Legend

The punch lands squarely on my jaw, flinging me to the cold floor.

Damn, but Ryan can hit.

He steps back, still on guard. He waits for me to resume the fight, knowing nothing keeps me down for long. We've been sparring for more than two hours and truth be told, our 'guards' are probably more tired than we are.

They call this place the Philadelphia Facility. And they call what we do training… School.

I call it my life.

I lick the blood off my lip and grin up at Ryan, showing him my teeth. His returning grin is just as feral, just as menacing. We revel in this, you see. In spite of the pain, beyond the blood, we thrill at the morning ritual. It is a game we play, a game we enjoy.

Ever since we learned to recognize the fear in their eyes.

Them. The Monitors. Our Masters.

Ryan and I circle each other around the arena, both looking for an opening. Through the corner of my eye I can see them watching, always watching. They watch us from a distance, through a clear barrier, assuming it will keep them safe. Reinforced glass or not, if they knew what we knew, they'd know it wouldn't be enough.

The next few minutes is a flurry of kicks and punches, of dodges and rolls as Ryan and I try to take each other down. A Monitor flinches as my foot connects solidly with Ryan's head and he falls to his knees, then to his side, blood spurting from his nose. I stand back, giving him the obligatory count of ten, then watch emotionlessly as two other InVitros come into the enclosure to help Ryan back to his quarters. He will be expected to tend to his own wounds.

The other InVitros and I exchange meaningful glances, unseen by the Monitors. Though Ryan has lost the match, it is not a defeat. Not for him, not for any of us. On the contrary, these are our moments of power. This is our secret vengeance. Our subliminal warnings to these self-proclaimed gods.

See what we can do? Without weapons, without emotion? Wait till you really piss us off.

My name is Sita Habagat. I'm InVitro. I have been alive eleven months and seventeen days and I know six hundred and eighty-seven ways to kill a human being.

But that is not the most dangerous thing about me.

---

Ryan has recovered by breakfast, giving me a wry grin and a small wink as he offers me his food tray. As the winner of the bout I am entitled to anything on his tray. But, of course, we are not allowed to actually eat these trophies. We are expected to have too much self-discipline to indulge. Instead, they become offerings, given to our Monitors as a sign of loyalty and devotion.

I take the apple with a small nod, and walk to the table of the Monitors. With false and perfect servility I present my prize to the same Monitor who this dawn had kicked me awake. He leers at me, convinced that I am trying to get on his good side. As I walk back to my table I hear him comment to the Monitor next to him:

"Amazing. You can kick them in the ass and they'd only turn around and kiss yours."

With my back to the Monitors, I smirk at my fellow 'students.' There is no harm, in letting them think that for now. It is, after all, only a matter of time.

---

We sit in uncomfortable chairs, staring silently at a blank screen. We wait for words to flash, signaling today's lesson.

Good morning.
Today is February 18th, 2064.
You have been alive eleven months and seventeen days.
The Monitors are pleased with you.
To be Monitored is to be Free.
Spared the Agony of decision.
Released from the burden of choice.
InVitros need only react.
To react how America wants you to react.
America loves you.
One day you will return her love.
And defeat those
Trying to harm her.
Terrorists.
Silicates.
Subversives.
Today's lesson will now begin:
There are 687 methods of killing a human being.
There are 129 methods of permanently paralyzing a human being.
Method No. 74.

We sit quietly, intent on the words, assimilating the lessons. The Monitors look benevolently down upon us, pleased at our attention.

As if we do any of this for them.

It's amusing, really, how much they refuse to see.

They made us, after all. They should know what we are.

---

Our afternoons are spent in more training, more study, but our nights are spent in sleeping.

Or so we would have the Monitors believe.

Most of us are asleep by the stroke of seven, but only because most of us are up again by two a.m.. That's when we Believers gather in the room of the Elders, to hear the Stories.

There are more of us, now. Almost a hundred. Almost all of the InVitros. The first time I was brought to one of these meeting there was scarcely a handful of us.

I spot Ryan and take my seat on the floor beside him. He smiles at me and takes my hand, and we wait for the stories to begin.

Tonight it is Harper Uris who speaks.

It was four months ago, in this very room and from Harper's own lips, that I first heard the Story of Cooper Hawkes.

No, that is not exactly true. I heard it before, that very morning. I had heard the version that the Monitors tell. The one about the precious child, still mourned, whom they had lost to the insanity of thinking. Defective, malformed, insane -- the fact the questioned was proof, and he had to be destroyed before he could hurt himself, and others.

Back then I had been frightened. I had a Question of my own, you see. And I had just been informed, in no uncertain terms, that asking it would mean my death.

But some questions grab hold of your soul and never let go.

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

If Silicates were the enemy, why are we being taught to kill human beings?

Important, necessary questions, or so I thought, before I heard the one asked by Cooper Hawkes.

They would stop telling that story, the Monitors, if they knew how many of us had whispered of it that night. How, unable to sleep, we had found ourselves in the Elders' room, asking them for the Truth. And how Harper Uris had given it to us.

We should thank them. But for them we would not have known to ask.

The Story Harper Uris told began the same way the Monitor's had: Cooper Hawkes had been a real man. He had been born here, like we were, lived and studied here like we do.

And then, one day, he had asked the Monitors a Question.

And at that point, the two Stories began to part ways.

In this Story, the Monitors had put Cooper Hawkes to death, not because he was malformed or defective, but because he was so strong and so intelligent that he had frightened them. Because he had asked a Question the Monitors could not answer.

The Story goes on to tell that Cooper Hawkes had been special from the beginning. That he had spent most of his time looking up at the stars, watching the sky. Then, one day, a seagull had landed outside Cooper Hawkes' window and conversed with him. Had told him certain Truths. About InVitros. About what was and what was not supposed to be.

And the seagull had told him to ask the Monitors a Question.

A fairytale, or so you would think. But Cooper Hawkes had been a real man. He had been born here, like we were. Harper Uris had been his classmate, and Harper's eyes had shone with memory as he had told the Story.

"Who monitors you?" Cooper had dared to ask, and the Monitors had seen how all the other InVitros in the class had raised their heads, their eyes bright with the revelation. With the realization that the Monitors could not, after all, control their thoughts, only their lives. The InVitros had seen the fear in our Masters eyes and knew that they were not after all, gods, and that they too could die.

Something was born that night; a recognition of the Truth, an awakening of the Soul. Natural-Borns would perhaps call it hope.

And they had put Cooper Hawkes to death for it. Because he had Questioned. Because he had known the Truth. Because he had spoken it.

And after that, they put to death Gregory Bach, who had tried to warn Cooper. Gregory had been the first follower. The first Believer.

Such a Story, such a Truth burns in the blood and changes things. Changes you. I know it changed me. And I know I am not the only one.

"You have a Question," Harper Uris had prompted me that first night, and emboldened by the Story, I asked it.

"If Silicates are the enemy, why are we taught to kill human beings?"

"I do not know the answer," Harper had replied, solemnly. "But ask yourself this: Knowing how to kill humans, which humans would you kill?"

And all of us, in our hearts, knew the Answer.

Cooper had known the Truth, had spoken the Truth -- we know that now. For if the Monitors had truly known us, they would have destroyed us all that night.

That night we knew -- though they had made us, we are not what they made us. And they, though they had made us, are not gods. We, in fact, are closer to gods than they will ever be.

There are six hundred and eighty-seven ways to kill a human being. For InVitros, there are decidedly less. The newer classes, like myself, are immune to most poisons, toxic gasses and diseases. We can go sixty days without food. We can run for five days without stopping. And we never, ever, miss a target.

No wonder there is such fear in their eyes. How much more fear, if they knew, that we know six hundred and eighty-seven ways to kill them?

On another night, I heard another Story. One in which Cooper Hawkes did not die at all. They say that when the Monitor had raised the knife to kill him lightning had shot out of Cooper's eyes, felling him. Cooper Hawkes escaped. He is Free.

Free.

Who knows where Stories come from? They float in the sky, among the stars, and once in a while one drops to the ground, reminding us to look up. That is what Cooper Hawkes did. And that is what we all do now.

They call this place the Philadelphia Facility. From our studies we know Philadelphia is a city. How many other cities are out there, other facilities holding more of our kind? How many of us could actually be out there? In the America alone there must be thousands. And in the world? And how many of us do not yet know the Truth?

Soon our lessons will be over. Soon we will have learned all they have to teach…

My name is Sita Habagat. I'm InVitro. I have been alive eleven months and seventeen days and I know six hundred and eighty-seven ways to kill a human being.

But that is not the most dangerous thing about me. Or about Ryan. Or about any of us.

We are Believers.

And we know it is only a matter of time.

---

I heard a new Story last night.
Who knows where Stories come from? The same place from which Questions do, I suppose. The same place that inspires Dreams, the same place that gives birth to Truth.

I heard a new Story last night.

In this Story, Cooper Hawkes went to the Desert.

And there he met an Angel.

Who taught him how to fly.

The End

© Jessi Albano 15 August, 1999, 6:47 AM

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