Notes – Takes place 10 years after the escape, before “Blah Blah Woof Woof”. Very sorry if anything I write in here is wrong, this was written pre-“Reds”, and I don’t live in America, and I never have so I’m sort of winging some of it.
*****
I still remember the escape – it’s not an easy thing to forget. Max’s seizure, Eva’s death, Zack’s orders, running through the snow, sorrow and fear when not everyone made it. After we left the rendezvous point I made it to the perimeter and over the fence. I ran until my super-sensitive ears alerted me of pursuit.
I stopped and climbed a tree. To this day I cannot tell you why; I mean we were always taught to keep moving in enemy territory. It would have been considered a tactical error had I still been at Manticore, one I probably would have been punished for; but at the same time it was what saved my life – had I kept running they would have caught me. As it was I was spotted anyway.
I have grown since that night, tall and thin. Back then I was tiny, the smallest and youngest of X5. I tucked myself on to a large bow of the evergreen; I was only visible from directly underneath. People rarely look above their eye level. A soldier came by and he would not have seen me except the owl beside me hooted and he looked up, startled. He saw me – looked right in my eyes – there is no way he did not see me.
I cannot begin to describe the terror I felt: they were going to take me back! But then he raised a finger to his lips. He very deliberately lowered his eyes and when, a few moments later, others joined him, he said that there was nothing there. I do not know why he did what he did, but if I could, I would thank him for it.
That was the last I saw of Manticore or anything to do with Manticore for ten years. I stayed in that tree for forty-eight hours before I felt safe enough to leave. I went to California, or rather I went in a straight line until I hit the ocean and could not go any further. It just so happened that I was in Los Angeles. I was picked up by social services and put in a foster home. Always one to roll with the punches I stayed there – until the Pulse. At which point I disappeared into the night. I made it to Montana where I met a woman whose husband had died in the panic following the Pulse. I was so hungry I am ashamed to say that all it took was a meal. ‘Aunt Kara’ took me and two other children into her home, in the middle of nowhere, Montana.
Brandon, Lily and I all had different backgrounds, different lives, all of us orphans, even if I still wonder if you could technically call me an orphan. To say orphan implies I had a mother and father to lose in the first place. Created in a lab, born to a surrogate mother who was only in it for the money. I am not even completely human. Throughout the years other children came and went, staying as long as they needed. Brandon, Lily and I were the permanent ones.
I went to school and grew my hair to cover my barcode. I did my lessons and excelled; the discipline pounded into my head from birth and the natural intelligence bread into the X5s serving me well. Instinct kept me from running too fast in races and hitting too hard in fights. I taught myself to chatter non-stop about absolutely nothing. I made friends; but I was still faster, stronger, smarter, had better senses and was in many ways vastly different from my peers. I trusted almost no one and all these factors combined kept me separate from those around me.
It was more than two years before I had my first seizure. I knew what it was. Had I not seen them drag away others, my own siblings, because of them? Was it not Eva who died in front of us, shot by Lydecker himself, in her desperate attempt to stop them taking our sister Max? Aunt Kara wanted to take me to a doctor when the tremors first wracked my body, but I was not so far gone that I could not make it adamantly clear that that was not to happen. Doctors, in my experience, poked and prodded you; they cut up the still warm, but dead bodies of your brothers and sisters. Besides I knew what I was, and what would the doctors make of me? Had Aunt Kara persisted I would have had to leave, so I am glad she did not.
Aunt Kara herself was a mystery. I knew almost as little about her as she knew about me. We never seemed to have much money, yet we always had enough, and nothing was ever skimped on. She did not work in any way that I could see, and as far as I know she has no living relatives. She knew homeopathy, which is how we eventually worked out about the whole tryptophan thing. But then she knew a lot about a lot. She loved people, but was secretive and lived in the middle of nowhere. Her house was filled with books, music and movies – all pre-pulse – and because of the powerful generator we never went without power, even so far out as we were, even after the pulse. It was her that taught me to love literature, to revel in music, to enjoy life. Her home was as different from Manticore as you could get and I loved it there.
She never asked about my past, any of our pasts, something for which I am eternally grateful for, I could not have stayed had she done so. Once or twice someone let slip some comment, on occasion even I mentioned something about one of my sibs, but we never really talked on it. It is to her credit that within those walls my barcode and ‘abilities’ were never mentioned. However, to say we never spoke of the past, it is say our own personal histories, because the house itself was an oasis of the past.
My seizures were the only blotch. After they started they gradually got worse, until I was fourteen or fifteen, when due to the frequency and severity of them I spent half of my freshman and sophomore years in bed. Which was where Aunt Kara put me every time I had a seizure so bad I could not hide it. Both Lily and Brandon collected my homework and assignments regularly for me. I think my teachers knew them better than they knew me. Both years I still passed with honours. By the time I reached my junior year, though, my seizures had lessened. I still cannot work this out, by my calculations they should have been the same or worse but they were better, it was just the way it was. I still get seizures and they are, from time to time, bad, but hey, I am an X5, that is one of our flaws.
It was senior year that it happened. Early autumn. One of those clear days. The weather was still warm, the sun shining and there was only a slight breeze. A last reminder of summer – something to hold on to in winter, lasting you through until spring.
A friend had dropped me off at the end of my road. It was mile’s walk to the house. Aunt Kara had demanded that I come straight home after school because of a bad seizure I had had earlier in the week. I was wearing a pair of strappy sandals, which cut just a little, a short summer skirt and a sleeveless top. I walked slowly making the most of the sun, which I loved, but had been so denied as a child. I had just reached the gate when a motorcycle roared up beside me.
The rider was familiar, but I could not immediately put a name to the face. It was his cool, grey eyes that caught me though; in them I saw recognition, love and sorrow.
“Roma, Lydecker’s coming.” Then I knew who it was. Zack. My brother. I nodded and asked him to wait. I went inside the house. I changed into a pair of faded blue jeans, a long sleeved, too-hot shirt, steel capped boots and a pair of sunglasses on the top of my head. I dumped my school clothes in the laundry hamper. In a bag I placed my leather jacket, which I had saved many months for (one of the few things Aunt Kara refused to buy me), the rest of my savings, my tryptophan, a battered photograph of Aunt Kara, Lily, Brandon and I, and a paperback. I still carry a book wherever I go, sort of like a charm. Zack tells me it is sentimental and that there is no such thing as luck. I asked him to explain then how it was I managed to escape Manticore all those years ago, when I should have been dragged back. He still has not given me an adequate response, so I maintain my belief in luck.
On my way down stairs Aunt Kara stopped me. She asked me where I was going.
“My brother’s here. They’re coming for me. I have to leave.”
I remember the sadness in her eyes as she accepted this. Then she went to the fireplace and removed a brick I did not even know was loose (I knew about the other two), and pulled out some money. A lot. She gave a large sum of it to me. I tried to refuse it, but she insisted so I took it. I said, “Thank you. For everything. Tell everyone I love them and goodbye. Tell Brandon I’m sorry that I can’t help him with his chemistry homework tonight.” I kissed her on the cheek, turned and walked out the door, down the steps and over to where Zack was waiting. I glanced back, swung my leg over the back of his bike, wrapped my arms around his waist and held on as we sped off.
We passed Lily, Brandon and Susan, one of the children who was currently at Aunt Kara’s. They stopped and stared; I turned my head and watched them until we rounded the corner. Then I wept. For everything. My entire life. The one at Manticore. The one I had just left. The one I was about to start.
We drove the rest of the afternoon and most of the night, until nearly dawn when I could feel a seizure coming. “Zack.” I called. I did not need to say anything else, he knew, whether because he could feel the tremors in my body or because he just knew. We stopped at the next motel we came across. While Zack got us a room I stayed with the bike, just barely holding myself upright. He helped me into a room, forced some tryptophan down me and put me to bed. I remember him holding me that night, stroking my hair and speaking softly. A tenderness he has never shown me since, but one I appreciated. I think that my brother’s presence meant that the seizure was less severe than it could have been.
It was not to last. Once I had recovered he took me all the way to Miami and left me there with his number in case I ever needed it. I did not stay there long but left a few days later for Boston and then Salem, Massachusetts. I seem to be attracted to places I’ve read about in history books, which is annoying because there is one or two in Montana I never got to see. I let Zack know I was moving, he told me quite curtly that the number was for emergencies only, I told him very sweetly that I did not think he would want to loose me again (was ten years not enough?) and hung up. I have seen Zack several times since he found me those six months ago. He does not like my habit of visiting historical spots, but I cannot help it. It does not matter how debilitated they have become since the Pulse, or how little remain, they still fascinate me. Thinking about people and how they lived all those years ago, what life was like before the Pulse – it is just the way I am. Over winter I tried to be places without snow. That’s something I’ve never been keen on. The odd thing is I like trees. Oh well.
Of the others I have only seen Jondy. It was nice to see her after so long, even if it was only briefly. I am ready to head off somewhere again. I do not know where though. I wish I could go to Montana, to home, but it’s not safe, Zack says and I agree. He has also told me not to go to Seattle under any circumstances, because apparently Lydecker spends a bit of time there. I sense this is not the only reason, but if I press him, Zack becomes even more impossible than usual. However his stubborn refusal makes me even more inclined to go. So I have to remind myself what curiosity killed. Still a few days could not hurt. Maybe I will go to Oregon and slip over the border to Seattle for a bit. You never know.
*****
A/N2: OK, I had to write it, it was stuffing up my thinking processes. It goes
against everything I’ve been taught, but it had to be done. So I went down to
the park and sat there and got it all out. I just wanted to know what life was
like for another of the X5s.
