Awake.
Floating. Aware. This thing, eyes blinking, drinking in the glow from
outside. Not yet knowing what it was, not yet knowing there was an
inside and and outside.
This
thing reaching, not yet knowing it had limbs. Feeling the tubes
plugged into its orifices and spine, not yet knowing where its body
began and ended.
This
thing seeing. Watching the shadow-play of outside-not-outside. Dark
shapes anchored by dark lines. Other shapes growing near and stopping
awhile. Seeing, not yet knowing that it was also being seen.
This
thing waiting. Not yet knowing what time was. Waiting for the
unknown, for unknown time.
This
thing flexing. Stretching. Tensing muscles, making fists, not yet
knowing it had hands.
This
thing knew but one thing: fight. It surged its fist forward, meeting
resistance, meeting an unstoppable barrier where inside met
outside-not-outside. Fight fight fight. More fists, add in more
limbs, kicks from feet, not yet knowing what feet were.
Feeling.
Sensation in the body, in the spine. And then this thing knew
nothing. Not even fight.
More
time. Unknowable time. More shadows. Unknowable shadows.
And
then everything changed.
This
thing, aware of sound for the first time because sound changed: dull
hum to sucking roar. This thing, aware of inside-outside for the
first time because something moved at the bottom of inside and this
thing was spilled into outside.
This
thing was a newly vatborn Goliath juve, smooth-skinned, naked and
lean, his muscles not yet pumped and worked to adult size. He rolled
on the floor below the amneo-creche he'd just been released from,
retching up the feed tube that was jammed down his gullet, wrenching
himself away from the nutrient inpipes that pierced the length of his
spine. He reached over his shoulders and fumbled about to make sure
he was free. His hands ran over smooth skin, catching on a tough
nodule at the base of his neck. This stung when he touched it, and
his hands sprang away.
Blinking
the vat-fluid from his eyes, he stared around at outside. It was a
bright place, lined with sharp lights that correlated with the dim
lights he'd seen inside. It was mind-blastingly big, big enough to
contain eight more amneo-creches, each connected to banks of
incomprehensible mechworks. The juve's world had just expanded in
ways he couldn't have imagined mere moments before.
Strangest
of all, it had others in it. Six of the other creches had just
unloaded. Their contents were smooth-skinned, naked and lean. Each
had the same face. The juve didn't know it yet, but he had the same
face.
Two
hadn't survived the evacuation. Where their fellows were coughing and
wrenching out feed tubes, these two lay motionless, stillborn.
Another didn't survive much longer. When he yanked the pipe from his
throat, a gout of blood came with it. The blood didn't stop. His
writhing lessened into twitching and then he was still.
It
was the first death the remaining four saw. Instinctively, they liked
it, for it tallied with the first thing they knew: fight.
This
overriding, primal drive brought them all to their feet. They stalked
into the open space between the creches, knees bent, testing their
muscles shakily.
One
of them staggered abruptly, clutching his chest. A few seconds later
he was in spasms on the floor, red foam bubbling from his mouth and
nose. He choked on his last breath.
The
other three, fearing they might likewise drop dead at any moment,
wasted no more time: their aggressive impulses demanded release. The
charged forward, flailing into each other, grappling in a heap of
hateful flesh.
Their
hands were claw-twisted, clutching, trying to find purchase on
slippery skin. A jabbing finger found an eye and popped it open,
spilling jelly. Hands got a grip on a jaw and leverage on the deck,
heaving and tearing a face in two. Clacking teeth ripped out chunks
of meat. More leverage, and then cracking bones – arms, fingers,
legs. Balled fists lashing out, fracturing cheekbones and ribs.
Blood, and animal snarls.
One
fighter went limp. A second grew tired. The third kept at his task.
Before long, the only sounds in the birthing chamber were this last
juve's ragged breath, and the wet smack of his bloodied fists hitting
dead meat again and again and again. He would've kept at it until his
heart gave out.
But
then a door hissed open beyond the ring of vats, and four strangers
entered the room. The juve scrambled backwards, riding a slick of
gore away from the newcomers. He saw that they were shaped like he
and his dead foes were, but they were somehow larger, adorned with
strange fabrics, plates and irregular shapes. Something within him
panged a connection with them, a sense of kinship – but the
kill-drive was stronger. He growled and crouched, ready to fight
again.
From
the shadows, one of the newcomers made a sound. It made no sense to
the juve, but it had some sort of purpose. Two of the others moved
quickly to either side of him. Their arms were strangely long –
then hey realised they weren't arms, they were carried things, not
part of the body. He was trying to comprehend this when the shadowed
newcomer barked, and his fellows jabbed forwards with their carried
things. The juve found himself near choking as the things hooked
around his neck and held him still.
Another
noise from the shadowed one and the fourth newcomer moved around the
perimeter of the space, out of sight. The juve heard hissing and
whirring behind him, and wriggled in the grip of the hook things.
The
shadowed one stepped forward into the light. The juve gazed up into a
face he recognised – the same face as his dead birth rivals, his
own face, but different. Heavier, textured, marked by creases and
lines.
This
same-different face growled with strange purpose again. The juve
heard hissing and whirring, much closer behind him this time, and
then something made contact with the tough nodule at the base of his
neck. Everything flared agonising red, and then black as he plunged
into unconsciousness.
Fraggenstein
stared down at his vat-son. 'Carry him over to the rest-slab.'
Half
a shift later, the juve was coming round. Fraggenstein had kept vigil
throughout, updated by the trusted doc who ran this secret
gene-smithy.
The
juve was wincing and blinking, working his waking jaw.
'Guhhhhh-guh-Goliath,'
he slurred, trying to sit up.
'That's
right, young bron. You're a Goliath, vatborn and true' said
Fraggenstein, placing a hand on the juve's chest and easing him back
down. Behind his back, he held a sharpened cleaver. Slug delivery
didn't always produce the desired results.
The
juve relaxed. 'I'm, uh, I'm Goliath. Are you boss-meyn?'
'I'm
a boss-meyn, aye. And more than that, I'm your gene-sire.'
The
juve pondered this. 'That... that is why your face is like mine?'
Fraggenstein
nodded, satisfied. The juve was a thinker – here was early
indication that the slug input had taken well, and that this secret
vat project, buried in the backalleys of the Hablocks, had been worth
the creds he'd poured into it. The tech details were beyond
Fraggenstein's ken, but the docs had woven his gene-pattern together
with some of the mightiest strains in the whole house lineage, like
the finest alloys that came off the forge-lines. A weapon of
time-honed Goliath steel, ready for testing in battle.
'Aye.
You are my gene-make. Come with me and show me how you fight. Live to
earn the name Fraggenstein, or die trying.'