My Archives: September 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
“Are you ready?” Alix slowly raised her head to say, her voice stern and devoid of emotion. It sounded like more of a statement or confirmation of her condition, rather than a question. She was dressed for killing; her clothing nothing more than a one-piece smart-skin suit, jet black, and smooth against her like a second skin. Though it was form-fitting, a number of impressions along her figure, a heaviness over her abdomen when she breathed, and padding on the joints suggested it provided a good deal of protection as well.
Alix wasn’t quite sure what the material was. Most likely some kind of enhanced polymer variant, but what she did know that it was supposed to monitor her physical condition via phantom sensors all across her body. It wasn’t unlike the sneaking outfits the SEALs were known to wear – in fact, if she recalled correctly Eric mentioned a few extra enhancements had been made especially for Alix. Increased adrenaline output, endorphin-release during combat, really crazed shit like that. Her mind was hard pressed to distinctly remember any of them, what with the irony of how he always tinkered with her (even in the smallest of ways) nagging at her psyche.
On her back were strapped her two Daisho katana blades, missing their lavish, gold engraved scabbards for maximum accessibility - though she would have to take them off before they got inside the train. The ends of the blades grazed at her lower legs; long and strong, yet thin and light, all one-hundred percent steel. The perfect weapon.
Vincent stood next to his desk, fixing himself in Kevlar and… set his watch to the exact time, in an effort to be prepared for their assignment as well. His gear was black as well, similar, but loose and heavy; he refused to wear anything even remotely tight, and it obviously lacked the additions made to her attire. It was easy to understand aesthetically, but in battle loose clothing was always a hassle, in Alix’s eyes. Then again, she had never been male, and all he needed to do was extract the girl. “Almost, Alix. Let me get the bandages to cover my wound.” he said, though she could tell he was trying to kid.
Alix stared at him, zipping the duffle bag up at her feet and straightening. She wasn’t in the mood. “Just hurry the fuck up.” she said through clenched teeth. She hastily pulled her gloves on and, in her hurry, put the wrong one on the wrong hand. She cursed loudly and coarsely.
“Is something bothering you?” Vincent asked, packing what he needed into his own small duffel bag. She wondered if the Marines coming with were doing the same. “You’re really....” he let his eyes wander to hers, and for a few moments they kept eye contact, before Alix diverted hers back to her gloves.
‘Please don't, please shut up.’
“Did something happen again?” He said the “again” without even thinking. He should have thought.
Alix threw the glove on the ground. “Mind your own goddamn business.” she said in a low growl, which escalated into a yell as the sentence came to an end. She reached down and snatched up the glove, putting it on the correct hand with fury in every tug.
Vincent stopped packing. “I didn’t --”
“I don’t care, Vincent.” she replied before he had time to justify his question, her voice sounding apathetic and tired now. “Don’t bother.”
“I know,” he blurted out, still keeping his gaze on her despite the fact that she had long parted gazes with him.
She looked up to find him staring into her eyes, which now displayed an emotion she wish they never had; rather, she wish they never did. She closed her eyes and sealed off the emotion. No.
Vincent continued to stare, his honest eyes melting through her icy exterior. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
Alix bit her lip and accidentally tore at the skin. She could taste her own blood; salty, metallic and frightening. She was human, and being reminded of that scared her more than anything. She wanted to put herself into the bag she was packing and hide for ages.
“Vincent,” she began, “you really don’t know anything.”
“You don’t have to protect him.” he whispered sharply.
“I’m not.” she lied, her voice barely above a whisper. Alix lifted the duffle bag from the floor to her side, and felt a hint of pain from her wrist, raw and bruised, hidden under black, Government owned material. “Let’s go. We have a train to catch,” she hissed, turning away to avoid his sincerity.
* * *
The men and women in the office building were indefinitely disconnected from the color spectrum - wearing so many different shades of gray that they could have their own rainbow.Eric Maddox gave the techno-labyrinth city, a reborn Washington D.C., one final glance before taking his seat.
“Before I begin… I am going to be extremely honest to this committee. We've, most admittedly, ignored the facts for awhile, but the truth is too clear now to be ignored. We are simply out of options.” Sitting at the apex of the table, Eric placed his fingers on the center of one of the stacks of documents before him on the table, sliding it ahead to present to the five other occupants in the board room. He continued; his words clear and concise. “The market is plummeting. Unemployment is beyond ‘far-reaching’, it’s a fucking pandemic… Our military is spread too thin to even protect our citizens. To top it all off, our repeated, failed attempts to correct the Eternal Twilight has lost the trust of the public.”
It was at this point that Eric placed a cigarette between his lips and ignited it with the aid of an expensive, platinum lighter. He exhaled before he spoke, twisted ash-gray wraiths bound by chains of nicotine swirling before him. “The same trust that spawned from the fear following the phenomenon, slipping through our fingers. Having taken all of this into consideration, it is... Obvious that our continued failure will suffice no longer. Not with the public, and certainly not with I. We, this organization, must take steps.”
“Just what is it that you suggest, Mr. President?” The first to inquire, hell, to speak in this meeting was James. He was the youngest of the persons allowed access into this room, Caucasian and slightly bulky, not in a threatening sense but something of notice all the same. His brown hair was swept to the side in an odd sort of motif, and his suit, cut from pounds of fabric from something entirely black, gave Eric the impression it had never been worn prior to today. James was Department of Urban Development.
“The Marienkind Project is to begin its second phase.” He said coolly, eyeing them all between the ripples of smoke that were being expelled into the air. The President noticed the two seats closest to him, for Vincent and Alix, were empty. He hoped things would go smoothly.
“Eric... You know that I'm still not sold on that.” The man closest the Eric muttered, fingers sprawled into his graying hair, thinking. Adam, in contrast, was the oldest of them. Though he was entering his fifties, he was not a part of his father’s organization – though he had ties to the late President Maddox all the same. Adam was the Department of the Interior.
“That is absolutely ridiculous. There is no need for such measures. Scientific progress is the way, Eric. We need time, and you have no authority-”
Frank was the head of international affairs.
…And it was becoming increasingly apparent, with each of these secret meetings, that the surviving member of his father’s cabinet either did not want to be here, or had incredible distain for Eric, or both. “I have ALL of the authority.” Eric stated commandingly, before taking another drag off of the Silk Cut slim, retaining it between his lips as he looked over some of the papers, his voice low and annoyed. “Your bureaucracy is bullshit. Do you have any idea of the chances of us finding a cause, let alone eradicating the Twilight in the next 60 years through 'research and science'?” He sounded like he wanted to laugh when he came to stare at Frank Layton and his sneer.
Cillian O’Donnell was the head of research and development at Dynatech Labs Washington, which had more-than-close ties to the national agencies. In many ways, Dynatech’s influence on the American government was greater than that of its populace. He was primarily Irish but didn’t look it (though the European was there), with blue eyes hidden behind round glasses and very dark hair cut almost like an awning over his forehead, which bothered the President nominally. “One can only assume 'indefinately'. Though we at Dynatech have... Attempted to estimate - based on what little knowledge we have.”
He had with him a liquifilm sheet of data that he proceeded to examine with a stylus, while his assistant, Paige Mainwaring, continued. “The report compiled by Dynatech suggested the chances would be...”
“With an eight percent marginal error,” Cillian added, not bothering to look up from the data pad.
“...Of course. The chances are zero zero zero zero zero zero point-”
“Point nine percent. I know.” Eric interjected, leaving Paige with a look on her face borderline pissed from being cut off so much. It soon passed however – especially considering her presence here was a luxury and nothing more. Cillian found it necessary to have her come as a fellow representative of Dynatech, and she did.
‘It is absolutely remarkable how far fucking the right people can get you,’ Eric thought to himself, before he resumed speaking.
“Our most esteemed scientists joke about it as the ‘09’ theory. In other words... We will die before we see the light of day by relying on our conventional sciences.” He rose slowly from his chair, plums of thick smoke in his wake. “I believe it is time we explored the Marienkind Project as a viable option-- perhaps even our major concern from here on.” As he walked along the right side of the table, past Adam and James, he looked out along the darkened skyline. The vast twisting trenches and connecting tunnels, the trains and the cars that densely packed rain-soaked freeways, towering spires and skyscrapers and smoke stacks that cared not for environmental safety; they all glowed as if made of turquoise halogen light, and the underside of the dense twilit sky reflected it.
The four walls of this floor were glass, its thick glass streaked by droplets of water and vibrating to the touch from the movements within the expansive building. The White House. Eric pressed his fingers to it. There was silence – save for Frank’s audible noises of displeasure, slowly building into a rebuttal.
“You cannot be serious. There are other things to consider here. What about the research over in Japan? England? Australia?” Frank’s argument was valid, to be sure, but it was something Eric had heard before… And he was sick and tired of being reactionary.
“There is no more to consider. They wouldn't dare share information with us. This is a competition in their eyes, and unfortunately I... We are the ones who stand to lose everything.”
The wrinkled, slightly pudgy fingers of the aging Adam reached over for a set of the papers on the lacquered wood table, bringing them to him. “Eric, is there really nothing else we can do? No one else has gotten even remotely close, this we know... but are we positive that we're out of alternatives? And if we utilize the children, are you really suggesting we’ll be capable of harnessing the power of a system in place since...”
“The ‘system’ is the source of our plague. There is very little doubt in my mind that it will also be the key to removing it.” Eric rested his gaze on a loose photo jutting from the stack of files before him. Anastazie Tichy.
Before The President had a chance to answer, the others were beginning to retort, apparently having come to their own conclusions. James was the first. “Eric is entirely right. For the Eternal Twilight to end it would have to be...”
…Followed by Cillian, his eyes peeking up over silver rimmed, square glasses, away from the liquifilm. “... an act of God.” His voice was sharp on the ears, and the room became extremely silent once more. Prior to the pin actually dropping, you might be able to hear its fall.
There was a beat. “Acts of men are better than acts of God.” Eric stated calmly, authoritatively.
“Your conviction to this cause is surprising, Mr. President.” James seemed slightly taken aback. He, as well as the rest of them, were men (and women) of some sort of faith, those new and old. Even Eric Maddox had his own principles. But James’ reply remained of open mind.
With a sneer, Frank once more expressed derision. “Conviction to what? His own agendas?”
Cillian, now much more involved in the conversation, sat the translucent panel on the table, edging it to the center, and fixed his glasses higher on his nose. “Enough with the accusations, please. This is neither the time nor the place.” Paige nodded accordingly.
Adam’s words were low in volume, as if he didn’t mean to speak aloud. “So this is why you have put tremendous pressure on finding and eliminating the Furious Angels. After what they did to Dynatech...” Curiously enough, however, he had hit Eric’s next topic of interest.
The President, who had long resumed smoking the cig, made his way back to the table and sorted through the documents, producing a heavy manila folder with the genuine hard copies of Furious Angels data. These remained in his hands at all times, but the majority of the information was digitally accessible to all of them through private means.
“Allowing the children to breach the confines of the compound, and then taking the Alpha, to add insult to injury... They've certainly become a problem.” Paige said with sigh. Eric imagined she had to deal with most of the great amounts of shit paper work that followed each attack by the Angels. “We even have video evidence of the hybrid with them. The hybrid, the girl Anastazie, and a prototype weapon which could easily be reproduced in the black market if sold to the right engineer...”
The Alpha child. Specimen 111-09. The fucking aleph of the Marienkind Project. The biggest concern of them all; Anastazie Tichy. Taken by a band of renegades he didn’t care enough to bother with after previous incidents. Eric took a seat and exhaled, ghostly shapes spilling from his lips.
Cillian continued the technical damage assessment Paige had begun. “Without even figuring in the damage done to our headquarters, the Angels have left a sufficient dent in our wallets.”
Eric crushed the cigarette in the nearest ash tray, killing its flame. “That girl is vital. And I have found the Angels. Currently Miss Kinoshina and a few of our very own Marines are on their way to destroy them. I have made the next move - it is up to her now.”
“Get the hell off of me.” Alix said through clenched teeth, though it was hardly intimidating nor convincing.
They all instinctively looked away at the mention of her name. It occurred to him that no one questioned the absence of her and Vincent. Their operation, until now, had been proceeding in secrecy. James, after a moment, had something to say. “So after our very own, 'wonderful' maid Alix is finished swatting a few bothersome flies... Then what?”
Eric did not like his tone at all, but dismissed it. “The Marienkind Project will commence immediately with the retrieval of the Alpha child.”
“And if she fails?” Cillian asked, his tone flat.
“... Then we are to proceed... Without her.” He said what they wanted to hear, even though he had the utmost faith in her.
With a deep, but not in any way regretful, sigh, Adam seemed to cave to the prospect. “If there is no other way, I have no objections—”
“I will not allow this to continue, Eric.”
Eric looked at Frank like he was damned near insane. He didn’t ‘allow’ shit to begin with. “You will do what has been decided by this board, Frank. You will do as I say.”
“Eric, we have no right to do this to these people, to experiment with their lives, let alone continue this... preposterous operation.” In a sudden uproar, his fit hit the table violently, Cillian’s liquifilm display bouncing with a more-than-audible smack, papers becoming sprawled, and the marble ash tray at Eric’s side flipped in a complete revolution. Four or five twisted cigarette butts, as well as a handful of ash, found its way to the floor, a rather nice floor.
Frank rested his forehead in his palm, shoulder propped up on the table. He looked away, rapping the fingers of his free hand on the table callously. “I will not allow everything your father worked so hard to make a reality become... to become destroyed by your corruption!” His voice heightened into a yell, and Eric countered, coming to an immediate stand and slamming his hands on the end of the cherry wood so hard he should have broken something.
“CORRUPTION IS ALREADY UPON YOU! LOOK OUT FUCKING SIDE!” His hand shot out to the right, the glass wall previously visited. “This is corruption. This is the failure of mankind. I am trying to correct this error, OUR error.”
He left his position to pace over to Frank, the tap of his dress shoes on expensive flooring drowned out by his intensely pissed voice. “Frank, I am not a man to tolerate failure - you understand that, don't you? If you are choosing to be against me, then you are choosing to abandon the most important cause to mankind. This is a time where we must make the decisions that will decide the fate of our enterprise.”
He stood behind Frank now, adjusting his tie. He gritted his teeth and attempted to act a little more professional. “We have little use for you from now on, Frank. And I have little patience for your... Criticism. Do not test me.”
“Calm down, Frank.” Adam said sternly, his fist balled tightly, looking at the director of internal affairs in complete disbelief. No one had ever questioned President Maddox to such an extent that they’d challenge his position of power.
Frank didn’t seem to care. He just continued to mutter under his breath, “You abandon reason, Eric. You're a fucking bastard. You're a sick fucking bastard.”
“Frank... You know this is what needs to be done...” Paige said, looking concerned. She obviously hadn’t witnessed anything like this before, and seemed to show a bit of sympathy, despite holding a much different stance.
“Shut up, you cunt. I wonder, who sucked the most dick to get access into this room, anyway? You or Alix?” He blurted out, ‘abandoning reason’. Cillian removed his glasses quickly to shout ‘Enough!’, but Eric raised his hand quickly in his direction to silence it. He shot Paige a remarkably considerate look. So much for sympathy.
“I asked very politely. You have five seconds to stop talking, fool.” He reached into his pocket, hoping he had settled things, and needing the cigarette to unwind, now. Unfortunately, just as his fingertips pressed over the familiar Surgeon General’s warning on the carton, they were forced to withdraw.
“I am no fool! You're all pawns for this sick bastard and that little tramp he drags around.”
Mistake.
Frank slammed his fist down again, voice rising to its maximum. The ash tray could be heard falling and shattering against the ground from the jolt. “The only failure in this room is the failure of our nation as a whole in allowing this crazy fuck into the esteemed position he is in. You all know it, and Eric definitely knows it. You killed—”
His late father had once told him of a trick to help control rising anger from causing brash actions.
For he, like young Eric, had moments of uncontrollable fury.
This technique was a simple one. When being pushed, for three seconds, consider the following:
First, you were to consider the consequences of your own actions.
“One...” Eric’s hand instead detoured into the interior of his coat.
“--your fucking father. Your own goddamn father, and you would kill any one of us in an instant. You're shitting—” Frank turned to look Eric directly in the eye, still seated.
“Two...” He checked that the safety was off.
The second thing to consider was the ability and efficiency in which you could go through with said actions.
“--on his work and you've created a perversion out of this entire organization. You will pay, Eric, so help me fucking God—”
The silencer barrel of the Beretta M1934 pressed right between Frank’s eyes and in a most remorseless fashion emptied every one of its eight rounds into his skull. The first ensured his death – the seven following splintered hard wood and sent his body back, head tilted upward from hitting the edge of the board room table. Blood misted and spilled against Eric’s expensive suit and the white marble flooring and his Florsheim black Lancaster dress shoes in a mess of gore. Droplets of which sprinkled against the lenses of Cillian’s glasses, which he quickly wiped away on his pant leg in severe disgust.
The third and final consideration was liability.
Eric’s hand fell limply at his side. Paige covered her mouth, looking rather sickly, but at the same time, frighteningly curious at the display. Adam merely dropped his head in his hands, shaking it slowly, probably thinking about how he had tried to make Frank shut the fuck up. James seemed spellbound and rather neutral to the whole turn of events. In fact, he seemed eager to laugh at how quickly everything had happened. Cillian, closest to Eric, remained disgusted and nothing more.
Eric offered him a handkerchief from his pocket, which was quickly accepted.
“If there are no more objections…” He trailed off, ejecting the clip and placing it on the table along the edge of a quickly spreading pool of blood and sinew and bits of bullet-fragmented bone. His eyes roamed among his crowd, slowly settling on Paige and remaining there as he put the gun away and went back for his Silk Cut. He wasn’t sure if he was warning her. But he knew there would be no objections. No sympathy.
The world would soon play by his rules. “Then this meeting is adjourned.”
* * *
Sometimes when she slept at night, she could feel her mother’s breath soft against her cheek. It smelled sweetly and faintly of milk and cinnamon, both cool and warm, both intimate and impersonal. She could imagine her again, small and thin, wrapped in layers of Japanese silk; hugging her jagged, boney body and giving it substance, softness. Cheekbones stern and sharp yet motherly, a mouth that was always scolding yet praising at the same time, with a liquid voice. What have you reduced yourself to, my daughter? But oh, still yet I am proud.‘Those women who longed for the touch of others' lips and thus invited their kisses,’
Then was when she would awake, sticky with sweat and tears, the air hot and humid, devoid of milky smiles and cinnamon eyes. Gone were voices of praise and contempt and a feeling of belonging, being, knowing. She would be alone, left only with the inadequacy and the silence and the night.
‘I am among them, and other things cheaply had.’
Alix remembered the night her family was robbed. Their home completely ransacked; material possessions and furniture thrown about and vandalized. In her mother’s arms, the two of them had managed to hide away in a closet together, until the criminals had extracted their fill and left. In dying fear and partial relief the cried together against the soft pillows of their displaced couch, letting the rain lull them into somber sobbing whispers until her father arrived home. He ran to them and hugged the both of them as tightly as he could, never wanting to let go. Alix had never felt that loved before in her life before that moment and she didn’t think she ever would as much ever again.
The truth was different, though. She never had that moment at all.
Whenever it rained, she attempted to reconstruct past reminiscences slowly becoming alien to her with age – a redux of her memories in her favor, to her own liking. Dreams for the wide-awake.
Alix often wondered what would have been, if only her mother had hidden away with her during the burglary of her home. If only her father had been away at work just a little later. If the pieces had fallen together correctly to create the perfect picture that she desired more than anything, instead of the crumbling mess she was left with at only seven.
The mess that was her existence - and the path she could not change.
Or so she told herself, over and over. Committed, determined, stubborn submissive… Whichever she truly was did not matter at this point, realization of her fucked-up self now a goal postponed for later in her life, when things weren’t so goddamned hectic. She had a job and without that job, she didn’t amount to a damned thing to anyone. She needed to complete that job, and sulking against the window of subway line 108, passing through the central district of Washington D.C., wasn’t going to help. Pinpointing blame on whatever initiated her downward spiral wasn’t going to break the fall.
Very quietly, with her head in her hands, fingers diving into her soft, dark hair, Alix began to whisper a portion of Eric Maddox philosophy as if it were some mantra. A quote she had heard on some lonely night, in the company of his arms and the smell of matches. The loneliness nights of all.
"They say that 'lust' is a sin, but 'love' is highly regarded to Man as the language of one's heart and soul.”
Vincent, sitting across from her, the little fucking twat, was simply silent. Silent in a way that came off as particularly indifferent, as if he did not want to insult the volatile female. There was faint hope, somewhere within her, that he would just disregard what she was saying. The rest wished he wouldn’t.
“What is the difference, Alix, can you tell me? Can you show me?" She concluded as her hair suddenly tossed itself before her eyes, irritatingly whipping at her face, like a sheet of laundry in the wind. The dizzying construct that was this city made for a rather questionable rail system. The sharp right turns always fucked with her.
He smiled, but not because he was happy, just humored. “You will.” Vincent replied calmly, as if the past transgressions between them had never actually transgressed.
She sneered, the heel of her foot pressed against her duffle bag, locking eyes with him, the little kiss-ass shit. “Without question.”
Neither of the two spoke for the remainder of the journey to the District of Columbia air base. [more]
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