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]

[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.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

[Tilts her head for a moment, rubbing her nose, trying to remember.]

I've never heard that word.

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Oh. Kinda like, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." Meaning that you can't win no matter what you try.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

It's better if they don't win.

[She beats her wings harder, speeding towards the building.]

Are there others from your school in this place?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt it.

Nah, I'm the only one here, as far as I've been able to tell. But there are other people here, from pretty strange places. It shouldn't be too bad for you until you can get back home.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Are there other children?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen a few kids around. Most look around ten or eleven.

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Why is everyone that old?

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

Don't know. There are some teenagers around, too, and probably some younger kids, but I don't really know them. Why? How old are you?

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

Six.

[She raises her hands and pokes at the fingers, counting, while she lists the other people that she knows.]

I'm six, Gazzy's eight, Nudge's eleven, Iggy's fifteen and Max 'n Fang are sixteen. The Erasers look like adults but they're seven or eight, just grow faster. Scientists are adults. Those in the dog crates usually don't make it to the big ones. [And Angel herself is in a middle sized now.]

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

You're all so young....

[The words come out in a thin whisper. Yes, she'd been trained as a soldier since she'd been able to walk, but that only made it harder to see other kids who don't get the chance to be... well, kids.]

I'm gonna head outside, if you wanna find me. We'll set you up with a room and clean you up, okay?

[Video]

[talks-to-fish.livejournal.com]

I'll see you.

[Going to descend slowly towards the door that she supposes to be the main door. You'll notice that she's really tall and slender for a six year old, no real baby fat at all, once you see her in person.]

[Video]

[manticorean.livejournal.com]

[Max nods before turning off the communicator, heading for the doors that lead outside. She hardly takes a few steps out before spotting Angel, considering how hard it'd be not to spot her. She'd seen mermaids and lizard people, so this? Not terribly surprising, even if she does feel a strange pang when she realizes that the girl looks much older than six.]

Angel?