Chapter One
‘Made by God’
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I am X5-493.
Actually I do have a name, but it
doesn't tell as much about me. It doesn't tell you that I'm a transgenic super
soldier built to kill with bare hands, now does it? Ben doesn't tell you about
a lonely guy who pulls away from mankind and continues to escape from his past.
I guess there is no name that can tell you my story.
A secret government facility
called Manticore created super soldiers with their
supreme genetic engineering. Their scientists were able to breed a new race - a
so called "perfect race". Women carried children and gave birth to
them, much unaware about the true identity of those children. The children had
animal genes and that's what made them better, faster and stronger. There were
probably hundreds of us "soldiers" following theirs orders and living
our lives inside Manticore's protective fences, trapped
inside forever.
We, the X5's, have cat genes. We are specialized in close range combat and they
trained us well, maybe a bit too well. As the years passed by, the training got
harder. They started finding failures and faults in us. Children disappeared in
the middle of the night and we whispered about the basements were they kept
them - the Nomlies. At nights when we left our room,
we could hear them cry and the horror would leave many to fear the dark.
The worst thing that can happen
to you is to go down there. My biggest fear is to be like them. I would die a
thousand times before I would go there.
What went wrong? I guess they
still seek the answer for that, but some of us grew closer and I believe that
solidarity was more important than our loyalty to Manticore
in the end. Of course there are exceptions...
My unit was the one to attempt
escape in 2009. Some of us succeeded, some of died trying and some were
recaptured and reprogrammed so that they would never go against Manticore's orders again. Only twelve of us managed to fight
our way to the outer fence as we escaped in the year 2009 at the ages between
ten and twelve. I don't know who survived and who failed. In a way I don't even
want to know.
You could say that the best of us
left that day, but I don't believe that. I believe that the wiser ones stayed
and picked the easier way while we grew up in a strange world without anything
to cling onto, because when we busted out of that nightmare we were alone all
the way. Maybe we are destined to return back and continue to walk on our path
of slavery without any humanity. After all where would we go?
There's a guy walking around with
nowhere to go, with no one to go with and with no fear for tomorrow. Yeah, it's
me alright.
I was in it for the kill: for the
chase. I fed on that sickening feeling that filled me after it was all over. It
remained inside of me. I just wasn't able to leave it back at Manticore. I would've been like tearing my soul from me.
Maybe the others really were the
best, but me? I am different from the others for I am a killer. We all killed
back in Manticore, but I've killed on the outside. I've
tasted the hunt and let blood stain my hands red once again. I have strength
that no human can ever achieve and they don’t stand a chance against me. So
when I hold the life of another being in my hands - I'm a god.
Now my grey childhood in Manticore is about ten years away. I'm not sure about the
time, because it has flied right pass me without any notice. My childhood has
faded into a dark place in my head: The places I went to or the things I did to
survive… I don't wish to think about them. There are things that I am not so
proud of.
After all, it's still about the
chase. It's still in my blood. It still runs through my veins. Time hasn't
changed a thing. I was made to be a soldier and in a way I still long to be
back in Manticore. It made me something: Gave me a
meaning unlike the desperate escape without a destination. It made me the
person I am today and it is the thing that pains me.
I don't remember much anymore, I
just don't want to. Don't make me remember.
The blue lady: She was actually a
pretty strange sight under the pillow of a transgenic. After all we weren't
created by God. I lived my life how I could, but it wasn't enough. Growing up
in a hostile world and all alone and this is what I got?
Pretty fucking
pathetic, I say.
Let's face it: I'm a failure,
weak. So who can you blame? Not Manticore. They designed
me perfectly, remember? God? People keep telling me
that I'm unnatural so until I find a tattoo in my ass that's saying: "Made
by God", I can't really blame the guy. I guess there no one left then.
I am a monster, a terrible, loathsome creature, but in the end aren't we all?
So what are these words of pain I
speak? Why do I curse both my past and present? Because even though I thought I
had gotten away from them, they came and took the thing that mattered most to
me.
I may have been a monster, but
even the beast met his beauty at one point. Those evenings and days I lived a
dream. Back then I could still say I could be someone else than X5-493.
Back then... Back then dates back
to the time before Manticore's destruction. The
footsteps of doom and beginning of a nightmare I couldn't wake up: My pain, her
pain, everyone's pain.
The night used to give me so much
comfort for this pain. This huge pain that endlessly dwells inside of me,
making me hide myself further and further away. Even though I didn't have to
show a different face in the darkness where there was no one to see me and all
of my evil deeds, which are the very inside of me, I wasn't able to hide there
forever.
I lived a shadow life which
consumed me and my humanity, but I couldn't hold onto it. From time to time I
was forced to let other people see my true face, to let someone know the real
me.
I can still remember her; angel
eyes, that insecurity that drove me to madness and that face serving as my
cure... but I don't think her as much anymore. It hurts too much.
Still I feel the need to tell our
tale, which begins with a random encounter between two victims hardened by the
world.
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