Genetic Error

WARNINGS:

Alternate Universe; Sci-Fi.

Hardest attempts to stay in character.

Inspirations from Eoin Colfer's 'Supernaturalists', NO.6, Torchwood, Woman on the Edge of Time, The Thief Lord, City of Orphans, and maybe Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Undergoing editing, slow updates.

Prologue: Timing Error.01

In Year 2121, Bane Industries was created.

Scientists never gathered unless it came to one of two things:

Genetic perfection or War.

The Deoxyribonucleic Weaponry Macroevolution Acid Department was created by five of them for both.

The war against death was slowly being won as Inner Cell Mass Bands were created and soon became a requirement.

Humans became update-able through the wristbands; genetic codes could be easily personalized.

Everything seemed fine...

There was a steady hum of activity around her as the bullet train continued it's trek further from the center district. She'd been offered a ride back to her place, but she didn't want to burden her upperclassmen with the extra drive. The train was a bit faster anyway... Still, the blonde girl couldn't help but shift a bit uneasily; bottle green eyes glanced down to the light on the ICMB that matched. The churning of her stomach made sitting patiently for her stop difficult, something telling her to stay on guard for something that was bound to happen.

The train slowed to a stop, doors opening to allow another crowd of people on and off; Maka adjusting in her seat so a group of three could hurry past her to an open long-booth. They were a rowdy group; dressed in layers of jackets, hats, tinted goggles, they were loud and messing around right behind here. Though they weren't hard to ignore, the green light on the ICMB flashing to catch her attention again. The blonde tapped on the small screen, frowning as a warning went across. Another Sonic Boom had gone off in the station they had just left... A warning was sent out to be on alert for shut-down. Just perfect... Shut-Downs meant taking power out of the area to try and catch the people setting the bombs off... Sonic bombs meant she'd need to get the temporary equipment out just in case; a part of her hoped that the new Update would be able to protect their ears from the high frequencies...

"Damn it Anya, don't be such a prude!"

"Move your big head!"

The bulky headphones were pulled from her bag to rest around her neck. She spotted a few people who were as nervous as she was doing just the same, the loud group behind her stayed ignorant of the warning. It was tempting to put the hyper-noise blocking padding on to block them out, but she needed to listen for her station; that and she didn't want to start panic on the train. Her stomach kept twisting and fluttering, danger was close... She hoped she was wrong; she couldn't be this intuitive at fourteen, right?

Bright eyes snapped up when she saw people getting off again, eyes scanning the windows for a sign of where they were. An underground station, train coming out of a tunnel, opposing tracks were seen from the opposite window. She grabbed her bag quickly and swung it over her shoulder before stepping off into her station. She started looking around the platform for an familiar faces, hoping maybe someone from home would come to greet her. It hadn't happened in awhile, but the meet-ups were rather spontaneous. With a sigh, she accepted she'd have to take the escalator to the left to go to the inner-district tram to get closer to home. She just hoped there would be enough room to get on one before curfew.

The thought was nearly knocked from her head as she found herself on the ground, bracing the fall with her hand. The culprit who had shoved her out of the way was laughing as he hurried far from the train's double doors. "Watch it...!"

"Come and get it Anya!" He held up a pale blue beanie, Maka's eyes turning to the train as a few shouts came from inside, another boy running out of the train laughing just as much as the first. She stayed kneeling, waiting for the girl to come stumbling out.

"You two are so dead!" The girls cry came from the doors, Maka deciding to stand and hurry out of the way, glancing down at the vibrating, yellow-light flashing erratically. Wide eyes searched around the platform, heart racing as she saw plenty of other citizens starting to rush up the stairs to get out of the station before the shut-down.

"Hey!" The boys were oblivious of their surroundings for only a moment. Maka was tempted to leave them to deal with security. One of them seemed to get it though, the moment it became too late. The screens around them started going haywire, going into numeric codes and lines as if they'd just been hacked. Both of the strangers seemed to start panicking. The bullet's doors in front of them quickly snapped shut - most cars holding the slower passengers; metal slammers came down heavily one by one in front of the stairs to lock everyone on the platform in.

The taller of the two, the one with the girls beanie, was faster; he ran towards the closest staircase and just made it past before the heavy wall came down just as realization and recognition came across the others expression. The remaining ran towards the train, banging on the doors to face the long haired blonde on the other side of the window. "Anya!"

Maka noticed the few people stuck in the station level with them were gathering in the center, ducking into bathrooms, doing under benches; all for safety as the ceiling above them started shaking, a warning that the booms were being triggered above. She pulled the soundproofs from her neck to over her ears; they had all been too slow and she knew it.

The boy was relentless, trying to pry the metal doors open himself even as the train started to shake as much as the upper level; the high pitch sonic went off within seconds of warning. The blonde inside the train ducked, covering her ears with her hands as the boy on the outside copied. The bulletproof glass of the train blew out and scattered, most falling on the over-dressed boy.

Maka's eyes shut tightly as she ducked close to a bench in fear of anything giving out. She didn't know what would come next, and she was afraid to actually see it.

The noise was nothing compared to the air-release; Maka could feel herself being forced back even as she curled up, a part of her hearing very muffled shouts as other people hit the floor under the blow. The extra noise she wasn't sure of, and she was too afraid to look. Large metal scraped across the station's floor, crumpled and damaged, the explosion giving off heat and fire. There was a too-close shout in front of her, green eyes opening.

Maka watched as the doors blew outward, tossed forward against the desperate attempt to get to the girl inside and forcing the boy back as it pinned him down; the rest of the metal death trap became a complete disaster and combusted.

Sure that there wasn't much more that could fly towards her, the blonde's mind quickly scurried to remember what to do in a situation like this; she couldn't find the answer. Green eyes had looked over to the large crumpled mess in her line of flight for a safer spot, the blood pooling from under it made her nervous, but that mean the boy really was under there... Moving swiftly, she fought against what was left of the door and managed to get it off of him.

She leaned down to try and look him over; since he was still breathing she wanted to try and see if she could help him at all. He looked gone, like his mind wasn't even there. The vibrations of the floor seemed to have lessened, the boom at a settle calm. That wouldn't last though, not according to the warning. Large places like this with a lot of people... she was sure another would go off shortly. Still on her knees, she tried to push him towards the defensive spot she had picked towards the stairs earlier, but it wasn't an easy feat; he had to weigh just as much as she did despite his shorter height. She couldn't just leave him there to die though... she just had to wait until the bombs were done and the electrical surge died down, when help would be able to come.

Her heart skipped when she noticed the large gash he'd gained from the accident... already the skin down her legs was dyed red and sticky, if the puddle left behind meant anything, the gash wasn't letting up or clotting right. Stranger or not, she pulled her jacket from around her waist, trying to do her best to keep it pressed against the wound. He flinched, fighting as he reached out for her wrist to stop her.

The second boom echoed through the room, she pressed against the wound as a distraction from the shaking through her bones. The tight hold on her arm made Maka look down to see how panicked her patient looked. His body was wracking with pain beneath the heavy jacket and too-large pants, the eyes behind the the tinted lenses were wide, his mouth opened and closed as he fought against screaming. At first she thought it was the pressure she was applying, but he continued even when she let up.

Green eyes skimmed over the injured, trying to see if there was a wound she might have missed that was getting pressed. Then Maka caught it - blood dripping from the ears. He didn't have anything to keep the frequency bomb out; fear struck her again as she realized just who she was helping.

Non-citizen: Orphan, Run-Away, Criminal, Terrorist; the possibilities were endless!

... Yet they didn't matter.

She gripped his hand with hers until the wave ended, Maka moving fast. The boy was already exhausted, hardly even conscious as she tied the folded jacket around his chest in her best attempts to create a tourniquet. Bravely, the soundproofs were pulled from her own ears to cover his, letting them rest over the beanie hat and goggle straps. Frankly, she didn't want to know his identity; if she recognized it she'd be forced by her own morals to report it after this was over... She'd rather pass a lie-detector test and say she had no idea who this boy was.

They weren't far from the platform's edge that had the ladder down into the tunnel. Though it meant moving away from the safety of, say, the bathrooms or ad-walls, Maka ignored the people moving in hopes of recollecting lost items and focused on doing her best to haul the unconscious body down over the ledge. The Emergency Route really was the best place to wait it out for now; if she was lucky there wouldn't be a third wave... She just needed to get him hidden. City officials weren't kind to any type of non-citizens once they were caught.

The girl pulled him close to her as she lay back against the ladder-wall; his head rested against her shoulder so she could make sure he was still breathing. She found an easy position for both of them to rest in before pressing the jacket harder against him in hopes the gash would clot soon.

Then the pain he'd endured earlier hit her.

Three sonic frequency bombs; three sonic booms. Three. Maka let herself scream as the last high-pitch frequency hit. The pitch was deafening, making her thoughts turn fuzzy even as she attempted to cover her ears. Her hands pressed harshly against her ears as she felt the red liquid drip on and through the cracks; she tried to curl up with the sleeping body still in her lap. It didn't take long to feel the wave numb her muscles and wrack her bones. It took only seconds to black out.

Maka drowsily opened her eyes, the florescent light from the station above hardly reaching her hiding spot. Her brain was slowly starting to come back to reality, the amount of activity around her making her heart race. Black and white uniformed city officials were flooding the tunnel, mostly looking over the remains of the bullet trains and any traces of bodies there. She couldn't hear much, the buzzing in her ear telling her that the nerves were damaged from the sonic frequencies - she'd have to submit an upgrade request for that.

Quickly her mind sparked, she curled up facing the wall with the boy in her lap as two officials moved closer to her, their white gas masks were on but they were certainly shorter than most of the others.

"Don't worry." One held up his hands in defense before resting one on her shoulder, slowly and gently forcing her to move away.

"We got 'im." The second have her a thumbs-up, leaning down to pick the boy up before tossing the headphones back into her lap. She didn't try and say anything about her jacket.

"Put these back on. Stay here until they come get you." Green eyes looked at him, confused as he pointed to his ears and back to the larger group of officials to make his message clear. "Thank you for watching over him."

She wasn't really sure who the two were, but her brain easily worked out that they were imposters. The one held the boy carefully, muttering something under his breath to the other as they took off deeper into the tunnel and away from the crime scene. She couldn't manage staying awake longer though, passing out again as real Black-and-Whites came to find her.

Authors Notes:

*The sonic bombs are hard to explain if you don't already have an idea in your head. It really is a high pitch-frequency accompanied with a lot of air-force pressure. If you are a Torchwood fan, look into Toshiko's past the day she joined.

*Black and white officials are supposed to resemble Arachne's henchmen.

*Bullet trains are like subways, barts, etc. if you really were confused.

This did pretty well on LJ for awhile before I lost confidence in it... So I'll just see how this goes.

Had to dig up some notes I had on this since I never finished it.

No Beta, be kind.

Do not own art.