Center of the Cross by TNT

Chapter one

"And in other news there was a break out from Yashano Ana, the Cross's prison, as it is locally called. The man is described as Caucasian with long white-silver hair, amber eyes, claws, and long canine teeth. He considered armed and dangerous. If you have any information on his whereabouts, report it to the police immediately, but do not approach him. It could mean your very..."

Sango shut her tele-monitor off with a frustrated sigh. This new escape was especially difficult to track. He had some how found a way to either turn off or remove the tracking device embedded at the base of his skull. The younger generations just seemed to get more and more innovative.

Damn it! The frustrated lieutenant pounded her fists on her desk. That damn dog... no...monster...gahh!!! That's not right either. 'It's not politically correct,' Sango thought with venomous sarcasm. She let out a hard sigh and flopped back into her chair.

She had been at work since 6:30 that morning and now her time monitor read 11:30 pm. She needed to go home. She had a splitting headache, her eyes were starting to blur everything together, and she felt hot and claustrophobic just from sitting in her office all day raking over file after file.

With a heavy sigh Sango dragged herself to her b-17 vehicle, an older model, but it got her where she wanted to go. She got to the door and bent down to look straight into the security monitor and obediently kept her eye open for the retina scan.

"Retina scan confirmed," the female computer voice chirped at her. "Welcome Sango. Where would you like to go?"

"Home," she belted out with a heavy sigh. Car rides were the most relaxing part of her day. She didn't have to think or pay attention to anything. She could just sit back, close her eyes, and let her mind go blank. Though sometimes she would just think about the past and how everything ended up the way it is now. And sometimes she let her mind wander, even to the painful memories, about her family, her father, her brother...

Her father had been a Capitan for the Allied army in the Great Biological War. That's what they called it now. Sango thought it wasn't quite right for that war, but it fit in its own way. The war had started off like any other war had. One nation declared war on another nation, and they both called upon their allies to help conquer one another. It soon escalated into World War III. In the past everyone had thought a 3rd world war would have ended in the destruction of humanity because of nuclear weapons. But no such weapons were used. The human race was not destroyed because of this last "Great War," but a small part of its humanity was.

The war had started in the year 2145, five years before Sango had been born, and ten years before her father would die. The actual war lasted for 16 years. Even now, 15 years later, the world was still feeling the repercussions, as if it had just ended yesterday. Why? Why was this war so different? Because man-kind had really outdone its self this time, that's why.

No one knows which country had been the first one to have a successful cross, but it was the Americans who formulated the bright idea of using the crosses in battle. War always changes the perception of one's morals. At the beginning of the war, even the mere idea of using a cross for war was unthinkable. Hell, the idea of a cross to the public would have been unthinkable. But after six years of nothing but destruction, people wanted the war to end. They called upon the government to make this happen. So it responded by using a new breed of soldiers, a cross between humans and animals, completely loyal to there "masters." There were 3 different kinds of these crosses: GAC (genetically altered child), TAC (technologically altered child), and GEC (genetically engineered child). It wasn't that uncommon to find a mix of the three classes. These crosses were unstoppable. Modern technology could not detect them, they could see 20 times better than the average human, maybe more depending on what type of animal they were crossed with. The harder the scientists worked, the more invincible they became.

The first wave of crosses destroyed masses of normal human regiments in mere hours. They were unstoppable, until they came up against an enemy battery not unlike themselves. Finally, normal human soldiers became obsolete and the crosses became the soldier of choice for every single country in the war.

The first two waves of crosses were completely loyal to the country that had created them, and thought nothing of the fact that they were just puppets, and the fact that everybody feared and hated them for what they were. They were so focused on the battle and their programming, they didn't even think of what would happen when the time came when they were no longer needed.

Then something unexpected happened. No one knows where or how it started, perhaps not even they know. The only thing the scientists (or creators as the crosses call them) know is that it started in the third generation of crosses that were sent out to fight. They started to develop an independency, a spark of free thought, a spark of questions. But along with that independency, they started to develop a group conscience. The crosses could start communicating to each other by just using their thoughts. They could exchange information in the blink of an eye. If, for example, one cross needed to know how to fly a helicopter, he could merely search out a cross that contained the knowledge and obtain it from that cross's memories. Knowledge and experience flowed through the link. Through this link they could feel when a cross connected to them died. However, through the link, all their knowledge and memories were kept intact and stored in each and every cross's memory unit attached inside their skulls and connected to their brains.

Soon this third generation started making demands and began to disobey orders. The reason for the war then changed, the enemy changed. The crosses started to unite, no matter what country they were from. As the crosses united, so did the countries that created them. These perfect soldiers were now the enemy. The creators were now commissioned to find a way to stop the crosses, even to kill them with a minimum human loss. They created viruses to specifically target the crosses and the link they all shared. But the creators had created the crosses to well. They were able to adapt to the viruses, and after each attempt, it became harder to kill them.

Soon the creators turned away from viruses and turned toward containment technology. A new branch of defense was created, the Cross Control Force (CCF). These people, often times old crosses from the 1st and 2nd waves who were still loyal to there country, were specially trained to hunt down and detain the newer generation of crosses. Since technology could not detect or record crosses, tracking devices were implanted to all those that were captured. Hundreds of detention facilities were built (mostly on remote islands, very few in populated areas). Soon hundreds of crosses were caged, to the relief of society.

Lieutenant Sango's b-17 finally stopped in front of her shaggy apartment complex. 'The CCF might be important to ease the mind of society, but it sure pays shit,' thought an exhausted Sango. She dragged herself up the stairs that led to apartment, mumbled her name for voice recognition, and flopped straight onto her bed without even changing her clothes.