Written in Research

When the Cullings began, they eliminated the psychics first because of what they were doing: regulating crime, encouraging cooperation...in short, taking away free will.

Early tests would indicate I had psychic potential, but I escaped because I was a mistake. The Human Handlers said that my brain reacted "differently" than they hoped. My ability lay in connecting with emotions--it was part psychic, but began in affecting biology. They said I had a perverted Sense; it was not precognitive, or telepathic. Empathic, they told me. I had some ability to manipulate emotions, but not enough to warrant plugging me into the Core.

They tested and prodded, and found I made a better Healer than anything else. I remember relief at that feeling. I was assigned to a hospital, which were rare in those days. They were left behind to contain the infrequent manifestation of a vestigial pathology usually psychic in nature. Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia...I came to know how these lived, and, theoretically, I functioned to heal. (The Messiah would later say that others like me were in similar facilities; after all, the Conduct Directives proclaimed the sanctity of Human life, which included the lives of those Humans who many never even saw.)

Knowing how to heal demanded knowing the disease, and, ironically, the best method of "knowing the disease" demanded that I know how to inflict a disease in order to eliminate it. Thus, I began training by working with live subjects to induce (if only temporarily) pathology. Sadness was easy, but mixed emotions (conflict, flight/fight response) required a more sophisticated hand. The first joy I felt was when I made someone cry because they were happy. Over time, I induced psychosis, panic attacks, and severe depression--all in the name of healing.

Eventually, I learned Death. That was when the Cullings began. Humans wanted to close the box, but the Kindred fought back.

When the Messiah rescued me, he noticed that I had been living in a "hot zone." I didn't know what that meant. He said that I lasted longer with Humans surrounding me than any other Kindred he had ever met. Realizing that, I said, "They never thought I'd turn on them."

First Entry

I liked coffee once. I preferred it with biscotti. I liked all those little crumbs that sank to the bottom; that was my treat at the end of the coffee. That was when the coffee houses on every corner came with lights and happy faces tip-tapping while sipping overpriced lattes.

Now, we're lucky if the lights work.

I stepped through the broken doorway. My boots crunched on the rubble and I quietly examined the scorched and broken room. My my suit's extra-dermis weave regulated the temperature (the Scanner recorded 102...and that was in October) and shielded out the radiation, but something felt especially sad here. Was it the memories of the biscotti?

My teammates didn't stray far. The Messiah told us that the six of us were, perhaps, the most powerful Gifted left on the planet, and that isolation kept us closer despite our disconnected backgrounds. Others had been killed in the First Strike, kidnapped, or cannibalized into weapons. We thought we were the next step, yet we neglected to remember that Human ingenuity birthed us.

We were always looking for Kindred, and that's what brought us here. The Seeker had found one.

I paused, stretching my Sense throughout the city block. Destruction always amazed me, and North America was hit the hardest. Who did they use to sanitize this area? What Sister? What Brother?

I opened my Eye: black pervaded. I felt pain residue here. Apparently, death was not kind here--there was a sickness here and it created all of this pain. I panned out wider: Variations on blue outlined the Kindred, It was red (It was always angry), but no white yet. The white would come. They always came for us. Hopefully, we'd find our Kindred first. Where, though?

"N?" V crackled into my earpiece. I closed my Sense, and the world resumed its charred, brown and gray hues.

I tapped the earpiece. "Yes?"

"Anything?"

"Not yet."

"Yeah? No shit. This place is creepier than the Garden on Avalon." That was H. It's handler. She was a Sympathizer--a human, but the only one who It trusted. She liked guns and sarcastic observations of others' faults.