Dark Angel 1. Chapter 1

The Year 2020

Outside Gillette, Wyoming

*****

The woods were unnaturally quiet. It was as if the wildlife, knowing what was happening, had all fled to avoid the bloodshed. Not even a bird dared make a sound as the man made his way through the underbrush. Silent as ever, he didn't mean to be stealthy. After all, why would he be? He had no enemies in the world. What had happened was but a freak accident, and now he had to get home, to get to safety.

His stealthy movements were now simply instinct, two decades of hardcore training having ingrained them into his very psyche. They were as natural as breathing, and as hard to stop. Now, he was not a man who forced himself to be quiet; he was a man who had to force himself to make noise. This irony was not lost on him as he trudged onwards towards the rally point. He wasn't meant to be an assassin or a spy - he was a guerrilla.

His sole mission in life, the single purpose and centre for his being could be diluted down into one little word. Guerrilla. He was lucky, this man, though he did not know it. How many people could say that they knew their purpose in life? His was simple - he was to insert into a location and proceed to destroy an enemy force over an extended period of time, using whatever tools - both physical and psychological - he could make.

But that wasn't his passion. He could find no joy in what he did. Neither could his handlers find joy in such a failure of what should have been a perfect specimen. It was not that he was bad at what he did, it was just that who he was...was unnatural.

Hearing a twig snap behind him, he continued on, pretending he didn't hear it. It was probably an eight, maybe even a careless six. No five or seven could ever make such a critical mistake. It was because of this that he felt no fear - if someone wanted to kill him, they would have sent more than a trainee. Hearing another twig snap, he whirled around in anger at the child for disturbing his quiet. He saw his stalker, and froze - the child was no child, but a soldier.

The man smiled.

He thought he'd have to go find them, but they came to him. He didn't mind the walk, but it was nice to be back among familiar faces. Not that he knew the soldier - the men guarding them regularly rotated, to prevent forming any attachments. But still, the sight of camouflage and assault rifle comforted him. Looking around the soldier, he noticed five others, all trying to stay out of sight in the brush. They would have managed it too, had he not been who he was. He was trained in all forms of asymmetrical warfare, and the ability to spot a hidden enemy was a large part of that.

He walked up to the soldier and saluted, drawing himself up to his full height. Which wasn't much, all said - not compared to some of his brethren. One hundred and seventy centimetres he measured, from head to toe. He had a light build, perfect for his job - just on the muscular side of skinny. It let him move fast through his environment, as his results on the parkour field showed. He had pale brown hair - almost greying in places - that was cropped short in the standard military cut. Unlike some of the other fives, he never had to blend into the public. In fact, he'd never even met a civilian - whenever he wasn't at Manticore, he was stuck in a forest or jungle, making life hell for some poor foreign army.

"X5-722, reporting in sir," he snapped out. The soldier facing him nodded and paused, as if unsure what to do next. "Shall I continue onto the rally point sir?" Prompted 722. He was no brownnose - in fact, the idea would never have occurred to him. The soldiers were in command, and were due the respect and obedience that position deserved. Why should he be rude? Again, the soldier nodded, and 722 smartly swivelled back to face his original direction. He was about to step forward when he heard a slight rustle.

That was all he needed. As one of the few specialists in guerrilla warfare, a large part of 722's training was focused on situational awareness and threat detection - in other words, as soon as he heard the rustle behind him, he knew what was about to happen. He twisted around, contorting his body as his legs tried to follow his abdomen. He was just fast enough, the bullet punching through the air where less than a fraction of a second before his occipital lobe had hung. Reacting on pure muscle memory, his right hand whipped down and grabbed the soldier's knife from its scabbard, drawing it and sliding it across his throat in one smooth motion.

It seemed as if time slowed down for 722 as the knife stole the soldier's knife from him. The man had a look of complete shock on his face, his eyes registering only surprise. 722 didn't see this - all he saw was the line of red following the razor-edged blade, and the blood starting to spurt out of the dying soldier's neck. He could have watched all day, completely mesmerized by the beautiful sight.

But he couldn't let himself be distracted, not this time. Even before the knife had completely left the soldier's neck, the killer was reaching down and grabbing his victim's rifle before it had even left his hand. Using a rifle singlehandedly was hard, very hard. All of his people were strong, but it was still hard to balance eight hundred and thirty-eight millimetres of metal on a pivot point as small as the grip while keeping the gun pointed towards the target. He had to do this fast, before the other soldiers could react and start firing back.

Sighting the first target, he fired a single round, and then moved the rifle around, lining up the next target. He didn't even wait to see if the first bullet had hit, but he knew instinctively it had. And even if it hadn't, he didn't have the time to properly line up the target and fire the standard triple burst. He had already let off three shots before they reacted and fired back. He had predicted this, and was already leaping out to his left to avoid them, dropping the combat knife at his first victim's feet. The soldiers only managed to hit their already-mortally wounded comrade, killing him before the blood loss could.

Rolling as he hit the ground, 722 quickly snapped the rifle up and let off another series of shots, these ones properly aimed, and he was satisfied to see the rounds pepper the soldiers, the small bursts of blood showing him he had wounded them. Quickly, he snapped back to the first three soldiers, unsure of how many he had hit. He was satisfied to see one of them unmoving, and one of them writhing in pain on the forest floor, but one of them had rolled, and was currently aiming his rifle straight at 722's chest. 722 twisted his upper body, trying to minimize his silhouette. A fraction too late, he hissed as he felt the sudden impact of a bullet slamming into his right shoulder. His twist had brought the rifle in his left hand into line with the enemy soldier, and he fired, spraying the enemy with a line of wounds that stretched from his right hip up to his heart. He collapsed, and 722 took a moment to finish off the wounded soldier writhing on the ground. In all, it took him seven seconds to acquire a weapon and kill five professional soldiers.

Dropping the rifle, 722 got to work inspecting his wound. A through-and-through, he was lucky. The bullet had punched all the way through the shoulder, so there wouldn't have to be any bullet to fish out. There may be fragments, but he'd have to deal with that later, as well as the prospect of infection. Bandaging it, he all but collapsed onto the ground.

722 felt as if his world had collapsed. He couldn't explain what had just happened, he couldn't even process it. Why would soldiers attack him? He had always been a good soldier, never stepping out of line, always following orders. To 722, it was as if his parents had suddenly tried to murder him - that is, if 722 even knew what the concept of parenthood was. Hyperventilating, 722 panicked, his mind racing in circles, seeking vainly for an answer, any answer. His roving eyes noticed the soldiers with the split throat, and he stopped thinking.

Blood was always his thing. It is what made him different from any other transgenic, what made him bad at his job. He was fixated with it. He didn't know why, nobody did. But as long as he could remember, he had been enamoured with it. As he watched the blood slowly leaking out of the corpse's throat, he focused. Blood always had that affect on him. It helped him gather his thoughts, remain logical, stay precise. Of course, it was best when could draw it out and in turn watch it spurt, like a scarlet geyser, but even blood with no pressure behind it still helped. 722 kept watching it until there was no blood left. It had all been soaked into the ground, and he had stayed far, far too long. If this was a test, he would have been punished severely for such stupidity.

Looking around for the abandoned knife, he picked it up and tucked it into his belt. He couldn't take one of the rifles; it would be too bulky if he had to run at all. Instead, he stripped a pistol and holster from one of the corpses, along with several magazines. He would have liked to take some of the clothes as well for camouflage, to replace the gray undershirt he was currently wearing, but they were too damaged, too bloodstained. Having that much blood, that close to him would just be distracting. He couldn't afford distractions.

Wearily, he set off towards the rally point.


	2. Chapter 2

2020

One Week After The Escape

Billings, Montana

*****

"Thank you sir," said 722 to the trucker, saluting. The man looked at him askance, and drove off with a shake off his head. He'd picked up the kid just outside of Gillette, and he'd barely said a word the whole trip. The whole time he sat there, straight as a rod, hands on his laps and eyes looking unceasingly forward. Didn't even give him a damn name. That sure taught him not to pick up hitchhikers - bunch of damn weirdos.

722 looked out over the town of Billings in disappointment. He didn't know what he expected of the world outside of Manticore, but this wasn't it. Gillette had been so dirty, so disgusting and downtrodden, but 722 had hoped it was unique in that regard. If anything, Billings was worse, despite it's much larger size. Or maybe because of it?

After killing those soldiers, 722 had made way for the rendezvous point, a narrow bridge over a small river. He was almost there when heard the sounds of automatic gunfire, mixed with some short screams. Sneaking forward, he came across a startling sight; a group of Manticore soldiers standing there, mindlessly slaughtering the transgenics who approached. This time, it was worse than when the soldiers had attacked him. After that first incident, he had convinced himself that they were an anomaly, a rogue group of soldiers working against Manticore. They knew what he was, and how valuable he was, so they tried to kill him. But seeing this, seeing a group of soldiers mercilessly execute a group of young transgenics...that didn't fit his hypothesis. It was almost more than he could handle - the feelings of betrayal, roughly shoved underneath the blanket of self-delusion, were ruthlessly uncovered at this site, especially after he saw the Manticore officer behind the line of soldiers, talking on a mobile phone. He recognized the officer - he sometimes commanded the guards in the yard. This was an old soldier, a veteran. He'd been at Manticore more than ten years - there was no way he'd betray them.

Feeling sick, 722 ran as far away as he could. He kept running until he felt like collapsing, then he ran some more. He didn't run in a particular direction, nor did he run in a straight line; he just ran. Eventually he exhausted himself in some woods on the border of Gillette. 722 knew he couldn't operate in the civilian world - he'd picked up some talk and some information for overhearing doctors and other non-combat staff at Manticore, but only a small selection of things, not enough to help him. However, he knew that at that moment, the most important thing was getting as far away from Manticore as possible. He waited until nightfall, then snuck into the town. Breaking into a series of stores, he gathered everything he would need to care for himself; civilian clothing, food, currency and medical supplies. He snuck back out of town, and prepared himself.

After dressing his wound, eating and finally clothing himself in what he hoped to be inconspicuous civilian garb, he made his way out onto the main highway, where he flagged down the first vehicle that approached. Thankfully, Manticore had not yet set up a military roadblock; they had informed the local police, who set one up, but they were just looking for people wearing military uniforms, not young men wearing normal, contemporary civilian clothes...although they did stare questionably at his pink shirt and faded blue denim jeans. He had also got a black woollen beanie to hide his military haircut.

Which brought him here; to Billings, Montana. 228 miles and several hours later, he was now outside the Manticore net. Out on his own in the civilian world, for his very first time. His breath caught in his throat, as 722 missed Manticore more than anything else. He had been happy there, he had a duty. Everything was provided for, and he had access to what he loved. Admittedly, he didn't know much about the civilian world, but if Manticore's reactions were any guide, he suspected that hurting people to see their blood was seriously frowned upon out in the world.

Walking towards the centre of town, he started seriously considering his situation. Up until then, he had been looking at it from merely a survival point of view, in the extreme short term. Now he had escaped from Manticore, he had clothes and money; now he had to decide what to do with himself. But survival first. He had no qualms about sleeping in the alleys, but judging from the attitudes the citizenry had towards those who did, he decided against that.

"Where can I find lodging?" He asked, suddenly grabbing a man on the street.

"Hey man, let go!"

"Where can I find lodging?" He repeated. The man looked at him as if he was insane, then pointed to a large glowing sign about a kilometre away reading 'No-tell Motel'. "Thank you," said 722, releasing the man.

"Jackass," mumbled the citizen under his breath as he walked away.

*****

722 sighed in displeasure when he entered his motel room. Though it was much nicer than any part of Manticore, 722 felt homesick. He felt like there had been some huge mistake and he was in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. But no matter how he felt, logically, he knew that was wrong, he knew that Manticore had tried to kill him, tried to kill all the Transgenics. For all he knew, they could have. He hadn't stuck around to find out. For a moment he wondered if he should feel guilt over that, before dismissing the notion. It wasn't that he disliked any of the fellow trangsenics, but he didn't particularly like them either. He had always been an outcast to them, one of the few operatives given guerrilla training - which involved long periods with no outside contact whatsoever, and had no social or culture & verbal classes. And then there was the blood. Oh, the blood...knowing if he dwelled on it too much he'd probably do something very drastic, 722 quickly quashed that train of thought.

Not everything in the room was foreign - he had used telephones before, and had seen televisions. The only mysterious object in the room was the bathtub - he had no idea what it was, or what it could be used for. Finally he decided that it was for storage of bodies, though why there was no refrigeration unit attached befuddled him. Perhaps it was being repaired?

Bored, but not daring to leave the room too often lest Manticore was after him, he turned on the TV.

Seven hours later, he was still perched on the end of his bed watching it, in rapturous delight. An awed look had settled over his face as he quickly flicked through the channels, as he was wont to do every few minutes. All this information, all given away freely...it was a far cry from the military 'need-to-know' nature of Manticore. Finally he settled on a show that struck a particular chord with him; a documentary about Elizabeth Bathory. 722 watched, enthralled, as the program re-enacted Bathory bathing in the fresh blood of young girls. It gave him a certain sense of peace; he had never felt like a freak because of his fixation, but he did wonder, at times, if it was common. Was he unique out of the entire world? Now he knew the answer: no. He felt a kind of comradeship to this ancient Countess. They were soulmates, trapped centuries apart. He sighed wistfully, and closed his eyes to sleep.

Moments later, his eyes snapped open.

Blood.

That was all he could see - streams of it, rivers of it, delicate drops and devastating floods of it. He wanted to see it, to touch it, to smell it, to taste it...he needed it. He couldn't concentrate, he couldn't see straight. Blood, his mind yelled out for it. In desperation, he grabbed the stolen knife, slashing open his thigh. He watched the blood stream out, but he felt nothing, not even pain. His own blood wasn't good enough. He felt like screaming, he couldn't stand it. Taking the knife and ripping open the door, he ran out into the early morning darkness.

Before long he had found his quarry: an old man, a bum, on the verge of dying naturally. 722 would just hurry it along. Maybe it would even be a mercy, letting him go, stopping him from feeling any more pain. 722 chanted this to himself as he silently approached his prey. It wasn't that he had to convince himself; he saw nothing wrong with the taking of blood - he knew it was wrong, logically, but he couldn't justify that opinion. No, he decided. I've lost Manticore already. I've lost my home, my comrades, my CO and my calling. I will not lose this!

And so he approached the man.

Quietly he crept up from behind, though even that was unneeded. The man was deep in an alcoholic stupor, he probably wouldn't awaken if a tank drove by him. Looking down at the man with a kind of twisted lust, 722 gripped the dagger...and thrust. Up, underneath the ribcage with the massive blade, until it reached the heart. The old man didn't even wake, he merely faded away. 722 slowly pulled the knife back out and watched, fascinated as the blood leaked from the dying man.

722 watched him until all the blood was well and truly drained from the body. Suddenly, the young soldier grinned. He raised the knife to his face and tasted the blood on it. Satisfied, he cleaned it on the dead man's clothes, then stuck it in his belt and calmly walked back to his room, whistling in joy.


End file.
