Chapter 5
Your mother was the one who built you, of course. She molded your genes from the piece of you that came from your father, filling in the gaps with the bits and pieces that made you Other, made you something New, made you ex-dash-twenty-three-sub-set-six-oh-nine, a new weapon for the modern world.
You do not know if your Other is entirely due to your gene frame. When you were small, you chafed against being called he by your mother almost as much as you did it by everyone else, but you did not say anything, ignoring the worming feeling in your head by biting on your fingers or your knuckles of your arm, which left small holes the size of your incisors. The holes never stayed.
You did not biet yourself as you ran out of the lab, but your forearm and upper arm pressed together like a reptile you had once seen a picture of, wrists bent backward until you saw your mother and your world faded to black.
Now your Other is manifesting again, light coming back in while your hands slap the snow pressing on your bare arms.Your mother holds you down, saying something you cannot understand very well but realize you should likely listen to (should you listen to her, now that you are Out and Free? That would be the logical plan).
The black finally fades from your peripheral vision and you notice that you are not covered in her blood, that the Trigger did not work as it should. Your first thought is that you did something wrong, but the words your mother is now whispering to you are not angry, just soft and empty reassurances.
“Did I complete the mission?” you ask, and she makes a noise between a laugh and a sob.
“Yes. You did good. You did so good, honey.”
She let go of you and you stand up, staring at her until she does another of her laughs and takes your hand carefully, not seeming to mind the dirt and the blood.