[Because it was there]

refers to rp here. Mickey is used with permission

She was standing near the front entrance of the lobby, duffel bag thrown over her shoulder. She was sizing up all the men that came through the doors. Her target was a tall man in a tailored suit with silver gray hair. He just looked like he had money.

“Oh, hey, have you got a minute?” She flashed him her best smile and gave him a little bit of a pleading, puppy dog look. He fell like a house of cards.

“Edward Mullins, how can I help you?” he asked, extending his hand to her. She laughed, shook his hand and then reached out to run her hands down the lapels of his suit jacket. “My brother and I just got into town and we’ve got to meet my Aunt and Uncle for dinner. It’s in this real upscale restaurant and we didn’t really realize that. I need to get him a suit. Your suit is great. Can I ask where you got it?”

“It was tailored for me at Brooks Brothers,” he answered a bit smugly.

Ryan let her eyes go wide and her face register an expression of outright impressed. “Wow. I’ve heard what they say about tailored suits. You know how they make a man look so-“ She stopped abruptly as she ran one hand down the inside of his lapel and rested the other hand against his chest. “Oh…that’s you.”

A well placed giggle, hand sliding a little lower and then she stepped away. “I’m sorry. Momma says I don’t know the meaning of personal space.” Her hands were tucked behind her, a contrite expression on her face.

“No, it’s quite all right,” he assured her. He got a card out of his outside suit pocket and handed it to her. “If you need help with that suit or someone to show you around the City, give me a call.”

She waited until he was gone to count the money in his wallet. She was flipping through the big bills when Mickey walked up.

“Who the hell walks around with fifteen hundred dollars in their wallet and doesn’t expect to get stolen from,” she rolled her eyes and shoved the cash in her bra, discarding the wallet. “So how do you feel about Brooks Brothers suits…Brother?”

RP for likethemouse401

Ryan didn't have a lot of crap to pack but what she did have all fit in one duffel bag. Mickey had said a half an hour and at twenty past, she'd quit her job, checked out of the motel, changed into a pair of torn jeans and a plaid button down shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. She had her hair pulled up in a ponytail because the collar of the shirt would hide the bar code on her neck if need be. Right now she was sitting outside the hotel room, feet clad in dingy white converse, knees pulled up to her chest and her chin on her knees. The duffel bag sat beside her and she had her ipod on. She was contentedly waiting. She'd been to New York City when she'd first busted out of Manticore. It was a good place to hide but she'd been so paranoid then that she hadn't really had a chance to enjoy it.

[Denial]

The hardest thing about life now isn’t the running or the concern that they’ll catch up to her. It’s not the menial jobs, the crappy apartments or the solitude that threatens to swallow her sometimes. It’s the sheer humanity of the world and the way it bucks against her denial. She’s been using denial her whole life, butting it up against the things Manticore did to them. At night, when she’s alone and the entire city seems to sleep, she has to face up to the idea that shock ‘therapy’ and water ‘conditioning’ were really just tortures and punishments for things gone wrong, independent thought and freedom that the rest of the world takes for granted. It shoves her into a melancholy or an anger depending on her day but she dispels it with the dawn and dives back into denial. She pretends she’s just a pretty girl with a bar code tattoo on the back of her neck. It’s easier that way.

[Phobias}

X5’s don’t really have phobias. It sort of defeats the purpose of a perfect weapon if there’s a situation or a circumstance that they’re going to break down in. At the same time, I think phobias are learned. They’re developed. It’s not something that Manticore’s scientist can dissect and extract from our DNA. Not that they haven’t tried and that’s where my biggest phobia comes in. Doctors and hospitals scare me. It’s one of the few things in the world that do. The smell alone makes me feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin. Thank Manticore I’m resilient because that means most of the time, I can handle whatever comes at me injury wise but if I ever do get my ass kicked so bad I need medical attention from a hospital with a doctor and those creep-ass blue masks they wear, just tranq me and don’t wake me up until I’m out of those scrubs. No one, not even me, looks good in dead boy blue.

I don’t like water either, but that’s not a phobia. It’s a cat thing.

[I’m here because]

“Why are you here, 365?”

Ryan looks up from where she’s handcuffed to the chair. There is already blood staining the corner of her mouth and there’s a cut above her eyebrow but her spine is still stiff, barely touching the back of the chair. There is defiance in her shoulders and mischief in her eyes. This isn’t fun but it hasn’t reached defeat yet. “Because it gets your rocks off when a hot brunette tells you to fuck off?”

That is apparently the wrong answer. Ryan knew it would be and she braces for the backhand before it happens. There are electrodes attached to various points on her skin and she’s languid and relaxed because it pisses them off. She knows what’s coming and yet she doesn’t give them the satisfaction of preparing. They shove a leather strap between her teeth just before the electricity surging through her body makes her teeth clench and her body go rigid. Tears gather in the corner of her eyes and trickle down her cheeks just before the electricity is shut off.

“Now why are you here, 365?”

“You needed a prom date?”

It’s a whole rinse and repeat situation but this time the electricity gets left on a little while longer and her shoulders slump just slightly.

“Why are you here, 365?”

“I’ve always wanted to be on American Idol.”

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over again. She loses count and she’s pretty sure she’s recycling the same smart assed answers but her brain is starting to short circuit. Her back is bowed, her shoulders slumped and the air reeks of something burning and she knows it’s something inside of her. Sweat slicks her skin and dampens her hair. It trickles between her shoulder blades and itches. She tugs a little at the titanium cuffs holding her in place. It’s a half hearted effort because she knows she can’t break out of them and even if she did, they’d only make her pay for it.

“Why are you here, 365?”

She looks up at them and there’s only a spark of defiance left in her eyes. She’s not broken but they’ve stomped on her pretty hard.

“Obey orders.”

“Take her back to her cell. No food or water the rest of the week.”

And she hates herself because she’s trying not to weep and just behind parched and chapped lips there’s a plea waiting to erupt. They drag her through hallways and shove her into a cell. It’s not her cell but a special holding and processing cell. She knows in the next few days they’ll question her again, put her through conditioning and make certain that she knows exactly what she’s there for.

So, my name is Ryan. I'm Ryan of all trades. I've been a waitress, a bartender, a dancer, a mechanic, a security guard, a messenger and quite frankly I've forgotten all the other jobs. I travel a lot and tend to be pretty restless. My learning curve is off the hook so picking up a new skill isn't hard.

As for why I'm here, I need therapy. Of the non electric shock kind.

It's not torture or punishment. It's called conditioning and training.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do. >> Eleanor Roosevelt

The light overhead flickers and she’s not sure if it’s the light or something inside of her shorting out. Her head lolls back, chin tilting up, throat exposed as her eyes roll back in her head. There’s a jolt of electricity through her body and the whole world comes back into painfully sharp focus.

“What do you know about the ones who escaped?”

“Nothing,” she swears, her voice scraping it’s way out of her throat. She is still staring up at the ceiling and the lights overhead make her pupils contract so that her eyes are solid green cat eyes. Her body feels stretched out, worn thin like the hem of the blue surgical tunic she constantly picks at but maybe it is her mind that is worn thin and everything else follows suite.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her body tenses as she prepares herself for pain that doesn’t come. The anticipation of that pain is almost as bad as the pain itself. After a moment, she allows herself to relax but she keeps her head down, eyes adverted. Submissive posture is key here. It could short psyops by hours, days even.

“It was your unit, X5R-365.”

She hesitates, not certain whether she should react or not. The wrong choice will mean more conditioning. It’s not torture and it’s not punishment. She is grateful for it, even as she dreads it. This is how she becomes better. This is how she is made perfect.

“Yes but I didn’t know.”

“Then that was your mistake.”

Her stomach sinks and something inside breaks. It wells up inside her, that bird that Emily Dickinson speaks of. Sometimes at night the words to that poem spills over her lips like water, a balm to her soul, a balm to her mind and maybe, just maybe to her body. Right now the words are silent within her but they are there reminding her that she has lived through this. She will live through everything else that comes. She is an X5 and she has been engineered to survive.