XY-n 5 : The Waters & the Wild

“The night is hot, but nothin’s gonna stop This game goin’ wild.” - Roger Daltrey

Xyn lay on his back in the tall, cool grass staring up at the intensely deep blue sky. There were occasional puffy, white clouds to break up the monotony, but not nearly enough to be threatening. The sun was warm on his body. He could not remember where he had placed his Suit, but he really didn’t care. For the moment, it was enough to just be there alone, staring up at the sky and sometimes glancing down at the water of the vast lake just at the edge of the grass. He was wondering what the white sand might feel like under his bare feet when another thought came to him : Am I staring up at the sky, or am I looking down at the lake?

Both were the same soothing shade of blue. Both were broken a bit - the sky by clouds, the lake by ripples. All in all, he found it perplexing. Yet the little one didn’t move, didn’t speak aloud. He was safe there, he knew, and he had no intentions of leaving. He didn’t want to be out on the streets again in the world, all alone, or with the strange ones in the Ruins of what used to be a civilization. He didn’t want to be hungry. He didn’t want to tired. He didn’t want to be hunted. He just wanted to lay in the grass and BE.

Yet he didn’t really remember those things. He wasn’t hungry. He felt good. He didn’t really think that anyone hated him. But all of these things were foremost in his mind, and try as he might, he couldn’t make sense of them. He was sure that they had all happened at one time or another, and he was also sure that he’d once been well fed, cared for and loved. The two ideas couldn’t exist together - it made no sense. Still, he was sure of it all.

It was just too confusing, and the paradox gave him a headache.

And so he lay there, watching the sky fade from a cobalt blue to a duller blue stained with oranges and reds and yellows. He watched it turn purple and maroon, then black with small specks of white here and there all above him. Or below him. He couldn’t decide. If he looked down, he saw the same colors. If he looked up, nothing changed. This was all he thought about as he closed his eyes and sighed, a smile on his perfect face. He scratched absently at his bald head and wondered if he shouldn’t have a blanket or something to cover his nakedness while he slept. He could feel sleep coming, but he couldn’t quite place the reason why he shouldn’t sleep naked out in the tall grass with the cool breeze blowing over him. It felt too good to care, and since and he didn’t care, he slept.

The smile never left his face.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jayk asked Shar, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. He and Chriss had managed to half drag, half walk Xyn only a few blocks before Tym had returned with her and the man with the artificial eye. Jayk had decided that he didn’t care for him much, or Chriss either, for that matter.

He watched as Shar gently laid her hands upon Xyn’s head, where his hair had grown out to almost 1/4 inch. Oddly, Jayk realized that that was the longest that the little Bio’s hair had ever been in his life - and he wasn’t really “there” to realize it. He was suddenly very aware of his own long braids, and found that he didn’t remember the last time he’d had a haircut. It was one of those Facility things, Jayk knew. The depilatory cream, the schooling, along with everything else that he had learned from Xyn. He also wondered how many other things were changing for Xyn, the hair notwithstanding. And he wondered what that short growth of hair felt like.

Jayk watched anxiously as Shar probed. He couldn’t ‘feel’ it, of course, but one look at Chriss told Jayk that the weakly Psionic Pyro was ‘watching’ them. ‘Feeling’ what Shar was doing. He was also holding Xyn close to his own body, radiating heat as Pyros did, keeping him warm. It was a while until the heat of the day would set in, and he had said that Xyn was in shock and needed to be kept warm. I could have kept him warm myself, Jayk thought. Still, Shar worked. Then a look that Jayk had never seen before crossed her face, and she shook her head. The mass of black curls that hid her shoulders shook out behind her, and there was definitely something mystical about her posture. Jayk realized that she was beautiful. Of course, as a complete eunuch, this meant nothing to him, but he realized it all the same with a strange pang of what he thought might be regret. And for the first time in all the years that the little Slow Mutant had known her, Jayk realized that she was confused. That thought sent a chill down his spine. Shar always knew what she was doing.

Finally, when Xyn almost fell over, she released her grip on his temples and sighed deeply. She turned to Jayk, and the look in her dark eyes spoke volumes. “Well?” the man with the artificial eye asked in a rough tone. No one had told them his name as of yet. Jayk gave serious thoughts to violence right about then. He didn’t like the tone at all. Shar turned away. “I do not know, Jayk. Xyn’s body is here, but his Mind is not. It is as if he has left, moved out of the house and found another, leaving behind only empty rooms.”

“Can we do that?!” Chriss asked.

“You cannot. Even I cannot,” Shar replied in a hushed tone, “But I have heard of other Psions so powerful and so disciplined that they can. However, I believe that our Xyn has discovered this power by accident, and that he may not know how to return. OR, he has simply willed himself into this condition by conscious choice, hiding so that he cannot be hurt - and that he doesn’t want to come back. I should have seen this coming and taken steps when he reached his Psi all the way to the bridge to your group,” she said to the gruff man.

“What’s that go to do with anything?” he demanded. Jayk bristled.

Shar sighed, then in a tone as if she were speaking to a very little one, she said, “Xyn is a very powerful up and coming young Psion. He may even rival me someday. This is very disturbing. The fact that he could ‘feel’ you all on the bridge speaks highly of his talents.”

“So what do we DO?” Jayk cried, the alarm in his voice obvious.

The large man looked at him, his false eye glittering and unblinking. “We leave him. We have cargo to carry, and no time to waste on him, or any others for that matter who might fall behind. He’s not really one of us, even if he is psionic. He’s a Runaway Bio.”

“He’s a Mutant, much as I am!” Jayk protested.

“He’s a Facility brat,” the man replied flatly, “and a hindrance in his condition.”

Jayk snarled, an animal-like sound. He felt itchy all over, and his brain seemed to explode into irrational rage.

Chriss and Shar both ‘felt’ it coming. Chriss pulled the inert form of Xyn away as Shar leaped between Jayk and the man, but not before Jayk had let out a horrible growl of rage and fallen into an attack posture. His fangs had lengthened, and his body had hunched down, giving his already longer than normal arms an even longer reach. His hands were like claws, and his skin had turned pale red. His eyes had turned totally black, and spittle dripped from his razor sharp fangs. He shook his head once, and sprang, another animal-like snarl of rage being the only warning. Shar had moved fast to get out of his direct way, but not fast enough. He brushed past her, not knocking her back, but more like bouncing off of her as she tried to physically stop him. Jayk didn’t realize her plan in that move, but he was past the point of caring. Past the point of reasoning. Almost all that remained was animal-like reflex. She touched him once.

In an instant Jayk was upon him. His long arms closed around the man’s ribs, and although he was - in physical essence - a little one, Jayk was also a Mutant. He wrapped those arms around his enemy’s ribs and squeezed. His legs caught him at the waist, wrapping around to kick at the small of his back as well. Taken by surprise, the large man didn’t react quickly. Instead, he seemed to be scanning Jayk with his unblinking artificial eye. And that was his mistake - taking time to evaluate his attacker which he considered nothing more than a bothersome little XY. For all of the surprise of his attack, the crush of his impossibly strong embrace and the kicks of his heels in the man’s kidneys, it was Jayk’s shining fangs that did the most damage.

Even as he sprang, some tiny part of him was screaming. Some part with a bit of logic still left intact was saying, “They told you this could happen, you could go berserk. They thought you’d evolve into a Nightstalker, but you didn’t, you don’t have the eyes for it. You’re a Beast, they said you might be, that you’d change. You’re a eunuch, and so what Chriss says makes you all that much more dangerous. Stop, Jayk, don’t do this to another Outcast ...” In all of his long, strange Cycles of Slow growth, Jayk had never done it. He had never gone berserk. Until then. And he did not care. The tiny part of logic was drowned by two words - ‘Leave him.’

Jayk’s snarl of hatred didn’t decrease in volume as he sank those fangs into his foe’s neck, the words still burning in his brain, Leave him... he’s not one of us ... He could feel Shar trying to take control of him, feel her pounding at his Mind. Finally realizing his danger, the man slammed a very meaty open-palmed hand up into Jayk’s crotch, thinking that the pain would loosen the little one’s grip and that he could throw him off over his head.

Since Jayk was a eunuch, and he didn’t realize this, it didn’t work.

Jayk resisted the effort, and sank his fangs in deeper. His hands sank into the flesh of his enemy’s back, tearing through his garment as if it were nothing.

“STOP!” Shar screamed at him, both verbally and mentally, but Jayk would not. He could not. He twisted his head, and with a sudden jerk of his neck he pulled back. His fangs tore out the man’s larynx and a huge length of his jugular vein. Blood gushed into his mouth, over his face. He felt the warm slipperiness of torn tissues in his mouth, and the taste of salt. Blood flooded his vision, staining the world red, and then he could see nothing. His eyes burned. Jayk felt hands upon him, Minds slipping into his. He fought, but he could not resist them. Their touch on his skin was slippery, and everything he saw was red. Still howling with fury, he felt someone else grab his arms, another his waist. And then Shar was fully inside of his Mind, going where she had never dared to go before. Even in the blackest depths of his depression when she had tried to help him, she had never brought the full force of her Will down upon Jayk.

Now she did.

Her Will struck, and Jayk froze. It was not physically painful, for there was no tissue damage. But his Mind was crying. He was hurt by the ‘force’ of her attack, as well as the fact that she had attacked him in this manner in the first place. Xyn was the only one who had ever touched him in the deepest corners of his tormented Mind, and it was Xyn that Jayk cried out to when the “pain’ hit him. It seared through his very being, and he choked. His body stiffened, and his awareness froze as Shar ‘gripped’ him. He felt betrayed, even violated. The physical pain that his old Master had inflicted upon him so very long ago was nothing compared to the pain that Shar brought to his Mind.

Someone was holding him, and wiping his face. Someone was turning his head, making him look.

Before him on the ground was the big man laying in a pool of blood. It trickled from his ruined throat, his heart no longer pumping it out in spurts. Jayk tasted it in his mouth. He looked up and saw so many of the others staring at him, their faces pale and many of them shaking. Even more had fled. He glanced back down at the one who would have had him leave his friend, and saw that the artificial eye had gone dark. The blood ran away from them, forming an almost black rivulet that led to the debris choked gutter. Jayk felt them releasing him, and that no one was in his Mind. He felt Shar slip out, and he ‘felt’ her anguish. But whether it was anguish for him, for the man, or for what she had been forced to do to him, Jayk couldn’t tell. All he could do was stare at the wreckage of what had been, until only seconds before, a living, breathing fellow Outcast. As Shar slipped out, Jayk felt something go out with her.

He heard a small gasp, and turned to see Chriss holding Xyn close to him. Keeping him warm, Jayk remembered. Chriss’ pale eyes were wide, and his body was trembling. His green tinged skin was also noticeably paler. Xyn, however, was calm and undisturbed. His eyes were blank and staring straight ahead, blissfully ignorant of what Jayk had just done. Unaware even on a Psionic level that Jayk’s Mind had cried out to him for help. Jayk felt a hot tear on his cheek, and began to tremble as well. Slowly, it soaked in as his mind cleared. Jayk had murdered this man, this man who had led a group of Outcasts across the Ruins to join with his own group to secure food and supplies for them all. And I killed him, Jayk realized, as the blackness began to close in on his vision. His legs became weak, and, spent from his attack and the horrible realization, Jayk collapsed.

No one caught him when he fell into the very blood that he had spilled.

Xyn was awakened by a clap of thunder and what sounded like a animal growling. He sat bolt upright, staring into the white-speckled blackness. The wind had picked up, and he was cold. He shivered, and the wind bent the grass as it turned even chillier. The sky (or was it the water?) suddenly began to color too quickly, and it was a bright red. He had seen sunrises before, and this red was not the sun. The sun was warm, and he was cold. Thunder rumbled, and he screamed and jumped as a bolt of white lightning shot down from the sky to strike the white sand at the edge of the grass. Xyn hugged his knees and bowed his head, frightened, wishing it would stop. He was alone, and it was storming. The thunder scared him, but it didn’t sound right. It wasn’t thunder. It was the sound of a beast crying out for blood.

He was so hungry, so cold. He was alone, and no one cared. He didn’t want to die ... but he was alive, and hadn’t he eaten dinner with the others not long ago? How he had gotten outside, he had no clue, but there he was, naked in the grass. And where was his Suit? Mr. Rick would be angry if he’d lost it. But where was HE? Where was the Facility and why wasn’t he in his dorm room with the other XY’s? Shouldn’t a Bot be looking for him if he was missing? Where were M and O, his bunk mates? They liked him, more than that even, didn’t Mr. Rick love him? But he remembered it all so clearly, and yet he knew that it had never happened - but it did - didn’t - did - didn’t - did ...

He smelled the stink of burnt sand and grass, and he forced himself to glance up as the storm broke. Too terrified to run, he merely stared back at the mirror on the ground created by the melting of the white sand in the incredible blast. Wisps of smoke curled up from that jagged mirror as the rain hit. He looked up again towards the sky (water?). The downpour was warm, and it felt so good. He uncurled himself a bit, then light grew stronger, and he could see that it was not rain. It was blood. The grass, the sand, his skin were all bright red with warm blood. Again he screamed, and the mirror shattered. The sound drew his eyes to it, and amid the flying shards of virgin glass stood a little one. Xyn gasped and swallowed hard.

His hair was long and braided, and his skin dark. He was taller than Xyn and lean, almost muscular, but not quite. He turned and looked this way and that, not seeing Xyn. As the light grew stronger and the rain of blood slacked off, Xyn saw his face. His sloped eyebrows raced up and away from almond-shaped eyes that were too haunted to belong to a little one. His ears were pointed, and from his upper lip protruded razor sharp fangs that dripped blood. Xyn looked him over, wondering if this newcomer was a threat, when his eyes stopped. Was this an XX or an XY? He couldn’t tell. There were no XY parts, Xyn saw, but no XX that Xyn had ever seen had looked like this. He stared for a bit, then the newcomer turned to face him. The red glow of the sky gave way to the real warmth of the sun as morning broke and the newcomer’s strangely haunted eyes teared up and the fanged mouth smiled.

“Xyn!” he cried, in a voice that bespoke a little XY, only a bit too rough and not as high. The anxiety and relief coming off of him were unbelievable.

Xyn took a step back. The stranger took a step forward, confusion covering his face. Xyn could ‘feel’ relief, happiness, but then the strong confusion. Xyn stepped back and again, and the confusion was overwhelming. He watched the other’s smile fade, and saw his eyes go dull in the brightening morning light. His braided head slouched down, his chin almost touching his chest. Xyn could count his ribs, he noticed. And then he began to cry.

“I didn’t mean to!” He wailed, and Xyn wondered what it was that he had done. He also wondered where he had come from. He still wasn’t sure himself where HE was or how he’d gotten there to begin with, and now he had company. Strange company.

Xyn knew that he himself was a Psion, a Mutant. Of that much he was certain. But this newcomer, who was definitely a Mutant, was in serious pain. Despite his fear, Xyn inched his way closer to the sobbing little one. He looked familiar. His lean frame was wracked by sobs of pure anguish, and the self-loathing and fear were almost more than Xyn could bear. He felt his own eyes tearing up as he reached out a smooth and flawless hand to him, realizing how white it was in comparison to this other. At first he didn’t see, and Xyn cleared his throat. Slowly, with tears streaming down his face, this other took Xyn’s blood-stained hand in his own - which was even bloodier - and pulled him close. He tried his best to soothe this strange one’s tormented Mind, and it helped some. There were feelings of familiarity, relief, even a flicker of happiness. Yet there was pain, old pain, and emotion marred by heavy losses in life. Xyn sensed that this little one was not what he seemed, despite his lack of XY parts, and that his life ‘felt’ long. Far too long. Still, there was no danger, only relief. Relief and intense pain.

“Xyn, believe me, I didn’t mean to,” he choked, trying to regain control of himself.

“What?” Xyn asked carefully.

“What I did. I just went ... you know ... they said I had it in me, but I never believed it. He wanted to leave you, Xyn. You were sick and he said to leave you behind ...” yet the words trailed off into incoherent babble as the sobbing began anew. Xyn caught small bits and pieces, and from what he could ‘see’ in this tortured Mind, he began to piece it together. It was even more confusing than his present conundrum.

Finally, after what seemed like hours and the hot sun was high over the bloody grass, the other finally spoke again. Xyn was tired from his mental exertions, but he knew most of what this other knew. He also seemed to have regained some more composure. “I don’t know what to do,” he offered.

“About?” Xyn asked carefully.

Confusion. A great deal of confusion. The other looked around, his angular eyes widening. “Where the hell are we?” he demanded.

“I dunno,” Xyn replied truthfully.

“Xyn, it’s me. ME - Jayk! How’d we get here? Where IS ‘here’?”

His name was Jayk. It felt familiar, but then again so did being beaten, being chased, being hungry ... and that didn’t ever happen -but it had - or hadn’t - had - hadn’t - had. Xyn’s head began to hurt again, badly this time. So badly that he slammed his eyes shut and grasped his temples. This Jayk was speaking again, “What happened to your hair?”

“I don’t have hair,” Xyn mumbled, rubbing his scalp.

“But you should, you did when we met, just a bit of stubble though. It outta be fuzz by now.”

Xyn shook his head. “Where’s my Suit?” he asked, “It’s white with a black ‘N’ on it.”

“Xyn, buddy, get a grip,” the other sniffed, his confusion mounting again, “It’s me, JAYK!” For a moment, Jayk wondered how Xyn had gotten out of his Suit indeed, then noticed that he himself was naked as well. He didn’t dwell on it, though. There wasn’t time; it didn’t matter.

Xyn shook his head, which was pounding. It had been in Jayk’s Mind, now it was in his own Mind, but it didn’t make sense. Like all the other things, Xyn hadn’t run away. He wasn’t lost. There was no fire, and what was all of this strange behavior with this odd one? What had they done to each other in the strange room with the books? He sat down in the white sand, the heat from the noon time sun burning his butt as he sat. But he didn’t care. His head hurt too badly. None of it made sense, and he couldn’t sort it out. It was as if he had three versions of his life running inside of his Mind, and two of them he couldn’t believe.

Then there were hands on him, hands calloused and rough from work, not like his own soft hands with their perfectly trimmed nails. One of those hands lifted his chin so that he looked this Jayk fellow in the eye. “I’m glad I found you, Xyn.”

“I-I I don’t kn-know you!” Xyn stammered in confusion, the waves of relief and happiness of this Jayk person overpowering him. Why was he so happy to see him? “I d-don’t know where w-we are. I d-don’t know wh-who I am ... I w-wanna go h-h-home!”

Jayk’s mouth dropped open, and seemingly out of instinct, he pulled Xyn close to him. He didn’t resist. His own grief seemed to have dissipated, and his obvious lack of clothing (to say nothing of his lack of XY parts) didn’t seem to phase him. Xyn could feel realizations, a lot of them. Jayk knew something - something important. “Oh no, buddy,” he began, “Not in the shape you’re in. Turn that Psi of yours off and let me think.”

“You know about that?” Xyn asked. No one knew that. It had to be hidden.

Jayk nodded, and Xyn could feel him suppressing something. “I don’t know what happened to you last night, Xyn, but you’re messed up. Did you hit your head on a low beam in the ship, or the wing maybe?”

Xyn whimpered and lay back on the sand. “I d-don’t know!” he moaned again, “What ship?”

Jayk immediately shuttled his own damaged feelings off to the side. Having been a slave for so long, he had been conditioned to put his own feelings last. Without even realizing it, perhaps out of the emotions he felt for this strange little Runaway, he did just that. He put Xyn’s problem ahead of his own grief and carefully thought out a reply. He had heard that the truth often wasn’t kind, but that the truth was the only thing that could straighten this mess out for both of them. He gave Xyn a few moments to relax in the hot sand, then he began to talk.

The groups slowly organized and began to move away. The factions that had come together all followed suit, and led by Shar and her group, they began the long trek back to the vast underground complex. Many of them were still shocked, and those that had not seen Jayk’s outburst had heard the rumors. They were abuzz with the news as they set out. ‘A Beast? One of them was a Beast and he gone off? He had killed who? Surely not! But it was all true ... I was there, I saw it. He tore his throat out and ate his head! You should have seen it ... no, they left him where he fell when he came back to himself. Once it wore off and he saw what he’d done, he passed out. We don’t need that, you know. Beasts are rare, and you know what they do to them ... worst Mutation there is, too dangerous. What?! Yes, they left him where he fell, right in the bloody gutter where he landed. Who cares what happens to him? He didn’t wake up, and that Shar lady tried with her Psi, you know. If SHE couldn’t rouse him, who could? Maybe the Change killed him. Better off if it did, sure as hell better for US. We don’t want THAT kind of person with us. What if he turns on us?’

On and on it went, the stories growing wilder and the tales of Jayk’s transformation and his deed growing taller and taller by the hour. Only one small set of round ears heard the rumors and didn’t believe them. Only one small set of teary eyes had seen it in person, to remember what had really happened. There was a reason, and that reason was sitting on an anti-grav beside of him since neither of them could walk very far.

Tym couldn’t walk that far to make it back since he was so small and weak, and Xyn couldn’t walk that far because if the person holding his arm let go of him, he just stopped and fell over. Tym knew what was to blame for Xyn’s condition, but he just couldn’t say it. For most all of his short life, he had been driven out by everyone. No one had ever really wanted him, until the strange boy in the dirty white clothes had fed him that night. What if he told and they did like the bad man had said, left him behind? He had wanted to leave Xyn behind, and Xyn was so good. They had left Jayk behind as well, unconscious and helpless where he had fallen. What if they want to leave me because they like Xyn and they find out that I hurt him? Carefully, Tym climbed into Xyn’s lap and wrapped his thin little arms around Xyn’s neck. He rested his head against Xyn’s breast and although his heart was breaking, he found that he couldn’t cry. The tears had stopped coming long ago. He wasn’t even sure when.

It’s all my fault. He fed me, he talked to me, he held me. He kept my from hurt when they were working on the ship. He made me feel safe so I could sleep, and he even gave me his own food. And what did I do? How did I repay him? I let him ‘see’. I let him ‘in.’ I was afraid he’d turn on me too, just like everyone else and I grabbed onto him too hard, too fast. Let him ‘see’ too much, now he’s all messed up and I don’t know how to fix it. I broke him and I don’t know how to fix him and there’s nobody else here that can do what I can do and I can’t tell them because if they know they’ll do me like they did Jayk, like everyone else did, run me off or beat me and hope I die ... I have to hide it, but I have to work on it, I have to use it and I’ll fix him, I’ll make him back like he was, I have to ...

The anti-grav slid smoothly along, and from the corner of his eye Tym could see Chriss, the strange greenish boy with the white hair. Tym liked Chriss well enough, but some of the things that he had overheard him talking about scared him. Scared him almost as much as the thought of being beaten and driven away again. He couldn’t take that, he knew; he couldn’t take leaving this group - leaving Xyn. His own group didn’t really want him either, but a few of them had felt sorry for him when they’d found him and brought him along. There was just something about a person who gave you his food, didn’t they realize that? Didn’t they know what it meant?

So they rode on in silence with Chriss glancing at them from time to time and sending a shiver down Tym’s spine. It was getting on towards nightfall when they woke up the Nightstalkers and sent them out ahead to lead the way. Tired as they all were, they weren’t stopping, and the lights of the anti-gravs and the stolen equipment were too risky to use. Too easy to spot. It was beginning to get chilly as well, and Tym was glad that he had Xyn to hold onto, even if Xyn couldn’t hold him in return. His own ragged clothes didn’t do much to ward off the chill of the night air, and Tym wondered if Xyn’s Suit was keeping him warm enough. He wished for a blanket. A few minutes later, Chriss brought them one. Tym took it and covered them both, his eyes apprehensive. Chriss still wore only his tattered short pants; a Pyro would have little use for warm clothing, after all.

“Thanks,” he muttered, snuggling down under the blanket as if to say to the young Pyro, “he’s mine and you can’t have him - I know what you wanna do to him!”

Chriss lowered his long-fingered hand slowly and his face flushed. Tym felt a rush of warmth coming off of him, but if being close to Chriss was the only way to stay warm, he’d sooner freeze. “Ah. I’m not gonna bite you, Tym,” Chriss retorted sadly. “I ‘heard’ what you just thought - I may not be Shar or one of the others, but I do have a limited Psi and you’re actually ‘screaming’ at me how much you hate me. Anybody could see it.”

Tym didn’t hesitate in his reply. “I heard what you said. I know what you are. I know why you did it. I know you wanna do it Xyn, and if you knew, you’d do it to ME too! Well you can’t! I won’t let you! You might be a Pyro, but I can hit you faster than you can burn me up!”

“What?!” Chriss asked in surprise, “Do what to you?”

“Castration,” Tym yelled at him, “Just like you!”

Chriss was taken aback by the ferocity of Tym’s outburst. He knew that the tiny XY was scared of him because he’d heard him speaking about being castrated. He knew that Tym had heard him tell Jayk and some others that he’d volunteered for it, and that he liked being a eunuch. That they thought that it would - that it DID - enhance Mutant powers in XY’s. It was a formidable weapon in the war that they all knew was coming with the Approveds, but how to make it make sense? All of these things ran through Chriss’ mind in an instant : how many of the younger men and little XY’s of the groups of Mutants would submit to having their balls cut off? Would anyone think it a worthy sacrifice for the good of the many, for a few to lose their impending manhood? Do I really feel like this? I know my own powers went wild when I was healed up after being cut, and if Jayk was a real Beast, and he’s cut too it explains a lot. There are others, we ARE proof. We could win .. If only ...

Then Chriss looked deep into Tym’s eyes. What did he mean, “I can hit you faster than you could burn me up?” Was Tym a Mutant, and not an Orphan or Runaway Bio? He had to have something going for him, otherwise the Ruins would have killed him with a Remnant by now. It made no sense. Chriss knew that at the core of Tym’s resentment was the fear that Chriss would want to cut his balls off too if he discovered ... what? He probed ... but whatever Tym was hiding, he was hiding it well and it would take someone like Shar to drag it out of him. And he was convinced that Chriss wanted Xyn castrated as well because of how Shar had bragged him up as such a powerful Psion for one so young. It all made sense. Chriss shook his head.

“Tym, I don’t wanna hurt you. I’m not gonna sneak up on you and cut your balls off while you’re asleep. If you’re not a Mutant, that’d be just mean to do to a little XY like you. And if you ARE a Mutant, well, maybe you can understand it later on, when you grow up. IF we all live that long, that is. As for Xyn, well, I know he’s your buddy and he fed you. I DO know what that means to a Orphan - or a street rat like you were. I don’t want to hurt him, Tym, but from what I got from some of his group, Xyn’s growing up. He’s into puberty hard, and he’s sexually active. It won’t be long until his balls start killing off his Psi and we don’t wanna lose him. He’s too important. You understand?”

Tym shook his head, although he did in fact understand. It did make sense, even if it made him sick to his stomach to think about it. He knew now that he had to bury his secret even deeper in case Chriss sent someone like Shar after it, but he also knew that he had to drag it out and use it to fix Xyn. He had to fix him, since he had been the one who had broken him. Then Chriss would find out ... they’d all find out - and they’d either drive him out ... or castrate him to make his own private horror even stronger. He had mentioned war, others had too; he had heard the whispers, and he knew that his curse would make him a perfect little soldier for their cause.

“Doesn’t matter,” Chriss was saying, stepping closer to the anti-grav, “C’mon, you’re shaking. Let me warm you up. I promise I won’t hurt you. I’ve never set fire to anyone, really, so don’t think that about me, please.”

There was something new is Chriss’ voice then, and to Tym it sounded like longing. Was it possible, with his Pyro abilities so strengthened by his castration and lack of male hormones, that Chriss didn’t have any friends anymore because they were as frightened of him as Tym was?

Reluctantly, Tym nodded.

Night had fallen.

Rick Abrams didn’t sleep that night. Instead, he got Online to the Networks when he retired to his own room at the Facility and began reviewing the data sent in by various Hunters. Sightings were getting rarer and rarer; it was as if the Mutants in the Old Cities and outlying areas were going into hiding. There were far fewer drop-offs of unwanted Bios or plain old Orphans - Enhanced or not - at Facilities worldwide, and the pattern was shocking. Even satellite data seemed to indicate that areas previously infested were thinning out. Could it be that they had somehow banded together and made for the Ruins, where even vermin couldn’t live? COULD they live there? Did they have some ability that the Approveds lacked? It was annoying.

Then he came to the report from another Hunter. THE Hunter. He read it slowly, with his eyes. He downloaded it via his Processor. He scanned it, he verified it. THE Hunter could go and venture into the Ruins, yes - he was a Mutant and he had a Suit. Then it hit him - so could Xyn. The old 32, before the fire, had been very close to the Ruins, in fact, only a day’s walk from the Ruins. He had always wondered why they had built it there, at the very fringe of habitable area, and a cold suspicion began to dawn on him. He’d been trying to avoid the logic of it, but a fire in a high tech Facility was very nearly impossible. If only the satellites could verify it, but ComTell 7 which ran that area had been offline for weeks. Offline at about the same time that the number of Mutants being caught began to decline sharply. Offline at about the same time that a major transport ship has vanished into the Ruins without a trace. No doubt sabotage, or was he reading too much into it? There was no proof, after all, and who could - who would - do that? He simply couldn’t believe it. If the Hunter’s theory of a migration of Unapproveds into the Ruins was true, then it could only mean one thing - a race war. The Unification would be in danger, and countless Approved lives were at risk. His console beeped. A small orange light in the corner of his left eye blinked.

“WHAT?!” he demanded.

“Sorry to bother you on offtime, sir, but we have an urgent request. Your signature is needed to sign off on the ship-out of Bio XY-H2 for Approved Adoption. I’ll transfer the document ...”

“Fuck the documents, just send him out!” Abrams bellowed, “Let whoever bought him have him,” then under his breath so that he wouldn’t hear it, “I need a new assistant.”

“Don’t you wish to know why, sir?” This guy just didn’t know when to quit!

Bitterly, Abrams thought: No, I don’t. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know if they want him because they want a little one of their very own to love. I don’t want to know if they only want him for his Bio parts for their own failing little one. I’ll sleep easier if I don’t know. I’ll sleep easier if I don’t know what he’s going to lose when he gets there. I’d sleep easier if I knew where Xyn was ... if they’d just let me have my boy to take home ...

“No,” he said flatly, and went back to the reports, “Discharge is confirmed. Get him out of here.” Abrams fixed himself some coffee, a rare delicacy, but one he could afford. Moving into an administrative dorm at the Facility would allow him to afford even more things as well. It was a last-ditch effort, but he thought that it might work. He was highly paid, in fact, his position was one of the highest paid in the industry, since no one else wanted the job. He breathed in the smell of the bitter brew as it dripped into the pot and sighed. “I won’t dwell on the dealing of a death that I know nothing of,” he promised himself, his mind wandering, reaching - almost wishing that he were a Psionic Mutant so that he could just reach his thoughts out into the land and find Xyn and call him home ... home that was now his office, his work - his life.

There was a noise at the door. Abrams jumped. “So help me God, I’ll fire his ass right after I kick it if that’s him ... ENTER!” he shouted.

The door slid open to reveal a small form in a white suit with a black H2 emblem on it. The little bald fellow was carrying a small pack and he was smiling. Abrams sighed, reminding himself that in this new building, Bios weren’t locked in their rooms anymore and they could leave their beds to get help. What this mostly consisted of was help with bad dreams, drinks of water, and malfunctioning Suits. Those were the worst. It took forever to fix a screwed up Suit. Abrams made an effort to soften his face as the little one’s smile faded.

“What seems to be the problem, H2?” Abrams offered, realizing that he had frightened him.

“He said I could come and say goodbye, sir. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m leaving now. Thank you for letting them have me.” He quickly turned to go. Abrams watched him.

He wanted so badly to go to him, to hug him and tell him goodbye too - and that he’d miss him. But it wasn’t true, was it? He’d become attached once, and he just couldn’t bear it again. Was H2 really getting a family, or was he going off to be butchered? Pure Bios cost so much ... but Abrams couldn’t bring himself to ruin it for the little one. If he was having a moment of pure happiness, Abrams wouldn’t ruin it for him. “Goodbye, H2. Did they give you a name yet?”

The little bald Bio shook his head, his small pack swinging behind him. “No, but I got real clothes they sent so I can leave your Suit here. The Bots are gonna help me get dressed, since I don’t know how. Well ... goodbye, sir. I don’t wanna be late!”

Abrams couldn’t resist it. The Bot came up behind H2 and gently said, “We must go now, H2, we’ll be late.” They started off down the hall as Abrams called out, “H2, when you see him at the transport, tell him something for me?”

H2 stopped, turned and nodded, his smile lighting up the hallway. Abrams felt decidedly sick. “Anything, sir?!”

“Tell him he’s fired!”

He watched a confused H2 and the Bot make their way to an elevator entry, the little XY chattering at the nodding and ever-patient CareBot the whole time about his new family ...

Very slowly and meticulously, Jayk recited what he knew of world history. The War, the Devastation, the Collapse. He covered the Unification, then the Outcasting. Everything he had explained to Xyn back in his old room, he covered again. He then talked about the classifications, the technological advances, and the use of the Outcasts to better the Approved class of citizens. Xyn’s eyes popped open wide when he came to the part about Facilities, Bios, and forced transplants. “Is that what happened to you?” Xyn asked in a hushed tone, gesturing at Jayk’s smooth crotch.

Jayk shook his head, his braids moving in a rustle. Xyn found that he liked that sound. “I was born a free Mutant, a long long time ago. I got caught by a Hunter and sold to a Dealer. They made me a slave and the man who bought me did this to me.”

Then Jayk covered everything else, and when he thought that Xyn was finally ready, he began telling about how they had met. Xyn listened, although still in obvious pain. He shook his head from time to time as if he didn’t believe it. When Jayk was almost finished with his tale, up to the point of Xyn being found catatonic, the young Psion had passed out. Trying to assimilate all of Jayk’s data and reconcile it with his own memories as well as the information he had gleaned from Jayk’s mind was simply too much. Overloaded, his Mind shut down and he slept.

Jayk lay down beside him and pulled him close. He didn’t understand Xyn’s appearance - the lack of hair, the tenderness of his skin, the overall timidity and fright. He held him tightly, his thoughts being of Chriss doing the same thing to keep him warm. Jayk was jealous, and he realized it. What an amazing thing, he mused silently, promising himself that he was NOT going to attack Chriss and dismember him when they got back.

That thought froze in his mind.

Back ... but from where? Where were they? What was this place, and how did they come to be there? More frightening was, how do we get back? He’d been too involved with explaining things to Xyn to think about it until then.

Slowly, as Xyn slept, Jayk began to piece it together. Although he was not a Psion and he had no way of knowing what was in Xyn’s Mind, he had a good idea. This was where Xyn had gone that night. Something he had ‘seen’ in the mind of Tym - the starving little one that he had befriended - had been so traumatic that his Psionic abilities had simply tried to protect themselves. Xyn couldn’t cope with what he had ‘experienced’ in Tym, and like any frightened child, he had ran. Tried to hide. THIS was the place where he had hidden, but the trauma had followed him, mixing the facts of Tym’s life with his own into a jumbled mess that was a paradox. Jayk looked around.

There was nothing to be seen but clear blue sky and tall green grass. The white sand ended at the lake, which was as blue as the sky. There were no birds singing, no fish jumping. No insects buzzing. There were no buildings, no noises, and this told Jayk that they were not in a physical place at all. Where they were was somewhere that Xyn’s mind had constructed. It was as pretty as a holo-pic, and Jayk realized that they must be in something dreamed up by one that Xyn had seen while he was still a Facility inmate.

Then the rest of it hit him : if Xyn’s here, and it’s only his Mind, then I’m only here as my Mind. I know Chriss has Xyn’s inert body back in the Ruins, headed back home. But what about me? What’s happening to the real me, my body, back there? How did I get here? Why am I here, and how do we get OUT?

As if in reply to his silent query, Xyn turned a bit and tightened his hold on Jayk. He brought me here, Jayk thought, He DID hear me cry out to him when I killed that big man. He ‘heard’ me, even HERE, and he reached out to pull me in, to protect ME like he was protecting himself. Jayk then realized that Xyn was the only way out, and until he sorted out the paradox that was tearing his Mind to pieces and decided to go back, both of them were trapped there. Jayk swallowed hard.

What if he couldn’t? What if the young Psion couldn’t sort it out, or didn’t have the raw amount of power to do it? What would happen to them, two zombies in the “real” world? Would they do as the man with the metal eye had suggested and leave them? Or would they take care of them, coaxing their senseless bodies into walking along or pulling them back on an anti-grav? Would they take the time to do it? Jayk sighed. For Xyn, they might. He was valuable. He was a Psion and a pure Bio. He also had the suit, which made his body almost indestructible. Jayk, however, didn’t consider himself having much of a chance. He was a Beast. His attack had proved it. Somehow, enough Slow time must have passed for his ancient little body to come to grips with the lack of testosterone in his system. His Mutant abilities had finally adapted, and gone wild as Chriss’ had. That was why he had snapped, and it explained why he had never gone off on his Master and killed him. He hadn’t developed as a Beast then, and in Slow time, it had taken so long for the affects of the castration to catch up with him. He had just begun puberty when they had captured and cut him, and his Master had immediately introduced him to the pleasures of sex. Reluctantly, for the only time other than when he had introduced Xyn to sex, Jayk realized how much he had liked it. For Jayk, the process of hormonal withdrawal had continued slowly and then begun to wain after only several Cycles as his body slowly aged in relativity to the rest of the world. He remembered his Master talking about it, about how little XY’s changed so fast after you cut them - but how Jayk wouldn’t change fast because he COULDN’T change fast. He remembered his Master’s grin as well.

Chriss, the voluntary eunuch Pyro, had been right. As much as the theory appalled him, Jayk had to concede. He was living proof, as was Chriss. A vision of Xyn being able to finally pull himself out of this mental hiding place then came to Jayk’s mind - a vision of Xyn waking up to find himself in a body suffering from muscular atrophy and castrated as well. He could already hear Chriss’ arguments to the rest of them, hear the rest of Chriss’ group supporting him.

Didn’t they understand that it was wrong? Jayk couldn’t put it past Chriss to lobby for an involuntary castration of the catatonic Xyn’s body. Surely they would try their best to awaken him, but if they couldn’t - would Chriss tell them that the castration might spark Xyn’s own abilities to pull himself out of his state of unawareness? They had to know, certainly Shar knew, and would say something about Xyn coming into his sexual awareness. She had seen them right after the act - she had to KNOW.

Hell, thought Jayk, any Psion within a league of us had to know, as good as it felt. We probably alerted half the Ruins when we both came.

Still, Jayk wondered. Shar had to have some grasp of what taking away the ability to do what they had done for one another would be painful beyond measure. He himself had endured it; endured it for countless Cycles. More than anything, after they’d cut him, Jayk desperately wanted to be able to masturbate again, but there was no way that he could. It had been agonizing, frustrating ... But would she try and stop them? Jayk sighed, and it hurt to think of it. She had invaded his Mind, taken control of him. In all of his life, even his Master had never hurt him that badly. The physical pain of his brutal emasculation had been nothing compared to the onslaught of Shar’s Will. With a wave of nausea passing over him, he realized that Shar wouldn’t. She would evaluate the whole situation as a good commander of any army would do. She would do what was best for her cause, for the needs of the many. If it proved to be true, and Jayk was sure that it was, Shar would allow someone with a Medpack to geld Xyn just as surely as she’d order a single guard to kill an invading Hunter.

After what he’d done to the big man with the eye, Jayk doubted that she’d have any compassion for the feelings of a Beast Mutant and his lover. Dark thoughts began to cloud his mind then, thoughts that he was good friends with. They were with him so often, and he knew them so well. Yet he was wherever he was, trapped inside of Xyn’s imaginary holo-pic world with no way out. No way to save either of them in the real world.

He watched the blue sky darken as the sun of Xyn’s created paradise began to sink. It was happening too fast, and Jayk wondered if Time actually meant anything there. It probably didn’t, but there was no way to know. Everything would be just the way that Xyn perceived it.

Jayk wondered, as the pain of his own cutting came back to him once again, who would cut Xyn and how?