First, in which Angel arrives

[birdkiddie]

[The camera doesn't show anything but blue for a moment, then you see the mansion from above and a flash of something that looks like a giant dove. The camera is high up in the air, and the direction is clear. It comes from up and is headed down ...just that there is something in the way. A head, to be exact. Blond curls. The journal bounces off it and falls deeper, passing the face of a little girl that is stuck somewhere between fear, confusion, alertness and tiredness. Her eyes are hollow and smudged with purple rings, and one whole side of her face is a single bruise. And then there is only white cloth and the view of the mansion as the journal falls further and rotates.

It falls, and falls, and then you there are suddenly fingers around it and it is turned around to face the child from before. All you can see the arms that are full of burn marks and little wounds where needles have been inserted into her arms. There also is something that looks like an IV on her arm. If you look closer, you will see white feathers behind her back. Or maybe on her back.

She silently examines the journal, the little face tense, and after a few moments she switches on the audio.]

Max. Gazzy. Fang, Iggy, Nudge. Are you here?

Jeb. Was that you?

Comments

[Video] I thought as much; they do look a bit similar :D

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

[Max stares at Angel for a moment, not sure how to take her reaction.]

Okay, that's fine. I just... I went to a school that sounds like it might be like yours. Maybe you can tell me about it sometime.

[Video] the coloring is fanmade; her mother is hispanic and such is her hair/eye-color

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

[There is something between alertness, fear and worry in her voice, also something like morbid curiosity.]

You have a barcode number? [She'd like to reach out to the other person to better understand, but there are so many people down there, she would never find the correct person.]

...But that is not here, is it?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Yeah. All of the ones like me have one. It's... just a really irritating tattoo these days.

[She gives Angel a small smile, knowing how messed up this whole situation might seem to a kid.]

My school doesn't exist anymore, and even if it did, we're a long way from there. The people around here call this place Wonderland. Sounds a bit hokey, if you ask me, but it fits.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Your expiration date always shows?

[That really is a horrifying thought... especially for a birdkid who doesn't know if she has one or not, and if, when it will be.]

The one that made us still does. ...I was there before I was here.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Oh... it's not thar kinda barcode. It's just my designation number; lets them know what batch I came from. Sort of like my name, before I took up Max.

Well, now you're here. And with any luck, you won't be going back to any place with scientists.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Our numbers aren't tatooed into our necks, but the expiration dates are said to show up there.

Except for that, it sounds similar. We weren't more than numbers to them, and I don't think that most of the other children had real names.

[And now she's pretty much done with being all mature. Being trapped and abused and away from the flock is one thing, but being in a place that seems to be worlds apart from the flock with no chance that they'd come and rescue her...]

Will I go back to my world?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

You're actually pre-assigned expiration dates? That's just bullsh-... ridiculous.

[Max remembers that there've been several times when she's wondered if she was set to just stop breathing after a specific number of years, and her heart goes out to Angel. She came from a facility where the oldest victims were currently only sixteen, and for all she knows, there might be something at this so-called school that she needs to keep her "expiration date" from creeping ever-closer.]

Eventually. Lots of people do. It might take a while, though.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

They usually show up a few days prior to death. For some of us they are visible from the start. The ages differ a bit, wolf hybrids get about eight, but Max and Fang are ancient. Maybe... maybe we don't have them. Or we just get a bit older.

[She doesn't want to lose them. What would the flock do without it's leader?]

Can we choose where we go back to?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

I guess it's better to have a harbinger than just suddenly drop without warning. Still, I'd rather not have that part of my life embedded into my DNA. Got enough floating around in there as it is.

[She hesitates before responding. She can't really lie if she doesn't know the truth.]

We don't get a lot of choices around here, but I wouldn't rule it out.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Not everything about it is bad. Me and the flock can fly, I'm sure you can do something nice, too.

[She doesn't really know, but usually, if they live, the DNA means real enhancment in her world. All others die early; the school doesn't let failures live, they only cost money.]

I'd want to go back to our house.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

I can do plenty, though sometimes I wonder if it'd be easier just being a regular girl. Still, if you like flying, I'm down with counting that as a good thing.

You got a crib with your... "flock," then, huh? That's good. I got someplace to crash with my boos, too. Let's hope we get to where we're going before we go crazy up in here.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

But then we would have to listen to adults, and eat things that are "healthy", and ... [And she's quiet for a moment.] ...we wouldn't be ourselves. [This isn't exaactly what she has come up with, but close enough. It was one of the flock.]

Yes. High up in the mountains where it should have been safe, but they came with helicopters. It should have been hidden but they knew where we were because Jeb... [Quiet again, and there is the calm hatred of the betrayed on her face.] It might not be safe anymore.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

You'd be more yourself if you'd grown up being somebody's kid and not somebody's experiment. [She clams up and takes a breath, knowing full well that she doesn't know enough about Angel's situation to get as angry as she instinctively feels.]

I'm sorry. I kinda had a base camp, too, before it got ripped to shreds. We're all hiding out in an abandoned part of town, but now people know we're there, so I don't know how everybody's doing now that I'm gone. While we're here, though, the only thing we can afford to worry about is keeping ourselves whole so we can get back to our friends in one piece, you know?

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

But that's not who we are. Maybe we would be happier. Maybe we would live longer. Maybe we wouldn't live anymore. But no matter what we would be, we would be different people.

I wouldn't have met Max, or Iggy, or Fang, or Nudge.

[She shakes her blond locks; this is a bit hard to grasp even for her, but she thinks that she understands what the other flock member meant.]

"You all"? And what is with people knowing?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Different ain't always bad.

Look... okay, fine, so we can't change anything about where we came from. That don't mean we can't change where we're going. You get a shot at freedom, you do whatever you can to take it and run with it, take your whole flock with you if you can. But don't think for a minute that anybody holding you down is doing you any favors.

[She sighs, not really wanting to get into any of the mess that's colored her life since... well, since she was born, really.]

Yeah, me and my... my family, I guess. Brothers, sisters, distant cousins. It's all sort of complicated. But basically, we're different, and different usually scares people. And when people are afraid, they do bad things. So now that they know where we are, things are gonna be getting real ugly, real quick.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

They'll come for me, and then we'll get out of there and find a place ourselves... Maybe we can find our real parents, if we have any. [Yes, she is only six years old and the thought of having a mother and living with her family is certainly great. ...And Angel doesn't even know yet that being on the run will be what the flock will be doing for the next year.

And then she grins.] Maybe Gazzy and Iggy can blow up the school. They're good at that kind of things.

[And that is something that she has never thought about before.]

We always had to hide from the school, I don't know much about other people than me and the others like me and the bad adults at the school... The normal people, if they really are that bad, can't you just find a hidden island somewhere where they won't find you?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

[Max doesn't say anything for a moment. She has a real mother, somewhere out there in the world, or at least she had one. She would love to find out who she is or was, unite with her, show her what kind of woman she'd grown up to be... but the records of her birth mother are lost, if Manticore had ever even bothered keeping them.]

I blew up my school. It was pretty fun. Except for the end bit. [Getting shot in the heart usually isn't all that fun. But hey, she survived, thanks to Zack.]

Lots of people like me stayed away from "normal," whatever that was supposed to mean. I was the only one who made connections. Now though... I dunno, I guess I got too used to Seattle and the people I met to just go off to an island paradise. Besides, I sort of have some work to do on the homefront before I can think about changing bases.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

We would kill the others. [Her little face tenses, she doesn't like that thought. They have a limited, miserable lifespan, but still...] The scientists, too, and the Erasers, but...

What happened in the end? And now? Do you fight the normal people?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Kill the other... what?

I... got hurt real bad. My brother Zack, he saved me. Now... well, there are other people out there. They're not normal, but they're not us... and they hate anyone who's not them. So I guess you could say they're the bad guys now.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Experiments.

[Considers what max just said for a moment. It sounds a lot like Erasers...]

Did the scientists at your school make them, too?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

... they're more than just experiments, though, aren't they?

No. Actually, one of them sorta was the scientist who made us. Like I said, it's complicated.

Re: [Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Those that aren't failures, like the Erasers, they make into their soldiers. But many of the children are, according to them. [She presses her lips shut for a moment.] I'm not sure about us, but they can't control us, our minds are free. They consider that a failure, too.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

[She's quiet for a moment before speaking bitterly.]

Yeah, free will's usually looked at as a whopping failure.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

[She doesn't know them yet, those experiments, clones of themselves and others, in the Itex branch in Germany that couldn't go against orders to save their own lives. That didn't even have the mind left to make the decision to run despite them knowing that they were to be eliminated within the next few days. But she knows the Erasers, and she has seen what they have tried with other experiments' brains and minds.]

But the less will we have of our own, the less effective we are. That's why they can't take it from us completely.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

[She smirks, having wondered all too often if it'd been possible to have been engineered with a soul, and if that would somehow make any kind of difference between the various generations of transgenics. The more physically advanced they became, the less human they appeared, which was a huge sacrifice Manticore had to make when it came to undercover ops.]

That's what they call a catch-22.