Next Assignment 01
May. 19th, 2006 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luna_rainbowIn the Beginning
Of all tasks, the most difficult is "to begin".
But things begin everywhere, all the time, as Fate tears forward on her temperamental tide, bearing us towards our end. I may have questioned Fate once, and I still question her now. But silently she leads us, blindfolded and ignorant players along her unlit stage, never stooping to answer.
Every story has a beginning, but every true story has another tale to tell before it. And another before that, all the way back to the first dawning of time. Yet before even then, was there still another lonely heart, another unguided soul...another untold story?
My story is one such, that leads without a beginning, and until I die, will leave without an ending. This is my story. This is my life.
This is me. HC0398.
Call me Rowan.
For me at least, this story should have begun with my birth, followed by the peaceful, laughter-filled days of childhood. It was a childhood I saw in other people's homes while my own was a bitter shadow of survival. I was a haclone -- an ethical stigma born from the union of a human and a clone. The 398th to do so, to be precise. Most haclones were never born due to genetic mutations and out of those that do, most never survive past their childhood, dying of radiation exposure in the wastefields where haclones were sent to work beside clones, robots and the condemned. Humans themselves thrived in dense cities, holding themselves against the expanding dead land. Some cities extended into their waters, high rises bobbing precariously on the waves.
Haclones were born to die, but fate gave me another road. A human boy sought me out and sponsored me into Marinton. His name was Ash. In return, I was to kill for him.
All my targets were the Spirited – clones possessed by aliens. Humans had always longed to encounter the third kind, and they were granted their wish in the most unpleasant way when cloning was perfected. No scientist could have believed the existence of the soul until they realised for themselves that the soulless clones they produced were being possessed by life from other planets. Earth exploded into riot, battered by faceless invasion from without and torn by moral disagreement from within. Finally someone stood up and made a decision. Clones were now programmed and controlled by computers instead of being granted a functional brain. Emotions and thought were taken away from them. But all that did not eradicate the existence of the Spirited. As the world quietened down, dangers were forgotten in a typically human way. People began to doubt that the Spirited existed as their fear melted away with their motivation. In response, the Federal set up a secret subdivision of executioners whose sole purpose was to uncover the Spirited and destroy them. Ash was one member.
And so, five years later, there I was after another assignment, dragging my weary body homeward. My chest was stinging because a bullet had grazed a cut over the skin, but I was only thankful that I was alive. A power failure had plunged the street into darkness, and so I was not prepared for the hands that loomed out of the darkness and clamped over my mouth. The strange scent of the drug forced its way into my nostrils, and the dark street became blank.
The room I woke up in was plain and small, only barely large enough to contain a bed and a chest drawer. The walls were a sanitised white and there were no windows to break the monotonous scene.
"Who would have thought that the blood of haclones were red too?" the voice rang clear and fresh like a bell. To my surprise, I recognised the girl as someone in my class. "HC0398. Male. 16. Birthday: 26th February. Hair-colour: brown. Eye-colour: yellow. Height: 168 centimetres – wow, that's short!"
I stifled a retort, and she continued to list off my profile. "...School: Southwood..." she paused and asked, "Name?"
"Are you stupid?" I felt like exploding. There was no possible way for her not to know my name. People called me by three names, one was "haclone" and the other "Rowan". Less frequently, I was called "Merling". Instead, I asked, "Why am I here?"
She looked pleased with herself. "Good, you seem to know me."
"What does Lyriel Randle want by kidnapping a haclone?"
"Does SD ring a bell?"
The feeling of your blood suddenly freezing inside you was not pleasant. "Wh-what's that?"
"Super deformed," she said sarcastically. The smirk on her face told me all that I needed to know about the effectiveness of my pretence. "Specialised defence – or shall I say, psychic assassins?"
"What do you want?" I demanded, wanting to end this interrogation.
"How do you kill?"
"Want to find out?" I bantered.
At that moment, the doorbell clanged. Low voices muttered at the door, and then someone walked towards our room.
"Why, I wonder how he knows you're here," Lyriel narrowed her eyes and kicked open the door. "It's been a long time since you've been in my house, Ash."
A long time since? I was left no time to wonder when the last time was as Ash immediately began hauling me towards the door.
"Haclone!" Lyriel called.
"What?" Ash demanded in my place.
"Are you a haclone too?" Lyriel blinked innocently. "I thought he was the only Merling that was—"
Ash slammed his hand down on the wall next to her neck and she pressed her lips together into a derisive smile.
"What did you want by drugging him and taking him here?"
"I just wanted to say hi to my new partner," Lyriel winked.
We were sometimes assigned partners to amend each other's weaknesses and enhance our strengths. They were rarely successful because of psychic and emotional incompatibility.
"What?" Ash glared at her, but she ignored him.
"You should look after that wound, especially after I spent so much time bandaging it," Lyriel smiled at me, but it wasn't a smile I liked. "And you should really button up before strangers."
In the bustle, I hadn't realised that my shirt was hanging open, and as I clutched it close, I wished that I could slap the sly smile off her face, while praying fervently she hadn't seen that. The brand on my shoulder that read "HC0398".
Of all tasks, the most difficult is "to begin".
But things begin everywhere, all the time, as Fate tears forward on her temperamental tide, bearing us towards our end. I may have questioned Fate once, and I still question her now. But silently she leads us, blindfolded and ignorant players along her unlit stage, never stooping to answer.
Every story has a beginning, but every true story has another tale to tell before it. And another before that, all the way back to the first dawning of time. Yet before even then, was there still another lonely heart, another unguided soul...another untold story?
My story is one such, that leads without a beginning, and until I die, will leave without an ending. This is my story. This is my life.
This is me. HC0398.
Call me Rowan.
For me at least, this story should have begun with my birth, followed by the peaceful, laughter-filled days of childhood. It was a childhood I saw in other people's homes while my own was a bitter shadow of survival. I was a haclone -- an ethical stigma born from the union of a human and a clone. The 398th to do so, to be precise. Most haclones were never born due to genetic mutations and out of those that do, most never survive past their childhood, dying of radiation exposure in the wastefields where haclones were sent to work beside clones, robots and the condemned. Humans themselves thrived in dense cities, holding themselves against the expanding dead land. Some cities extended into their waters, high rises bobbing precariously on the waves.
Haclones were born to die, but fate gave me another road. A human boy sought me out and sponsored me into Marinton. His name was Ash. In return, I was to kill for him.
All my targets were the Spirited – clones possessed by aliens. Humans had always longed to encounter the third kind, and they were granted their wish in the most unpleasant way when cloning was perfected. No scientist could have believed the existence of the soul until they realised for themselves that the soulless clones they produced were being possessed by life from other planets. Earth exploded into riot, battered by faceless invasion from without and torn by moral disagreement from within. Finally someone stood up and made a decision. Clones were now programmed and controlled by computers instead of being granted a functional brain. Emotions and thought were taken away from them. But all that did not eradicate the existence of the Spirited. As the world quietened down, dangers were forgotten in a typically human way. People began to doubt that the Spirited existed as their fear melted away with their motivation. In response, the Federal set up a secret subdivision of executioners whose sole purpose was to uncover the Spirited and destroy them. Ash was one member.
And so, five years later, there I was after another assignment, dragging my weary body homeward. My chest was stinging because a bullet had grazed a cut over the skin, but I was only thankful that I was alive. A power failure had plunged the street into darkness, and so I was not prepared for the hands that loomed out of the darkness and clamped over my mouth. The strange scent of the drug forced its way into my nostrils, and the dark street became blank.
The room I woke up in was plain and small, only barely large enough to contain a bed and a chest drawer. The walls were a sanitised white and there were no windows to break the monotonous scene.
"Who would have thought that the blood of haclones were red too?" the voice rang clear and fresh like a bell. To my surprise, I recognised the girl as someone in my class. "HC0398. Male. 16. Birthday: 26th February. Hair-colour: brown. Eye-colour: yellow. Height: 168 centimetres – wow, that's short!"
I stifled a retort, and she continued to list off my profile. "...School: Southwood..." she paused and asked, "Name?"
"Are you stupid?" I felt like exploding. There was no possible way for her not to know my name. People called me by three names, one was "haclone" and the other "Rowan". Less frequently, I was called "Merling". Instead, I asked, "Why am I here?"
She looked pleased with herself. "Good, you seem to know me."
"What does Lyriel Randle want by kidnapping a haclone?"
"Does SD ring a bell?"
The feeling of your blood suddenly freezing inside you was not pleasant. "Wh-what's that?"
"Super deformed," she said sarcastically. The smirk on her face told me all that I needed to know about the effectiveness of my pretence. "Specialised defence – or shall I say, psychic assassins?"
"What do you want?" I demanded, wanting to end this interrogation.
"How do you kill?"
"Want to find out?" I bantered.
At that moment, the doorbell clanged. Low voices muttered at the door, and then someone walked towards our room.
"Why, I wonder how he knows you're here," Lyriel narrowed her eyes and kicked open the door. "It's been a long time since you've been in my house, Ash."
A long time since? I was left no time to wonder when the last time was as Ash immediately began hauling me towards the door.
"Haclone!" Lyriel called.
"What?" Ash demanded in my place.
"Are you a haclone too?" Lyriel blinked innocently. "I thought he was the only Merling that was—"
Ash slammed his hand down on the wall next to her neck and she pressed her lips together into a derisive smile.
"What did you want by drugging him and taking him here?"
"I just wanted to say hi to my new partner," Lyriel winked.
We were sometimes assigned partners to amend each other's weaknesses and enhance our strengths. They were rarely successful because of psychic and emotional incompatibility.
"What?" Ash glared at her, but she ignored him.
"You should look after that wound, especially after I spent so much time bandaging it," Lyriel smiled at me, but it wasn't a smile I liked. "And you should really button up before strangers."
In the bustle, I hadn't realised that my shirt was hanging open, and as I clutched it close, I wished that I could slap the sly smile off her face, while praying fervently she hadn't seen that. The brand on my shoulder that read "HC0398".