Thwarted Dreams -- Chapter 12

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Colonel Lydecker, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Caroline, etc.).

Caroline put her sleeping daughter in her crib and smiled as she left the room and walked down the hall. I’ve said it before for the past almost two years and I’ll say it again: Jenny was definitely worth the wait. She’s such a beautiful little girl. I wish Patrick wanted more kids, but at least we have Jenny.

She started to walk to her and Patrick’s bedroom but paused when she noticed the door to Patrick’s home office had been left ajar. That’s weird. Patrick is usually almost anal retentive about keeping that door closed. I wonder why he forgot to keep it closed this time. She grinned wickedly. What the hell, let’s see what’s so important behind door number one, shall we?

She pushed the door open all of the way and stepped inside and looked around. It was just a normal office. There was a computer on a desk and a bookshelf filled with books and a few framed pictures of family at various points around the room. She sat down at the desk chair and picked up the CD case that was lying next to the keyboard. “’X5—’09 escapee information.’ What the fuck is this?” Caroline peeled off the post-it note that had been attached to the case, frowning when she recognized the handwriting. “’Patrick, here is the information about the escapees. Keep your eye out for them and do not underestimate them and do NOT tell Caroline about this. We can’t risk her finding out about this. You know why. –Don.” She blinked. “Don? Don Lydecker? What the fuck is going on here?”

Caroline stood up for a moment and looked around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. “Okay, if it’s classified work, I can understand it—but something is not adding up here. Something doesn’t feel right.” She sat back down and looked at the monitor and a file in the corner of the monitor caught her eye. “’Manticore Information’.” She double clicked on the file and saw the files listed in the directory. “Wow, some of these are dated as far back as the nineties.” She clicked on the first one and read it. “’Basic Manticore Information. The objective of Manticore is to create…’” Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened as she read the rest of the file. “This is a facility to genetically engineer children to be soldiers? What the hell is going on? What kind of monster would put children through that kind of torture? They didn’t do even a fraction of that kind of training to me when I was at West Point, and I was and still am a full-grown woman.” She rubbed her eyes with her hand. Patrick…my husband…the man that I’ve loved and trusted for the past thirteen-plus years has been knowingly working for this…hellhole? And Don has been a huge part of it since 1989? Okay, that part for some reason doesn’t surprise me… She immediately went back to the files, a new thought occurring to her. Patrick’s official file…basic information on X3, X4, X5, whatever those are… She didn’t find what she was looking for right away, so she went back to the CD, opened that directory, clicked on the first folder in the directory and the first file within the folder...and she felt the bottom drop out of her world.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. At the top of the file that she was staring at was a black-and-white picture of a boy who looked like he was about thirteen years old. He had a buzz cut and was glaring at the camera as if he wanted nothing more than to murder whoever was taking the picture. The boy was not only looking straight at the camera, but he was glaring at it with Caroline’s eyes.

That’s my son! every instinct in Caroline screamed. She sat there, completely stunned for several minutes. I have a son. I have a son that I’ve never met and they…what the hell did they do to him?! Just below the black-and-white picture was another picture, this one in color and captioned ‘X5-599—Police mug shot 7/09’. It was the same boy with the same ice-cold glare. Caroline could clearly see the blue of his eyes, just like hers, and his filthy street clothes, but the color of her son’s short hair made her smile a little. His hair is the same blond that Chris’ was. He looks a little like Chris and me. Chris and I had always looked almost exactly alike.

“’Born on September 25th, 1995 in Gillette, Wyoming, the oldest of entire X5 generation. Commanding Officer of X5 Unit 2 of the Manticore facility in Gillette. Cleared for group missions in September of 2006.’” Caroline was shocked. “They had him going out on missions when he was only eleven years old?!” She bit her lip and continued to read. “’Consistently demonstrated fierce protectiveness of the others in his unit. Believed the training regimen and medical experiments—‘“ Caroline’s face became nearly white when she read that. “'—to be torture for himself and most importantly to him, to his unit mates. Believed his unit mates to be family. Referred to them as his brothers and sisters. The unit gave each other names. 599 was given the name Zack. Made the decision for himself and the rest of his unit to run from Manticore in March of 2009 after the death of his unit mate X5-417 from a grande mal seizure. The decision was made by 599 after fellow unit mate X5-452, whom 599 was particularly close to, followed the guards after her lesson and she allegedly saw doctors dissect 417 while he was still alive.’” Caroline felt like she was going to throw up. Dissect someone—a child!—while he’s still alive?! Those bastards! No wonder my son wanted to get him and his brothers and sisters out of there. She felt a surge of pride and smirked. That’s my boy!

She continued to read. “’The day after 417’s death, 599 led his unit out of Manticore after 452 suffered a seizure and was about to be taken for treatment.’” Yeah, treatment. Sure. The poor girl only watched you kill her brother the day before. I’m sure that’s what those kids thought that you were going to do with her! “’Out of the eighteen surviving members of Unit 2, one was killed by Colonel Lydecker as she was leading the group through a hallway, three were killed before they could reach the perimeter fence, one got over the perimeter fence but was recaptured hours later and was injured during her recapture and died two days later, and one decided to remain behind. The other twelve, including 599 and 452, escaped.’”

Caroline blinked and the clock on the wall caught her eye. Crap, Patrick will be home in half an hour. She quickly closed everything, putting everything away so it was like it had been when she had entered the office, and went back out into the hallway and walked downstairs, lost in her thoughts. I’ve had a son for the last seventeen years and I’ve never known! I’ve never had a clue! The shock started to fade and rage took its place, a hot burning rage that Caroline had never felt before. That fucking bastard Lydecker! He lied to me! Research for a medication my ass! That bastard kidnapped my son from me before he was even conceived! He stole Zack before I could have a chance to know him and…

She took a deep breath to try to calm herself down. It didn’t work too much. He was the one who got to raise my son. He was there when Zack was born. I should have been there! I should have been the one to give birth to him and keep him and to give him a normal life! That son-of-a-bitch!

She blinked as something occurred to her. Zack’s birthday is September 25th. I was talking to Lisa on the phone the day that he was born and she mentioned that she had talked to Don earlier and she had said that he sounded really happy about something. It must have been the fact that Zack had been born. Yeah, he was happy alright. Happy that he had a new, innocent baby to torture and turn into a soldier. I chose to be a soldier. Zack was forced into it. You don’t force a choice onto a child and torture it, you asshole!

Caroline sat down on the couch with a sigh. Don introduced me to Patrick…I should have known that was a sign! Patrick must have been assigned to watch me and to make sure that I never found out about Zack. I’ve known you my whole life, Don. I know how your mind works pretty well and you know how I think, too. You knew that if I found out what you had done, then I would have tried to get Zack out of there if it was even remotely possible. Well, I might not have a chance now, but my son’s not going back to Manticore!

She turned the TV on, but didn’t pay a bit of attention to it. Patrick. That bastard. Was that why he was so hesitant to have children with me for so long? Probably. I bet he wanted to have as few attachments to me as possible, huh? Caroline nodded to herself. Well, how about this? How about the next time that I’m off duty, I take Jenny, get the hell out of here, call my lawyer, and I file for divorce? What do you think about that? She smiled to herself and looked up when she heard Patrick’s Jeep pull up in the driveway. Great, time to pretend to be nice to the husband so he doesn’t suspect anything.

Caroline got up off the couch, but before she walked to the door, she looked up. Wherever you are, Zack, good luck!

TBC