The Symbiote

Chapter Nine - Sins of the Father

I stare at the two beings before me, confused beyond reason. What they were saying didn't make sense.

"How would my dad have even known about the two of you? He was an office worker, not a scientist!"

Raze and Scathe exchange glances, and I press my lips together in frustration. Scathe's face shifts to something apologetic, and he holds out his hands in a pleading gesture.

"Kid, please. Just listen, okay? I swear that we're not lying to you. I may have hidden it since I found you, but..." he trails off, desperation seeping into his tone. "The reason I found you was because of him. Because of Jack. He asked me to find you and make sure you were safe."

I shake my head in disbelief; how... why had Dad not just told me the truth about his work?

Raze sighs, massive shoulders sinking low.

"Thing is kiddo, your father was the one actually in charge of the three of us, and he-"

"Wait, what three?"

Scathe speaks up then, clasping his hands tightly. "There were three like us in the AlignTek complex; me, Raze, and a third we never saw but knew of due to Jack talking to us about them."

Raze nods. "Apparently they were the most promising of us, so they were kept in a much higher security area than Scathe and I, as we didn't have the abilities they seemed to be looking for in their fucking super soldier program."

The amount of security in the complex, as well the way things had gone down in the township after the collapse, suddenly made a lot more sense. If any of the residents had happened to see any of the test subjects, word could get out about what was happening there. 

I'd seen enough sci-fi movies to know what had happened when the breach occurred: they sent in cleaner crews to gather whoever was lagging behind, as the probability was higher that they'd have seen something. And along with removing loose ends, they got new test subjects for more of their 'projects'. I shudder as I try hard to not think about it; it had almost happened to me.

My thoughts trail back to Scathe explaining how he worked and the effects on his host, and I wondered if Raze was the same way. It occurred to me that I never had actually asked what his abilities were.

"Raze, I know a general idea of how Scathe's powers work, but what about you? You seem to me like a prime symbiote specimen."

Raze laughs darkly, shaking his head. 

"Yeah, no. I'm not even symbiote by half. To put it simply, kiddo: I absorb my hosts. Entirely. Mass, personality, everything. All of it gets re-purposed to increase my own size and abilities. The fucking memory stacking can make things a bit scrambled up top," he adds, pointing to his temple, "which sometimes makes me forget things. Not the best of abilities. Hell, string bean over there was a better candidate for super soldiering than I ever was; at the very least he added to the people. Still didn't stop those bastards from fucking experimenting on me, though," he adds, voice dropping low, a miserable grimace on his strong face. 

I fought the urge to go over and hug the poor guy; I was still trying to understand what was going on.

"I still can't believe that my dad was experimenting on you two," I say quietly, and Scathe shakes his head, drawing my attention.

"He wasn't."

I blink in confusion; hadn't they just said he was a scientist? The lead scientist, even?

Scathe reads my confusion and leans forward, resting on his elbows.

"He was mostly in charge of the project, but he never once lifted a scalpel against any of us. When he was alone in the labs working late, he'd actually spend a lot of time just talking with the two of us, apologizing for what we were having to go through. I honestly got the impression he really hated working for AlignTek, which was confusing at first. It took a while, but I eventually felt like he was being genuine about his feelings, and kind of ended up seeing him as a friend."