Chapter 2

The slow beeping escaping from the machine that stood next to woman that laid in the bed was slowly wearing on her nerves. For over an hour she had heard it beep, and when she had first woken up and pulled the cord that was attached to her arm, it let out a beep that gave the pain in her head the signal it need to reinsure it’s host that it was still there. The doctors rushed in and explained that she needed to keep it in her, just in case. Jenny was almost ready to explain that she didn’t need all this. But to tell them the truth would only get her a nice, warm, straight-jacket and a room with padded walls.

Jenny sighed and sunk into her bed, her home for the next few days. Although she still had a nice hole in her stomach and a few in her back, she was more than able to function; after all, she had been through worse. Jenny’s mind bounced from one linking memory to the next, and all had one thing in common; they all had a hybrid named Jeff Freeman. Unbeknowenst to her, a grin spread across her face as she remembered the man she gave herself to, and the cause that only brought the two closer together. Over two years at the end of many did the two know each other. Together they had been inside major corporations raiding them for information to their common foe. Together they saw the fall of many foes. He had brought her to terms with her humanity, however programmed it might be.

Jeff was unlike any man she had seen or met before. Everyone seemed to be so conceded, or was trying to put up a fake persona to be popular or "with the in crowd". Jeff wasn’t. He was simple, he wasn’t trying to fool anyone.

Jeff was... blunt. Maybe that’s what she found so attractive, the fact the didn’t play out a fake persona, didn’t do anything to prove he was better then anyone else. Jenny knew Jeff like the back of her hand. She could read him like a book, even with all his faults, and she found more and more that he was still a child in a twisted sense of the word. A man yes, a killer yes, with a twisted sense of right and wrong; that was expected, wasn’t it? He wasn’t fancy, like her; he always said what was on his mind and acted accordingly. To her, he wasn’t perfect in the sense of what most people thought of perfection, but a perfect match for her.

"So what are you doped on?"

Jenny’s mind came out of it's train of thought, only because that train had hit the breaks when the voice had make its way into her mind. Jenny looked up and towards the origin of the voice: her daughter.

"Little of this, little of that. Why?"

"You have the wicked smirk on your face. You never smirk for no reason."

"Thank you, Ms. Know-it-all."

Dax sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged her mom, but stopped when the older women let out a little yelp of pain. Dax sat up and looked at her mother with concern.

"Gotta hole in my stomach."

"Hmmm... another story to tell my friends now, ‘eh Mom?"

"Yes, I guess so, but I can prove this one."

"Just keep it covered Mom, I believe ‘ya."

Jenny pulled her child close and hugged her hard. She knew Dax hated hospitals, stemming from when she was a young child and she had broken her arm. They were out of system, Jenny had been sent on a meeting for the company she was working for and couldn’t leave the children at home. Dax and Crix were playing in the park while Jenny was on her lunch break. Dax fell from a tree as she tried to climb after her brother. Needless to say, Dax was as clumsy as she was now and ended up in the E.R. of the local hospital. One that wasn’t as sane in medical reason as most, since it still used early 21th century practice. Dax had her arm forced back into place without any drugs to keep the pain from knocking her out. Then, about five needles were stuck into her afterwards to keep the swelling down. Dax Lockheart simply hated hospitals, and her mother knew that it was taking all of her daughter’s will to stay here with her.

"Honey, there is something I have to tell you."

"I’m on your wound again?"

"No..." Jenny giggled a little. "It’s about us... is your brother here?"

"Crix is off on some crusade, he thinks there was more to you being shot than the cops know."

"Well Hon, that’s what this is about."

Dax let go of her mother and gave her a sharp look. Concern was in her mothers eyes and Dax knew it was big. Her mothers's attempted murder seem to have no logic behind it, and even if another company was trying to rub her out so they could take over, they were sure to check their work before leaving.

"Honey, did the doctors tell you anything about my... err... 'accident'?"

"They're still trying to figure out how the laser passed through most of your vital organs and you are still breathing. They said that a blast at that close of range through your body alone would kill. You seemed to have already begun healing when they got you into the ER," Dax said softly, still trying to figure it out herself.

Jenny motioned for Dax to shut the door. Her daughter complied, knowing that her mother would want this to be kept between them, and possibly her brother later on. Dax pulled the small wheel mounted hospital stool up to her mothers bed and sat, fully intent on listening to everything her mother had to say.

"You took AP Biology in school, didn’t you Dax?"

"Yeah, barely passed it too."

"Well, then you know how laser and plasma based weaponry acts on humans, right? They showed the video, didn’t they?"

Dax held back the feeling of her stomach as she remembered very vividly the video they had shown. Holo games had nothing like the sort of things Dax and her class had seen. " Yes ma’am, made me sick"

"The splatter effect alone I’m guessing"

"Yes ma’am, but what’s point?"

"I was hit with one of laser pistols tonight, Dax"

Dax thought that over a moment before it clicked in her head. Even if the force hadn’t splattered her mother all over the house, her internal organs couldn’t heal themselves so quickly after being blasted. Something was not right here.

"Maybe the scans were wrong; you couldn’t survive such a blast. You couldn’t have been shot with such a weapon."

"Dax, would I lie about such a thing? What would be the point? "

"Not sure..."

"Dax, what I am going to tell you is in the strictest of confidence, and I need you to have a completely open mind, and you must not tell a word of this to anyone." Her mother's look told Dax it was something not to be betrayed. Dax nodded and settled into the chair, as well as she could at least.

Jenny sighed and settled into the bed. She looked at her daughter, into those deep green eyes, those demonic eyes. She knew, or thought she knew, how she would react. If anyone, Dax would understand.

"Dax, about seventy or so years ago - no one knows for sure - a company known as Cyber Gen. Incorporated…"

"I know who they are; they supply most of the world's medical community with newer genetic medicine."

Jenny beamed a look at her kin not to interrupt again, and Dax simply nodded back with a sheepish grin.

"Cyber Gen had a government contract established during the colony wars. The contract was for Cyber Gen to create a new weapon to fight the enemy. Since former UN treaties banned the use of all nuclear, atomic, thermal nuclear and most chemical weapons on Earth, these doctrines had to be respected in the Metaverse at the time. Cyber Gen had the answer, a biological weapon that could adapt to any battle. Such a drone weapon wouldn’t work. A drone cannot react as a human could, but only work on given knowledge. Normal humans put into a battle, such as draftees, are going to protect themselves more than try to accomplish a mission. Draftees aren’t a good source either. Cyber Gen needed the perfect weapon, one that could adapt, survive, and accomplish the mission. And at the time, humans were the only thing that could react to such an environment. Normal humans, even with the most advanced technology, aren’t the best warriors, so instead of improving on the weaponry they decided to improve on the human. Give the human the abilities of the fastest and strongest Anthro, the calculating properties of bio-metric computers, give it free will to act on them. Early units were weak and stupid, following orders only by their wording; the units failed. Others had little ability to survive combat. As the war was coming to a close, the final units were created, these ones smart, very human-like, strong and well-versed in all weaponry of the time. Very adaptable to their placement in any field. Hybrids, Dax, that no one could tell the difference from the normal Joe. Aside from a few discernible facts."

"Please, go on." Dax reassured

"The hybrids were made to survive full-on combat, thus they had incredible stamina, extreme amounts of energy; when they ate the took every bit of nutrition from every bite of food. Thus they could heal very fast; what would take days for a normal human, hours for the hybrids. But they expelled more energy then they could replace, so a way was developed to keep the units from using up all their energy, growing old in days and dying. Through a neural plug in the lower base of the head was injected a serum that basically took every cell in the body and gave it a boost, thus not only returning it to a brand new cell, but gave the body the energy it needed to survive. Too bad, or maybe it was fate that kept the hybrids from going into the field, but they were never officially introduced into the way, only a few saw combat. The famous mass killings in Mainframe, where over two hundred sprites were killed, that was the work of a small group of the hybrids. The war came to a close soon after, and the government closed the contract, but used it’s legal loopholes to use these new hybrids in other projects. The company would wipe their memory from job to job so they could start as a new person."

Jenny took a deep breath as she held her daughters hand, images flooded through her mind, but only one stood there.

"How do you know all of this mom? And how do you know it’s true?"

Jenny leaned her head forward, pushing her hair away from the back of her head, showed the large scar from where her neural port was removed years ago. " Because, Dax, I was one of those hybrids."

Dax bolted away from the stool, standing her ground in disbelief. Her mind raced a system a minute. Her mother was lying; she had to be. Nothing like that could be real and her mother was a human, as she knew the word. But as it seeped in, it slowly made sense that her mother survived such a shot. And the way she never seemed to age.

"Dax, it’s all true. And you my dear are the byproduct of two hybrids that were very much in love. Something that was not in the design specs. Think about it, Dax, do normal human girls ever run as fast as you? Do they eat and never gain a pound? Or how about the fact that when you were little and your broke your arm, you only spent two weeks in a cast."

"If I was a hybrid like you say I am, then what you said about the healing rate would mean I should have healed quicker then that."

"When I had my port removed, I was pregnant with you and your brother, there were bound to be side affects from the drugs they gave me. You body was slightly affected I would guess. But you are one thing, as is your brother, and that makes you different. You are the next generation of a weapon."

"Why not tell us about all this long ago, why hide it if it's true?"

"I wanted you to be as normal as you could. Why should you feel that you needed to hide yourself like I did? Dax, I wanted only the best for you and Crix, that's why I hid it all. The truth about my past, the truth that we are not completely human. The fact that your father was killed on our attack on the person that created us!"

"You said he was killed in an attack on a hacker compound."

"Dax I lied about everything else. Your father and I weren’t even married. We were going to be wed after the battle."

"So I am a bastard child to boot! Oh, thanks Mom, that really helps!"

"Dax, I told you this because I don’t want you to end up like I am. Almost dead; the threat is out there, it’s still not dead. If they know that you are alive then they will kill you also. We aren’t safe until they are destroyed. But that can’t happen now, as soon as I am out of the hospital we are leaving."

Dax crossed her arms, and thought about everything she had been told. Hard to believe, yes, but why should she not believe it? Her mother had lied to protect her and her brother. Now she had to face the fact that she was a creation of a weapon that only wanted to live in peace. That peace had been shattered tonight. And Dax knew there was only one thing to do, and that was not to hide. Dax Lockheart knew she had to eradicate the threat.

to be continued...