring with these skin paintings. Tattoos seemed strange on a child, but he was a young man now and it suited him quite well. Yara ran her finger along the outline and he thoroughly enjoyed her admiration. She was the first girl he was able to let close to him in this way. There had been one or two girls in Maple Falls who had had romantic feelings for him but now for the very first time he could reciprocate. He took her hand, held it gently and pulled her towards him and kissed her.
Ben was surprised but since he first saw Nika he understood what his brother felt.
Seth looked at him after the kiss:
"No comment? What's wrong with you?"
Ben grinned crookedly and a quick glance at Nika gave him away.
Seth grinned too and gave him a challenging wink. Ben turned away, he didn't want Nika, who he had known for just under an hour, to know what was going on between the brothers.
"I need a little rest now," said Seth and lay down again with Yara.
Ben was upset and told Joshua he should rest so he could go to Terminal City tomorrow and check out the situation there, but he would go for a little walk himself to get back down.
Seth and Joshua knew what made Ben tick and that he couldn't calm down when he was emotionally upset.
Ben nudged Nika's hand and motioned for her to accompany him and she skillfully followed the hint.
"I'll accompany you so that you don't get lost down here."
They set off and wandered a bit through the dark tunnels of the sewers. Ben felt that familiar restlessness.
"Can you keep up," he asked, turning to Nika.
"Try it," she replied challengingly.
He ran as if he were running for his life, jumped over ditches and canals, water reservoirs and only when he was forced to stop at a dead end by the bare wall did he stand still and look at the wall as if it were his personal enemy. He wanted to pull himself together but it came over him without warning. Strong emotions, tears, anger all came crashing down on him and all of it in front of her. Her, the girl he wanted to impress, the girl he had fallen in love with the first moment he saw her.
She was right behind him, she hadn't hesitated for a single second and followed him easily and lightly. Now she stood there, next to him, took his hand, pulled him towards her and took him in her arms. Just like that, without asking, without judgment, without comment and he was just grateful to have her with him.
He sat down and with tears still streaming down his face he said:
"Tell me about yourself, about your life, what we are, distract me. Please!"
She sat down next to him and began to talk. Again everything she had already told the group before and then that her mother died giving birth to her, that she had never met her father and that she had been raised by her mother's friends. At some point she ran away. Since then, she has lived on the streets or wandered from couch to couch with friends. She was happy with her life even though it was difficult. She worked for a bicycle courier service when they needed help. No permanent position because she couldn't identify herself because she somehow never really existed to get papers. Normal, but the boss had given her a sector pass so that she could at least live and move around unmolested by the justice system. She had to take tryptophan regularly like Ben, but for her it had always been a fight for survival, like a junkie who needed a regular fix, she had been on the hunt for pills every day. Sometimes she managed to get a supply and then life was good. Sometimes she would stagger from intake to intake, weak and shaky, then it would be difficult. She talked about many friends, a small youth group in which a kind of barter trade always took place and small jobs were sometimes passed on to earn money. She was well-connected and an incredibly confident, strong girl. Her somewhat tattered clothes, the cargo pants, the band shirt and the checked shirt pulled over it, the messy blonde hair and her tanned skin, from life that mostly took place outside, made her look like an Amazon. Ben listened to her stories and became calmer and calmer. He collapsed and rested his head on her leg as he continued to listen to her talk. She leaned against the wall and fell silent. She stroked his hair and his face. An intimacy arose that both enjoyed to the fullest and surrendered to this moment until Ben thought of Seth.
"We have to go back."
Nika shook her head: "It'll be enough for sunrise in two hours."
He agreed and looked at her for a long time.
"I have to get us something quickly, we should be right there."
"Under what," Ben asked in surprise.
She jumped up, warned him to wait and then disappeared. However, it was barely ten minutes before she was back, with two blankets under her arms.
"Under a small warehouse with supplies," she answered his question from before.
She wanted to hand one of them to Ben. He grabbed it and spread it on the floor. She hesitated for a moment then sat down next to him and spread the second blanket over herself and Ben.
He lay down and she lay down next to him, turning to him and snuggling against him. He felt her hand come over him and his heart pounded wildly. He was suddenly wide awake. She moved her hand under his shirt and he realized that her intentions were clear. He gave himself up to her passion, carefully and cautiously he let her lead him, he let himself get involved with her at her speed and she led him with passion. Cuddled up close to each other, now naked, under the protection of the blanket, they slept together. Ben was able to give himself to her like he had never given himself to anyone in his life. This was how it had to be to find his soulmate, he thought. After a few minutes they became more passionate and united in ecstasy.
For some time they just lay skin to skin, she in his arms, almost purring like a cat, he beaming from within and his pain forgotten for the moment. She looked up at him:
"Your premiere?"
"No…oh what the heck…yes!"
He looked at her sheepishly but she looked up at him and all doubts were forgotten. From now on they belonged together.
"Next year we will find out together who your father is, when you turn 16 you will be able to fully recognize the barcode. When is your birthday?"
"17th July!"
"Now you know the universe sent you, same birthday and we match in bed too".
Ben blushed. Luckily she couldn't see it in the darkness, but she did notice the goosebumps running down his body. He kissed her forehead and hugged her tighter. So they fell asleep and only woke up again when they heard the calls of the others. Daylight was already shimmering down into the tunnels. Ben jumped up and just as quickly got into his clothes, just like Nika, she wasn't keen on being surprised naked by the others either. They both had to laugh in the middle of the hustle and bustle and kissed one more time before the others got there.