Anita

“Almost, not quite. We certainly have but the Keepers do most of that now.” The agent examined his fingers while he talked, scratching flecks of blood off his nails.

"Why?” The thought made her sick.

“How much do you know about the first Guardians?” He pressed on, ignoring her outburst.

Anita growled under her breath. She knew he wouldn’t answer her unless she played his game. “The first Guardian was made in an attempt to create a race of superhumans. But, the experiment backfired when he tried to kill the human scientists.” She rattled off the tale she’d heard a million times before.

“When they finally subdued the Guardian, he’d killed 35 of the workers and infected 20 others with some kind of super virus that created a skin of crystals along the victims flesh. It also made the victim incredibly aggressive and gave them superior strength. Those who had had slight magic control before being infected were now granted almost complete control of particular magics, while those who hadn’t shown signs of magical ability suddenly started to develop them. And, with some genetic manipulation and several other failed tests, leading to more deaths, they were able to recreate the virus without the aggressive gene and limit their strength. Using human test subjects, they also manipulated the powers of the improved Guardians to inhibit their magic when faced with the aura surrounding humans.”

“Very good!” He applauded slowly. “But you missed a few key points. Humans weren’t the first Guardian attempts. The nuclear testing was originally done on rats, which led to results much like what you already stated; an aggressive, infectious species that we wiped out. Or at least, attempted to wipe out. See the thing with superhuman rats is that they reproduce at an alarming rate, and a single escape led to an outbreak of infections in wolves and later in bears. Which, in turn, was the cause for the massive amount of Gammas and Betas. We don’t know why no other species was affected but human victims from these eventually turn into Alphas. However, Alpha creations are rare since the Betas and Gammas are so attracted to the more concentrated energy in Guardians they hardly spare humans a glance.”

He glanced up at her to make sure she was paying attention before he continued.

“So we had to tailor Guardians to wipe out the mistakes we had made. But, much like the first, the new Guardians didn’t like the idea of being used as tools of extermination. So they rebelled. Which is why we had to again modify their genes, making their most effective tool a magic that doesn’t touch us. Even then, they rebelled. So we created a consequence for failure. Now, our fight is your fight.”

“And now you sit here doing your experiments and fucking up even more, knowing you’re safe. While we are dying to clean up your mess,” Anita snarled.

“Oh please.” He scoffed. “Don’t act like Guardians are so hard done by. Every Guardian is fed and sheltered while there are humans living on the streets. Because we put so much funding into you that we can’t afford to do anything for them. Because we need you to clean up our mess we ignore our own people. And all we ask is for you to do a little fighting.” He didn’t pause in his rant, continuing on like he’d been waiting for months for a chance to get it out.

“So what’s your problem Anita? You want a plush, queen sized bed and breakfast on a silver platter? Consider the life of those around you. People would kill to be in your situation, just for a roof over their heads and a hot meal. Grow up.”

“You don’t know anything about Guardians!” she sputtered, stunned.

“You wanna know what I know?” He stormed over to a console on the wall and punched in a few commands. The Alpha disappeared, replaced by a video of...her.

It was younger of course. A lot younger. An eight year old girl curled up in a corner, her skin clear of crystals and instead painted a canvas of purple and blue bruises. “What is this?” Anita snapped.

“This is you, before we took you in. Katerina Sarr. Aka. Subject 558754, Anita.”

A doctor approached the girl and she flinched away from the touch. “Katerina, I’m not going to hurt you. Please relax so we can treat you.”

“Leave me alone.” The child cried and lashed out, attempting to shove the nurse away.

“Katerina relax. No one is going to hurt you anymore.” How very wrong she was.

It took another minute but the small girl slowly uncurled. Revealing blood stained clothes, hitched up to reveal hundreds of scars lining her thighs.

“Turn it off,” Anita growled.

He complied, pausing the video. “This is how we found you. You’d been taken in by some gang or other. They beat you for their amusement and used you when they were bored. Do you know how many times the-”

"Shut up,” she hissed. “I know what they did to me. Everything was in the file they gave me when they realised the creation had taken my memories. Everything except my name.” She frowned. Katerina.

“Would you have rather stayed there? Continued to be used and thrown around? Becoming a Guardian saved your life.”

“At least they didn-” she paused, she couldn’t remember anything about before. Couldn’t remember anything before the pain of the creation. The agony wiped away everything she was.

“Didn’t what?” He leapt on her hesitation. “Didn’t beat you? Didn’t rape you? Didn’t leave you half starved on the sidewalk?”

“You think the Keepers don’t beat us?” Anita pushed away thoughts of her past life and whirled on him. “You think the Keepers don’t starve us for their amusement? I may never have been...” she stumbled over the words, ”used by a Keeper but they sure as hell don’t treat us like anything other than a punching bag.”

He opened his mouth to respond then paused, shaking his head slowly. “It’s illegal for a Keeper to mistreat a Guardian except in cases of disciplinary action.” He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Have you ever even seen a Guardian compound? Disciplinary action is a vague term,” she spat.

“I...” He scratched his head and shook himself. “It doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “The Keepers keep the Guardians in line and that is all that matters.”

“You don’t even care.” Anita shook her head slowly, digging her nails into the arms of the chair. “You don’t care that there are Keepers like Robert, beating on Guardians for things like talking too loud or walking too slow. And not a gentle smack. Mauling them because we’re not human so we don’t matter.”

He stared at her for a moment but was spared from responding when the door opened.