<br/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/3/33/Wreck_Portrait.jpg)</div><hr/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>  Name:</strong>       Marcus Magnusson<br/>  <strong>Title:</strong>          Wreck<br/>  <strong>Affiliation:</strong>  Resistance<br/>  <strong>Location:</strong>   Los Angeles County Art Museum at the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong>          Teletrix<br/></span></span><hr/><br/>There was no name or accusation that the girl could throw at him that would make him feel any worse.  He had mentally lashed himself until his psyche was flayed and bloody.  Someday he would have to come to terms with that, but that wasn’t going to be today and it wasn’t going to be some girl with a mouth and no clue about who or what he was.<br/><br/>The fear and anger and complete terror of the last few days threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed it down.<em>‘Not now, not today.  Today we live and that’s good enough.’</em>Marcus clenched his hands together with a force that would turn coal into diamonds.  He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  The last of the girls words blending together to sound something like that teacher from the old Charlie Brown cartoons his parents made him watch as a kid during the holidays.<br/><br/>"Breath," he could hear his dad say.  They were in the park.  He had been playing two-hand touch football with the other neighbor kids and one of the older boys had said Marcus stepped out of bounds when he clearly hadn’t.  The kid just didn’t want the younger boy making him look bad.  When Marcus stood up for himself, the kid pushed him down.  Marcus bloodied the boy’s nose.<br/><br/>He remembered the disapproving look on his father’s face.  The way he sat Marcus down on that old brittle wooden bench and knelt down to look into his young son’s eyes.  Marcus had always been a strong kid, with a temper that was just as strong. He glanced at his father quickly and looked away.  His dad worked construction and was strongest man he knew.  Not like those guys you see at muscle beach.  His muscles were knotted and rough from hard days of labor and his handshake was like a vice.  He was tall like Marcus would be, with broad shoulders and legs like oaks.  For all of his father’s sandpaper like grit, he was a kind and surprisingly gentle man.  He never refused a request for help and he always seemed to make time for Marcus and his twin sisters.  Marcus wanted desperately to be like his father.<br/><br/>“You can’t go around hitting people Marcus.”<br/><br/>“But he called me a liar and pushed me.” Marcus protested, still glaring in the direction the older boy had left.<br/><br/>“Marcus.  People are always going to try to get the advantage, but there are better ways of dealing with it than hitting them.  You are a strong boy Marcus and you really hurt him.”<br/><br/>The young blonde haired boy knew he was in the wrong, but he still glared, more so because he didn’t want to look at his dad.  He felt like he let him down because he lost his temper…again.<br/><br/>“ There are going to be times when you may have to defend yourself Marcus, but Bobby was your friend and you don’t hit the people you care about.”<br/><br/>Little Marcus signed. “I know.”<br/><br/>“Ok next time someone makes you really angry breath in and then out slowly, like this.” His dad took a deep breath and let it out. “When you breath out count to ten in your head.”<br/><br/>"Breath, son.  Count to ten with me.  1…2…3…4…5"<br/><br/><em>‘…6…7…8…9…10.’</em>Marcus counted slowly, letting the anger and emotion not so much fade away as roll back like a wave rolling back to the ocean.  The tension did not leave his body completely, but he unclenched his fists and let out a sign as the girl finished her rant.  There were things that she said that were important.<em>‘Not much,’</em>he thought, but something.  “Freak, Serum,” these were important.  With the ease at which she knocked him through the wall it made sense.<br/><br/>“Some of those soldiers many be able to hear you from miles away, or have sonar or whatever, so keep it down.”  He said quietly but forcefully.  He was apparently still a little annoyed.  It might have had something to do with that fucktard comment.<br/><br/>“You were given the Judgement.  We all were.”  This girl hadn’t been in the same group when Marcus was Judged.  He had watched his friends die that day, one by one their bodies shutting down or revolting in unimaginable ways until he was the only one left alive. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to be rid of those memories.<br/><br/>“Can you walk?” He asked.<br/><br/>The young man did nothing to answer Katerina’s questions.  He didn’t owe her an explanation.  What was in it for him?  Did he sell his soul? Was it worth it?   It was none of her god damn business.<br/>