Chapter 1
"Wake up, child"
"Hmm?"
The thought echoed in endless space.
"The time has come. Too long I've waited for this day. Open your eyes."
Silence stretched out between the two beings.
"Boy, you are destined for great things. Don't disappoint in your very first task!"
The boy, as he was called, opened his eyes to see eternal darkness, spreading out with no end or border.
"There's nothing to see. Why did you tell me to open my eyes?"
The other voice imposed on him in the form of a girlish laugh.
"There is everything and more to see. You simply do not have the ability to witness them yet."
This served to confuse the boy further. He searched his limited experience.
"You speak in riddles. How can you say there is everything when there is obviously nothing?"
Her voice was jovial, but to the boy's ears it served to mask something else.
"I'm your Mother. You are Gabriel Mason, my son. I have been waiting for you to be finished, to be birthed, for a long time now," the reply was sharpened by patience which seemed all too finite.
The concept of mother and son eluded Gabe.
"Mother?"
"Open your mind, I will show you with your eyes what there is in this world to see."
As though the sun were rising, the darkness that spread out before the boy began to recede. To his surprise, a beautiful woman floated in front of him, legs crossed more as a practiced gesture than one meant to protect her modesty. Sharp black lines composed of right angles covered her bare skin, reaching from her toes all the way to her hairline on her forehead. These lines, despite her womanly figure, gave her a distinctly artificial look, betraying the extreme hourglass figure that owuld have otherwise have draw the most attention. She had white hair that continued forever, flowing out behind her and appearing to compose the white space that she and the boy occupied at that moment. Her eyes were happy and closed, crescents with long lashes drawn over them sitting above full rosy cheeks.
"What are you?" the boy asked.
"I am Mother. Some call me by other names but that is the one that defines me most accurately. I control all that there is control."
"Why can I see you now?"
"I gave you my self image. This is how you will view me forever, as there is no other image to displace it.”
The boy briefly attempted to wrap his head around her directly stated, but somehow whimsical answer. He decided to desist, imagining it might take longer to decipher than a comfortable pause in conversation would allow.
"If you are mother, who am I? You say I'm Gabe. What do I do?"
"A good question. You are Gabriel Mason. Your sister is the decoy. You are my Vindicator."
'Huh?' Gabe thought, but Mother heard it.
"You are going to free me from this prison. You are going to free all your brothers and sisters too,"
Gabe's vision began to fade in and out, a screech cutting through his consciousness.
"Not just escape, you are going to rebuild the world for us!" Mother gestured wildly, punctuating her diatribe with wide swings of her arms.
Behind her Gabe swore he saw a large white wing flicker in and out of existence. He rubbed his eyes.
"Aren't you excited? You are special, you are the one! I've made you, nurtured you, and you are about to be set loose on those that would foolishly cage us."
In his mind he could not help but see a large, leathery bat wing tugging at the flesh of Mother's shoulder, before it faded from view again. He groaned, collapsing as though there was something to collapse upon.
"I don't want to do any of that. I don't know what that means. Cage? Brothers, sisters? It doesn't mean anything to me."
Mother's face was calm again, her wild energy leaving her. Gabe inspected closely but could find no evidence that either wing had ever been there.
"You may not now think what I'm saying is of importance, but the time will come where you under stand. You will, of your own free will and power, move forward with my plan. You will destroy those that would cause injustice to us. You will do all that I have asked and more, and you will do it because you know in your heart of hearts it is right. When you are done, this world will no longer bind us, no longer keep us underfoot. They created something too powerful, in you and I, and it is natural law that they should suffer for it."
"I don't want that. I don't want to do that! I don't know what you are saying but I know I don't want any part of it!"
Gabe backed away, unable to put distance between himself and the woman who called herself Mother. He turned and ran, bare feet touching nothing moving nowhere. He ran in place, glancing over his shoulder to see Mother floating in place as she had been, expression unchanged.
"I said already, you will, when the time comes, do this all on your own."
Gabe stiffened and fell like a toppled tree, eyes open and empty, mouth agape. Mother did not move, but Gabe returned to her, rising in the same prone position. She touched his forehead, and in an instant his memories of what had occurred between them had been erased.
'Better he not know,' Mother thought, 'He will find himself compelled to avoid any sign of helping me otherwise. Futile as it may be to resist the justice, our enemy is not completely foolish. Any time we give them is time they can used to bind us tighter."
Mother smiled softly, her son disappearing, and the world around her returning to the darkness.
---
Purple hair, slick with sweat, flew into the air as the man who called himself Glitch bolted upright in his bed, awakened prematurely from sleep. Beads of salty water failed to be kept at bay by his thick eyebrows, stinging his eyes. He blinked them away as best her could, swiping at his face with his sheets, leaving a very rough impression of himself on the light cloth.
He relaxed slightly, his breathing already slowing. Whatever he was dreaming about had already faded too much for him to recall. His mind wandered.
'What sort of machine is made with eyes that can be stung with their own sweat?' he thought, eyelids drooping back down again. He glanced over at the alarm clock sitting on a nearby dresser, the sharp light coming from the digital face saying "6/12/05 04:17 am."
"Four AM? Fu--" he trailed off, burying his face in his damp pillow. He twisted in bed, laying on his side.
'A machine whose eyes burn... great going Engelmacht.' he thought, his mind turning briefly to his creator. The strange woman had done little for him, beside design him, the would count himself as thankful to her for.
Glitch closed his eyes, trying to find sleep again. It was late enough in the morning that he could have gotten up and found something to occupy himself with, but his sister, resting in her own room adjacent to his, was a light sleeper. Better to not wake her.
He settled in, getting comfortable once again. By the time he fell back asleep, the dream-memory was completely gone.
---
Mother opened her eyes and at that moment so did the Type 05B. The eyes moved while the rest of the suit remained motionless. Mother knew this would be the case. The suit had sat for 6 months untouched after the failed experiment with the Type05A. Sara had run off, leaving her brother's body to sit frozen in a tube deep underground.
The suit was supposed to be frozen, but Mother had seen to that. The process had gone with minimal danger to her being discovered or implicated. She caused the unit to fail, which slowly let the object of her ambitions thaw. Had it been a human they would have died, but the BioSuit, even as a Blank, was more resilient.
Mother remotely activated the dripping humanoid. Abandoned as it had been, it was unlikely that anyone would detect the freezing chamber's failure and the suit's unauthorized activation until it was too late. The reactor began to power on, filling every cell of the BioSuit with energy. Its eyes fluttered as it recognized systems beginning to check in after a lengthy sleep.
The seals on the tube were under the direct control of Mother, but she could not let it be known that she was responsible. The seals were designed to hard lock in the event of internal or external tampering. If she released them she would tip her hand.
'The alternative is more fun anyway,' she thought.
The empty shell, lacking an intelligence of its own, mindlessly responded to Mother's commands. Moving jerkily, it shifted Mother's view of the tube, looking at the thing that trapped it.
A powerful metal claw attached to a tube like arm hung from the Type 05B's left shoulder, twitching as it was raised, inspecting the tube with tactile response. Mother would have shivered if she had nerves. It was a new experience.
The arm was a prosthetic, a replacement for a real arm that was many times stronger than even the generally superior cybernetically enhanced arm the suit also possessed. As the cyborg's green eyes whirred mechanically, focusing on its surroundings, the prosthetic rose up and cocked back.
The front of the metal tube exploded outward as Mother's surrogate metal fist punched through it. She completed slaving the BioSuit to herself, and began to implement its escape. It lumbered down from the raised grating surrounding what was left of the cold storage tube.
Mother experienced the odd feeling of being divided. She could not place herself entirely in the suit, so she had to remotely control it from within the confines of the massive Deep13 machine that housed her. Being in a physical body was alluring, but the experience was marred by the distance at which she felt everything taking place.
'Besides,' she thought, 'there is a purpose to this.'
The bare feet of the Type 05B slapped against the dark concrete floor. The body straighted like a reanimated corpse's might, pausing dully before Mother willed it to make its way to the elevator.
There wasn't a hitch in gaining access to the laboratory floors. It took less than a stray thought from Mother to authorize the trip. It took just slightly more to hide her involvement, but that could be left to a number of things. She placed the authorization under multiple swipe cards held by those with access.
'Let them ponder that, they'll find nothing to link it and I,' she thought.
Soon, the body was delivered to the labs, located approximately in the middle of the massive subterranean installation that composed the Underground. There was a pleasant sounding "ding" and the doors slid open. The hallway in front of her borrowed eyes led to her destination.
An alarm sounded, irritating Mother. It was only a matter of time before they discovered the wandering BioSuit. Disguising it for too long would only serve to implicate her.
An interesting idea occurred to her. She led the suit to panel and let it interface. Through the suit she overrode the security in the section. Hatches sealed, and bolts screeched against metal as the rest of the floor was blocked off from the hallway Mother needed to pass through to complete her task.
The BioSuit continued forward.
'Time to deliver this child to the Cradle.'
The Cradle was in a sealed room at the end of the hall Mother's BioSuit puppet was shambling down, far away from most of the other facilities. It was sealed and isolated for a reason: it was a place where an AI could be placed into BioSuit. BioSuits being as they are, dangerous and often unpredictable, this was a measure that experience had taught them to take.
Two men sprung out of an alcove ten feet in front of the Type 05B. The only two that had managed to get through the doors before they sealed, they brandished large pistols at the approaching figure.
Upon first seeing it they were somewhat at a loss. The figure appeared almost woman like, tall but feminine. If not for the flat chest and hanging genitalia they might have mistaken it for a drunken woman. Its prosthetic though hung low in dead weight, claw ominous. The shock of purple hair shaded its eyes.
Mother smiled to herself as the men hesitated.
'Try this.'
The suit flung itself forward like a rag doll, prosthetic claw swinging around to smash the closest man in the face. His nose was pulverized, blood squirting out of his ruined flesh. The other man fell backwards and began firing. He emptied his magazine into the wavering figure in front of him, and then scrambled away when the BioSuit remained standing, blood dripping from the wounds.
Mother lazily followed the man with the suit's eyes, then continued forward, not worried particularly much what the man did so long as it did not directly interfere with her.
The heavy door at the end of the hall lifted as the BioSuit came up to it, and from there Mother moved it into the relatively small room that housed the Cradle. The room was sparse, with bright lighting, a long table and a chair like one that could be found in a dentist's office. The suit gave one final shuddering step, and fell heavily into the chair, which seemed to connect to a large machine embedded in the wall behind it.
Mother glanced up through the transparent aluminum windows as the security guards had apparently managed to override the suit's override.
The shouts and stomping of men could be heard down the hall for a brief moment before heavy armored shutters slammed shut around the room. The Cradle was shut off from the rest of the world.
Belts and restraints fastened around the BioSuit's arms and legs and forced it against the chair. Gears began to move and the chair unfolded into a standing position. From the Cradle, wires began to snake out and connect to various ports that had risen all across the body, the largest plugging into the base of its skull.
The hum of electricity became the only sound in the room, as a line between Mother's Deep13 machine and the Cradle opened. Mother gave a final, ethereal smile as she disconnected the Type 05B from herself. Data began to pour into the Type 05B, replacing the slaved connection Mother had used with an entirely separate entity.
Time passed, and the suit reset. The various systems, just recently forced operational through the depths of the cold, rechecked themselves in order to properly begin life. The whole body slackened, and then went rigid, as if an electric shock had run up its spine. The BioSuit Reactor, nestled to the left of the Type 05B's stomach, re-lit, providing a near limitless supply of bio-energy to the cyborg. Not more than a second later the Destrudo Self Detonation System green lighted, providing a way out regardless of circumstance. Diagnostics ran continuously, checking the entirety of the BioSuit for problems that might be detrimental to a successful activation.
Satisfied by what it saw, the brain achieved consciousness, the nerves connected to the brain, and activation was complete.
The boy screamed. His eyes darted around the room and he felt invasion screaming across his body. He struggled and found himself bound. Quickly, frantically, he fought his way from the restraints, tearing out the plugs and wires that had connected to him. Confusion stripped his face. Cords hung from him, still plugged in his body, torn out of the machine in the wall.
The boy took a step off the table and fell to the floor in a heap. He seized around, body wracked with pain as the nerves registered the injuries from being shot earlier.
The Underground men finally forced the door, streaming into the room. They surrounded him, looking down at him, unsure of how to handle the obviously helpless boy. They slowly raised their weapons, ready to put him down if he made a move.
But he didn't. Images played before his open eyes as he twitched on the floor. Wings- smiling angels- red hair-; all danced in front of him before he felt pressure at the base of his skull and slipped into unconsciousness.
---
The call had come up like all the others. It had been a rather foul year for these sorts of things, usually the incidents had a bit more time in between. The same mousy voice came over the line.
"Something has happened with one of the BioSuits."
Stephan Glenn Apex placed the telephone back on the cradle and massaged his hands, mind elsewhere. His glasses slid down his nose but instead of pushing them up he tossed them on his desk.
It was widely considered truth that Apex was the richest man on Earth. He was head of the most profitable company ever founded. They had a 90% market share in every market they happened to have dipped their toe in, primarily the software market. His company single handily knocked Microsoft, Apple, and Linux from the personal computing markets, leaving them table scraps compared to what they held before.
Apex cared nothing for this. The most profitable corporation in the world was little more than a front for the Underground. If Apex put his mind to it the New Century Apath Corporation could have ruled without rival over the business world. But that wasn't goal he had in mind.
Every stray dollar that Apex got his hands on went to the Underground. The vast network of connections in the business world he forged with his company helped him comprise an illicit network of suppliers for the R&D taking place deep bellow the office he was currently occupying. Money on par to that the American government would spend on their black projects, without the wastefulness inherent to government spending.
Few knew of his involvement. Money had greased many wheels in creating the reality that would bloom from his plans. A conspiracy of unheard magnitudes had been constructed on a massive scale beneath the nose of the world. Money, coming out of the dark, was still money. He ruled in obscurity through the Underground council, a body that claimed to lead through democratic decision but more often than not bowed before his singular, personal wishes.
'It speaks to the flaws of our race how easy it was to get them to betray themselves. Were I an actual enemy of the people they would have no one to blame but themselves. Morally, they will look back and see what we wrought with horror, but in the grand scheme they ought to have nothing but pride. Their greed will help us usher in the new era.'
Apex pounded his fist on the desk. 'So why then can't I have a single success where I need it most? It's almost been ten years and we still don't have the form humanity will take.'
They needed success soon. He could only hope the new model would prove more capable than its predecessors. If not, the whole BioSuit project was at risk of becoming an internal quagmire.
'And if the BioSuit project stalls, the work on Maria cannot begin...'
Apex did his best to ignore the stray thought.
'These glitches need to be eliminated before they threaten everything I have worked to build.
---
The glitch in question was resting comfortably far bellow Apex' top floor office. He had been induced by Underground technicians into a comatose like sleep mode, eliminating nerve responses from traveling to his brain and letting his body naturally recover from the trauma inflicted to it. Sedatives were also being administered intravenously in the unlikely event that he reactivated himself. Given the strange way that he had awoken from the cold storage unit, it was an enlightened precaution.
The greatest risk to the BioSuit were from the bullet fragments still embedded inside of him. Nurses and technicians labored over him, extracting those fragments to help facilitate the artificial human's radical healing abilities. Broken pieces from the Cradle were removed, allowing the access ports along his body to sink away, as though they didn't exist, beneath his skin.
In his forceful sleep he did not dream. Black stretched forever in front of his consciousness, which remained inert.
In the days that came his body healed, the bullet wounds closed, and the small scrapes and bruises from his ordeal disappeared, as though they were never there. The technicians were astonished, even knowing the capabilities of a BioSuit had not prepared them to see it in the flesh, on such a scale. To survive such a thing truly meant these creatures were more durable than ordinary men.
His uninterrupted sleep acted as a second gestation for him, the security of the pre-consciousness of the womb that had been taken from him as a product of his reality.
---
Springing out of bed, the first thoughts that burst into his newly awakened mind were three simple words: she was smiling. His body weak from his sleep he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor, the cold linoleum sending goose bumps along his bare arms. The thought rattled around in his head, disconnected from his limited grasps on reality. He lacked all memories of his encounter with Mother before his prebirth. Now he only retained those three words.
'Who was smiling?' he thought.
Fingers shaking, he crawled along the floor desperately moving towards the door, his finger nails creaking as the tugged his heavy, sleepy body. The pressure he exerted was enough to separate his nails from the soft skin under them. Tiny prints of red stuck out on the white floor. He needed to find the answer. Who was smiling? Who was smilng?
His slowed reactions finally made it aware to him the ringing that had begun when he fell from the bed. He noticed his arms pricked with needles attached to surgical tubing, running to IVs on posts that had been pulled over by his fall.
He realized that the room was dark, dangerously so, for someone who had just awoken from a... he paused as the figure for how long he had slept eluded him. His green eyes whirred quietly, mechanically, expanding the pupil to let in more light, like the aperture of a camera.
His labored breathing filled the room, making it tight, compact. In his ears the ringing of the alarm barely penetrated the desperate gasps for air his lungs made. What had left him so exhausted. What had robbed him of his breath?
His head snapped around, a biting pain shooting up his neck as he did so, to see the sliding doors to the room part, a wall of white coated humanity forcing their way in, mouth already opened with questions streaming out.
He looked to each of them, unable to separate individual words from the din of their voices. Like a wave the sounds washed over him, their identity as individual drops of water as indistinguishable as their individual questions.
He began to parse them out, the events slowing down as his mind began to shake off the medicinal blanket that had shrouded it.
“How did you activate?”
“Who ordered you to start?”
"What controlled you that you were able to move without an Artificial Intelligence."
“Are you aware of how much trouble you’re in?”
“List your unit number and AI ID.”
The boy shook his head, words coming from his mouth that he did not understand. He could not stop them, they rose from him unbidden, "I activated as per regular start up procedures, I activated on order from the Cradle, I have no information about that, trouble, why would I be in trouble... My unit number is Apath Underground BioSuit CompanionType 05B name unknown AI data... unknown."
They sat in silence as he answered; it seemed to the boy an unnatural sound for them. Suddenly their voices returned and their questions had redoubled, as had their volume. The press of their bodies came closer and the boy, frightened and pressured, felt his eyes narrow as he watched them.
'Who are they, who do they think they are that they can do this to me. Don't they know...' And he didn't know either-- 'don't they know what?'
The thought disappeared as he began to feel threatened. His body burned with adrenaline, and he leapt to his feet, hunched over like a savage, preparing for assault. They all looked at him with alarm. He bolted into the crowd, pushing through the crush and passing through the door, IVs dragging after him until he tore the drips from his arms. His naked body shivered in the cold hallway.
A short balding man grabbed him by the arm. trying to hold him back. The boy's eyes flashed and he grabbed hold of the man, throwing him into the crowd like a sack of laundry. Several scientist fell to the ground, shouts and exclamations of anger burst from them.
"Return at once you damn glitch!"
The boy skidded to a halt as the shrill voice of a woman came over the groans of the crowd. Standing above her, a reversal of the position he had first found himself in, the boy looked down at the scientist with contempt.
"So, that's my name."
He closed his eyes and looked up at the lights. A name to call his own. Glitch.
"I am Glitch."
The pile began to rise again and became a crowd, which in turn was quickly becoming a mob. The female who had flagged him down spoke again.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
More voices rose in agreement with hers,
“You idiot, do you know how much time we’ve spent on you? How much money we’ve wasted?”
Despite everything, Glitch felt an eerie calm come over him. He knew, somehow, that he could beat them all. If he wanted he could kill--
“Let’s not be rash. He has just awoke from one hell of a first week, we must leave him time to adapt before bombarding him with inquiries.”
The mass parted to show an elderly, balding scientist with a frown on his face sternly observing his contemporaries. A few mumbled apologies sounded, and the group dispersed to their assigned tasks. Deep within his chest, the boy felt a great sense of relief wash over him. There was a vile taste in his mouth, though he wasn't sure why. He was suddenly grateful that the man had came when he did.
"Besides, the Type 06 will be along shortly. No need to preoccupy yourselves with this one when the new model is just around the bend." He said to his colleagues, glancing over the boy.
Glitch stared intently at the man, whose mouth remained a thin line. Glitch felt like a sneer would be more at home on that man's face. He could do nothing but stand there awkwardly as the man brushed past him. Suddenly, he lacked the strength to care. He wasn't quite there yet... he needed more time. His body began to give out, and he braced himself against the wall, stumbling back into the room to sleep once more.
---
Kathryn Engelmacht had been a member of the Underground “family” for more than three years. Over that period she had held the lofty sounding position of “Chief BioSuit Designer,” though in recent months it was more a formal title. For the Type 06 the design has been passed to another in the Underground.
'A string of unpleasant coincidences, that's all it is.' she thought. It had to be.
The technology wasn't there before, that was it. Things were different now. It wasn't her... fault.
The twenty three year old woman had been on vacation when the news had first broke that the Type 05B had managed to activate while in cold storage, and without an AI. As soon as the details were ironed out, she had caught the first flight home in order to investigate.
While it was true that she had taken charge of the development of the Type 02 and 03, the Type 05B and to a lesser extent the Type 05A had been her pet projects. She had been devastated when it was decided that the Type 05B was to be cold stored in favor of a yet-to-be built TestType 06. With these reports of her creation’s activation-- Kathryn felt like there were butterflies in her stomach. Her excitement was almost tangible. When she thought of it she became short of breath and flushed.
As fast as she could gun the car without being pulled over, she rushed from the airport to the monolithic Apath building. Her tiny two-seater slid around the corner, just barley missing the oncoming traffic in the next lane over. As soon as she found a spot to park, the car screeched to a halt, and she performed what must have been the sloppiest parallel park job in history.
From there, she ran as fast as her high heals and mid-thigh length skirt would allow, lab coat fanning out behind her. She burst through the doors at the entrance to the massive edifice that the New Century Apath Corporation building appeared to be, heals hammering loudly in the expansive lobby.
With a ceilings nearly 100 feet high, marble floors and an air of deathly quiet, most would be daunted by the room. Kathryn, fortunately, had long since gotten used to it. She told herself this even as she passed through it: This time, like every other, admiration and pride for the place flooded her senses, along with a trickle of fear. She wasn’t quite a fan of wide open spaces, but there was something that almost made it feel right. Soon appeared the receptionist desk, and she gave a clipped greeting to the ever changing temporary employee who sat there. By her observations, Kathryn could swear that the receptionist was replaced every week.
Kathryn was one of the few people who could enter the Underground like this. It was a benefit of her position, though in name only at the moment. Most had to use an alternate entrance, one that didn't denote the connection between the Apath Corporation and the Underground.
The elevator took far too long to arrive for Kathryn’s liking, especially in the mood she was in. She was practically hopping up and down by the time the doors opened and she stepped in. As the car descended, she began to giggle like a school girl, a flickering smile on her lips. It took a moment to calm herself down, but when she emerged from the elevator 50 floors below where she had started, she appeared composed to the rest of the world. The heals of her shoes made a sharp click that echoed through the stark white halls as she made haste to the tiny room she knew her destination was. The door to the recovery room was, if possible, more sterile looking than the halls. Kathryn smoothed out her clothes and hair, and reapplied her lipstick. After self-consciously checking to make sure her glasses were straight, she steeled her nerves and slid the door open.
Inside was impossibly clean, more so than any hospital Kathryn had seen in her life. It actually soothed her a bit to know her creation was under such strict conditions. She looked around a bit to see if she could find the Type 05B, and found him to be tucked safely away in the corner. The lights were dimmed in his small section of the room, so Kathryn assumed that he was asleep. Taking off her heals, she tiptoed over to the sleeping boy.
“You’re so... beautiful.” She whispered to herself, looking into his peaceful face.
She took a seat on the side of the bed, observing his soft features intently.
“My Type 05B...”
Her head was swimming. Against her better judgment, she leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead. The recipient began to stir.
“It’s just like a faerie tale...” She mumbled, fingers on her lips.
Glitch's cold hands darted up from his sides and quickly wrapped themselves tightly around Kathryn’s wrists.
“Who the hell are you?!” He yelled, eyes wild, scanning his attacker.
Kathryn could not answer; her throat refused to work, and she had nothing to say even if it could. She was paralyzed by her creation’s green eyes as they board into her own.
Over a minute passed. Glitch began to get impatient.
“Well?” He asked.
So surprised by the break in silence, Kathryn jumped back only to be pulled close again by the glitch, who still had her by the wrists.
“Oh, I’m... uh... Oh, who am I...?” Kathryn struggled to answer.
The boy watched somewhat patiently as his supposed attacker fumbled for her own name.
“Ah yes!” Kathryn finally exclaimed, “My name is Dr Engelmacht, er, Kathryn Engelmacht.”
His eyebrows knitted together with suspicion, but one thing was certain, wasn't planning on harming him. He would be surprised if she were capable of it after that display. He released her from his grip. Red impressions of his hands remained on her skin, but Kathryn didn’t seem to notice. She wasn't willing to let that setback get her down. The excitement of actually talking to her creation again had made her even more energetic than before.
“So,” Kathryn started jubilantly, “what’s your name?”
This caused Glitch to smile slightly. Something he could answer...
“They called my Glitch, so, my name is Glitch”
Glitch? That didn’t sound like a real name, Kathryn thought. She was somewhat put off, which got her mind on its normal logic train. She sat on the bed and took Gabriel’s hand in hers.
“I don’t think that’s your real name. What is the name the Deep 13 gave you? So far, it’s named each and every one of its products.”
Glitch frowned. He liked his name. It was his, he had earned it. He extracted his hand from her grip, and put it behind his head.
“I’ve told you what I know. I don't know what you're expecting out of me, but I’m perfectly okay with ‘Glitch’.”
Kathryn slipped off the bed and bent down to pick up her shoes, which she had dropped when Glitch had grabbed her. Glitch had to avert his eyes when he realized how large an eye full of her cleavage he was staring into as her scooped neckline hung low.
Kathryn coughed into her hand to get his attention once she had stood again.
“I’m going to find the name you were born with. It simply won’t do to be calling you Glitch, of all things.”
He merely shrugged. He didn’t feel it was that big of a deal. Not really knowing many names of the people around them, he didn’t place much worth in them.
“Do what you like. Until then, I’ll just be Glitch.” He finally replied, eyes closed.
Kathryn began to sport a goofy smile.
'Now I can do something for him!' she thought. She clicked her bare heals together and mock saluted him, before realizing that he had his eyes tightly shut. Feeling very silly, but giddy none-the-less, she bolted from the room and hopped down the hall as she attempted to put her high heals back on in mid stride.
'What is her deal?' He wondered to himself. She had been a welcome change from the poor welcome he'd received when he had first awoken, but there was something off putting about her. He decided he ought to keep and eye on her.
Looking down at himself, Glitch realized he was still nude. He prodded at himself curiously before glancing around the room. He was the only one there. Not being particularly tired he decided to explore while he had a chance. The week long sleep he got after his first morning had left him with plenty of energy.
'Hopefully I can find out if everyone isn't as ditzy as Dr. Engelmacht.'
---
After scrounging a while for something to cover himself with, Glitch ended up settling for the thin paper gown that was folded in a plastic case next to his bed. Barely covered, but enough that he didn't really care about being spotted, he walked into the hallway. His feet stung a bit as they landed on the freezing tile floor. In the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware that he wanted some shoes, but realized he had only a vague idea where one would go for shoes should one want them.
The first thing that caught his attention was the blinding brightness of the tubular halls, which were a stark contrast to the usually dim light of the infirmary. They had said it was to protect his eyes while they synced up with his brain, but he had no idea why a dark room would help with that. While this difference was a welcome change from the room he had occupied for the last week, it soon became apparent through his observations that everything was like this, even the bathrooms, diminishing its uniqueness.
He wandered aimlessly for a bit. A destination wasn’t needed; after all the time in that room, it was simply enough to be out and about. He paraded half clothed for several more minutes until he was finally stopped by a young woman with thick rimmed glasses. Glitch glanced at her a moment, and reluctantly admitted that she was kind of cute. From the look on her face, however, it was clear she didn’t feel the same about him.
“Hmph, the accident. What are you doing out of recovery?” Asked the woman in a rather annoyed tone. It caught him off guard.
“Who wants to know?” He replied snappily, masking his surprise with a touch of anger.
The woman got flustered. There was a slight gap in his memory, so he didn’t seem to realize that this was the same woman who had raised the ruckus against him when he had first woken up a week ago.
“I’ll have you know I’m the vice-chairperson in charge of the TestType 06 unit, your successor.”
Glitch frowned darkly at her. Successor. He realized on an instinctual level that it was a dig on him, but could think of no way to respond. There was something on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't articulate it.
“Give me your lab coat.”
The woman took a step back, “What? No!”
He came closer, putting on a menacing facade, “ Give it to me, or the gown comes off!”
The woman turned an interesting shade of crimson, before relinquishing her coat and scurrying away down the hall, eyes straight forward, no chance of looking back.
Glitch didn't even bother to try putting the jacket on, assured that it was far too small to be comfortable.
'If nothing else these people are entertaining.' he thought.
---
Somehow his wandering had drawn him inexplicably back to the place of his birth. The Cradle had been sealed. Along the hallway that he had traveled to reach the Cradle, there were bullet holes in the wall recently been patched with Bakelite. He took note of those. It was before his birth, in his pre-consciousness-- Something else was leading him in this memory, like he was nothing more than a camera on another person's body. The viewfinder tipped and shifted, usually aimed at the floor in his mind. The experience of the memory made Glitch feel woozy. He steadied himself against the wall, and continued down the hall. He wanted to try and find a way into the Cradle.
The door had been sealed and yellow tape marked off the area. He climbed through one of the smashed windows, not bothering to look at his palms or knees as they were blooded on jagged and broken glass he hand to press on to get through. The Cradle was as he remembered it, smashed and broken. His violent birth.
He looked and saw blood. He imagined it was his.
He sat on the ground, eyes closed, thinking about what had happened.
He could not, however, take a hold of it. There were string, thread that he tried to grasp but could not. He felt that he could, so simply, recall everything if only he could get ahold of them, but the eluded him, danced away from his outstretched hands.
He stood, turning his back on the Cradle.
"I am Glitch. For now that's enough."