Episode 39

By the time I was 15 my life had taken a turn for the better. Following the future plotted out for us by the Department of Defense, I and about 300 other new Oragi were sent to training camps around the Black Moon. We were fed, given the choice of skills to learn and, most importantly, loved.

The first step of this new acceptance was the giving out of names. It is very hard to love a person called H, partly because there are so many other Hs out there, with different serial numbers to boot.

It was held at the lecturer's offices. Mine was a Dr Aubern Yi. He was a stout, kindly, Asian man - a big difference from the tutors at my former facility. Most of the lecturers at training camp were kindly - but in a very militaristic way. They knew what touch love was and did not hesitate to use it. I, for one, have done a fair share of punishment. The most memorable was one hanging me upside down from a tree, head a few inches above the roaring, spitting water. I had to finish 100 pull-ups or they'd cut me loose and thrashing in the rapids.

Back to the naming - I entered the office nervously, taking in the plush carpet, the dark drapes and the beautiful wood paneling. Dr Yi looked up at me from his desk and gestured for me to take a seat.

"A H, I suppose?" he asked, opening my folder. "And quite a history too."

I say, uncomfortable at all the comfort around me. My hands I kept to myself, palms down, for I still wasn't in full control of my gift - there was always the chance I could kill someone I was pointing at without meaning to.

"Very well," said Dr Yi, taking out a heavy book. "They say I should use a computer for this, but I prefer to keep to tradition. What say you?"

"I have no opinion on the matter." I told him.

Dr Yi stared at me with his black eyes, which seemed to speak of unfathomable depths. I felt something brush through me, and it struck me the doctor was an Oragi too.

"You want to right a horrible wrong." he murmured, and then he opened the old book and leafed through it. "And you are searching for redemption."

He turned the book towards me and smiled warmly. "How about this name?"

*

I took it and went on to study assassination. For awhile I thought how good my life was, how lovely the world could be.

We all knew happy times never last. It was my second year there when F visited me. I was walking back to my dorm when I made out a person in the shadows.

"H?"

I paused. Nobody called me that any longer, and I recognized the voice.

"F." There was a note of anger in that word.

He stepped out from the darkness, dressed like a farmer. He was taller, his hair longer, but still at essence the same. His white face, reflected in the moonlight, was as gothic looking and expressionless as ever.

"I've been wanting to see you." he said.

I took a step back, palms loose and ready at my side. I would kill him, I told myself, then and there.

"H?"

I bit back my anger for the moment. Perhaps I could get some information from him first. "Where have you been?" I ventured. "After you escaped the facility the Department has been hunting for you high and low."

He regarded me with that old, blank look of his. "The White Sun." he said, finally. "I've bee accepted into an academy, and it is great. The people are friendly, they love each -"

"Traitor." I spat. "Why did you come here? Isn't it enough that you killed my friends?"

He looked confused. "I - I thought you would want to follow me to - after all that has -"

I brought my hands up and blasted. F dodged quickly, and two palms prints appeared on the trees behind him. If you looked closely you'd realize the prints were made of blood, and that the trees were already dying.

"You have grown." said F. he shook his head - "What have I done to you?

"What have you done to me!?" I screamed. "You took away our friends! You killed without remorse! You did not suffer like I did, had nightmares like I did, hated like I did!"

Silence. F looked down at the moonlit ground.

"I do regret that." he said, finally.

I scoffed. "Regret? Is that the best you can say!? I know you can't regret - you don't even have emotion - I read the genetics report on you -"

"That is not true." he cut in. "You do not feel as I do."

"I certainly hope not, you disgusting monster!"

"Listen to me," he pleaded. The desperation in his voice pleased me. "You cannot fault how I was made. I have lived with a poor family in Bulrish - they have shown me emotion. I do have it! It is suppressed, but I do feel! I love! I feel guilt!"

I took all this without saying anything. When he finished, however, I was shaking even more.

"So you killed with love! Is that what you're saying?! You are a failed experiment! You are worthless, as a comrade, as a once close friend, and as a scientific product! You could feel love for your friends but you killed them?!"

He looked tortured. I felt even better. "It - it," he said, "It was necessary."

I raised my hands, gathering power. "You know what they do to failed experiments, don't you?" I said, "They get recycled."

The first blast I threw hit the camp wall, crumbling it to bits. The second killed a clump of trees. The third found its fast-moving target.

There was a whoosh as F parried it with his arms. I noticed they were covered with blood. He looked at me, his pale face still emotionless. I thought I saw, for the briefest of seconds, a flicker of sadness in his eyes.

And then he swung over the walls and was swallowed by the darkness that was the night.