I am Core's Savior
© 3.15.2006 By Angela F. Williams

The sun was rising again on Core.

Tai sat up slowly, squinting against the glare. His dark hair was awry, startling next to his white face. His bright red eyes wandered over the dry cracked landscape before him. It was the same every where he looked. It hadn't changed once and he had been going at it for three hours.

Rand would be coming soon.

Tai stood; his pants were filthy, dust and grim lining the creases. He wrapped his arms around his chest. He had lost his shirt somewhere inside the Aour. He spat mud from his mouth and tried to swallow. Tai hated the Aour. He hated it when Rand tried to make him like it. In fact he hated everyone and everything in Core. That's why he had run. But here he was again with nowhere to go.

He always vowed to run away for good. They never took him seriously though. They knew he couldn't. Tai knew he couldn't.

He closed his eyes and remembered when he was younger and had asked the men at the station to change the way he looked so he could blend. They had laughed and shut him back inside his bubble. Tai had hated them too, and his bubble. He could recall standing for hours by the door, and staring through the transparent wall, watching everyone outside. Then at night he would claw with his fingers at the seamless wall, trying to find something that he could hang on to; to rip or tear his way out.

He shuffled in the sand and glanced to the horizon. He could see Rand's dust cloud. He was going to fast again. Rand got so worried every time Tai ran away it was almost worth it. Tai heaved a sigh and squinted his eyes against the sun, another day wasted; they would never make it in time.

The ride back to the station was silent, as usual. Rand was quiet and strained. The weight of the people's deadline was heavy on him. Tai could see the worry in the dark circles under Rand's eyes.

Finally; "Tai, this won't work unless you try to think like us. Running every time we try the Aour isn't going to make it easier" Rand sighed as he turned to watch the boy beside him.

Tai glanced at the blinking board in front of him, watching the speed gauge rise as Rand unknowingly pressed his hand harder against the throttle.

"Rand . . . you're too emotional."

Rand slowed, but he didn't take his gaze off of Tai.

"The things you get away with when we're alone Tai. Some things I shouldn't even tell you, but, you and me... Well it's different then all the rest. You know that right?"

Tai never moved, but his red eyes burned bright as he shifted them to Rand. "Rand have you ever thought that it might not work?"

Rand didn't reply. He turned back to glance at the dim outline of a road before him. The wind had picked up and scudded drifts of sand into the path of the carrier. He slowed even more.

"The people of Core are dying Tai. But calling to earth for help is out of the question. We were exiled for good reason. Some of the things we've done - are doing - are less then ethical. And besides they have their own problems, even if pity was in their vocabulary, what could they really do?"

"I wouldn't know. They're not my kind."

"But we are that is why -"

"No!" the word came out sharp and abrupt in the closeness of the carrier shuttle. Rand stopped, his words falling thin in the quiet that followed Tai's outburst. He turned for a moment to stare at the slight young man beside him.

"Tai . . ." Rand's voice was soft.

"No, it's not like that any more Rand." Tai's jaw was clenched and he sat rigidly in his seat.

"I can't speak for Earth - or Venus - because I have never been either place, or anywhere in this universe." Tai's voice was dry and bitter. "But I know the people of Core; I know them only to well. And they will keep creating life and destroying it just to better their own. When they are already dying. But they are determined to live at whatever the cost - and I'm one of the lucky chosen." Tai choked on the last words and he swallowed, his throat working convulsively.

Rand watched the land blur by him for a moment then he spoke slowly.

"Tai, this is why they don't allow anyone but a few interact with the -" he hesitated then said quietly, apologetically, "the experiments, the ones we create, to help us live. It's in your blood, Tai, somewhere; we know it this time. But it will only kick in when you're afraid. When you feel fear. It's like adrenaline in a way. That's not what it really is though - at least not in you." He paused a moment before continuing. "When it's released, your body radically alters the chemical properties of your blood. That's what the people need. You were created for this, Tai. Nothing more."

Rand rubbed a hand along the inseam of his slacks, a nervous gesture that Tai had long ago grown accustom to. "I - it's my fault Tai. As head scientist of the research lab, I should have known better. But sometimes..." Rand's voice grew faint and whispered away into a sigh.

Tai still didn't respond. His jaw tight he sat huddled in his seat, his arms crossed over his bare chest, shivering.

Rand shook his head, and punched the auto pilot button to off as the station came into view, raising out of the sand hills a gleaming mass of metal and glass.

"The Aour is to stimulate fear or at least some sort of.... Tai couldn't you just try? I mean, we're all pretty much at a loss here. If we try to use brain stimulation we're afraid of altering too much. It has to be an instant, natural, and terrifying moment. That's all we need. It - it - will save the people Tai. Couldn't you even think about -" Rand paused for a moment then began suddenly; "Tai, it wouldn't even have to be all your blood, we could colloect a small amount, we could reproduce -"

"Rand you know how long that would take. Most of your precious people would be dead by the time you've made enough. You're just saying this now because you are trying to win me; it won't work." Tai's voice was sounded oddly detached.

Rand didn't meet Tai's gaze, he stared out the front window, his shoulders slumped.

"Rand, they were never supposed to happen were they. These people are all just one big mistake"

Rand tuned to eye Tai with faint surprise at this statement, "Tai - I, why this?"

Tai stared straight ahead, "You and the others aren't like them, why do you keep trying to help them? I know you weren't sent here with them. Earth would pay to get you and Steve back, the two of you at least. I heard it all, that one night."

Rand jerked, his mouth pinched into a thin line. "Tai, you know why I can't leave, stop it."

Tai ignored the brittle tone in Rand's voice and continued brutally, "You can't leave because you feel chosen to help these mutants - that's why they were thrown off earth to begin with. These imperfects."

Rand's nostrils flared, "Tai you don't even know what you're talking about!"

Tai snorted, and turned to glare at Rand, "You're a good man Rand, but throwing your life away and the lives of those you create for a dying bunch of people who aren't a fit race anyway is pointless."

"Stop mocking me."

"Or what?"

"Tai! I mean it! I am no man at all if I don't help these people. This is all I have."

Tai yanked the release latch on the roof of the shuttle, and clambered out onto the ground. The dust from his footsteps as he strode towards the station drifted back and blew through Rand's hair and across his clothes. He sat motionless, staring at nothing his face sagging with pain.

Tai slammed through the doors of the laboratory with out stopping to silence the alarm that blared over head. He stalked to the edge of the room and stood staring at the transparent bubble like structure that he had lived in for as long as he could remember.

A long time ago, in the very beginning, he could remember another one. And the boy that had lived inside it. But then he had gone and Tai had never seen him again.

Tai stood still except for a slight quiver that coursed through his body. His eyes smoldered scarlet and a wet gleam shone in them. For only the second time in his life, Tai felt tears, they were hot and metallic tasting. Tai was about to add another thing to the list of what he hated when suddenly he decided that he rather like this lonesome salty feeling that floated just on the edge of his senses.

He suddenly realized the alarm had stopped. And the room was filled with a heavy silence. Then he heard Rand step through the doorway.

Tai didn't turn, but he could feel the heavy sadness that Rand was carrying. He knew that Rand wouldn't sleep tonight or any other night until his people were safe. Time was running out.

Steve would come in any moment, and then the others, and the scheduled night tests. Tai would crawl into his bubble and sit curled in the bottom trying to ignore the flashing lights and signals at the top. He would try to ignore and the faces that peered in at him every time some one walked by, hoping with that one of their tests had finally come out positive.

"Tai..." Rand's voice was tired.

Tai didn't move.

"Tai -" Rand tried again, "You had better get back in; you can only stand so long out of your bubble you know."

"Stop trying to sound normal. Maybe I want to see what it would be like to stay outside of it... forever."

Rand took several steps into the room, "Don't talk like that."

"Maybe I want to."

Rand came to stand beside Tai, he hadn't yet put on his white outerwear, Tai couldn't help but notice. "I don't even know how this all began, I can't help but wanting a way out now."

Tai looked down at his hands. "The other boy, the one a long time ago, he never showed any emotion did he - he never cried. Did he?"

Rand bit his lip, and slowly walked to the window, "Boy?" He waited a moment before speaking again "You mean the other experiment." Rand passed a hand across his face. "It wasn't really a boy; it was a shadow, a fake. A stimulant. Like the others. But yes, you're right; It had the right components, the right chemistry. But we never could get it to react. Its brain never could feel anything. It had no soul."

Tai rubbed his arms and flexed his muscles, watching the skin stretch over flesh. "And what am I?"

Rand turned to watch Tai carefully, "You're different I know that" he paced a slow step. "I think that is why I went off the code, that is why I have -"

Tai wet his lips, his eyes sparking red light he moved eagerly toward Rand "Then I am human in fact? I am like you? Which means that my blood is the same and I -!"

"No! No, Tai you're not the same, you can never be. You were created to save the people of Core not become one of them."

"The - the tests, I've been blocking them you know, I could be afraid - terrified, if I would let myself. I am sometimes, when you're all gone away for the night."

Rand did not look surprised, "I know. I have known a lot of things about you Tai that I wanted to ignore until now, now that we have no time left.'

Tai lowered his chin, and gazed for a long moment at the bubble, rubbing his hands and wrists, feeling where the needle would slide in. Then he turned to stare at Rand, his crimson eyes burning like two pools of fire. "Would you go back to earth, if the people were given the cure, if the people were saved?"

Rand stiffened, "Why - I - if the people could live, yes. Yes, I would see my job as finished."

Tai looked back to the bubble, "Rand, when you do, can you do something for me?"

Rand didn't move, but his eyes widened. "What Tai?" his voice was husky.

Tai seemed transfixed by the bubble, his eyes never blinked, "Touch water for me, on the ground, in a pool."

Rand nodded, "Tai, you don't -"

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Tai's mouth, "I do. Don't try and lie Rand, don't go off the code."

Then Tai was walking toward the bubble, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Rand turned away, his shoulders sagging. He didn't heard Steve come in and stand staring at the scanner above the bubble. He didn't heard him leave, running down the hallway, calling loudly to the others. All he could hear was the alarm, beeping shrilly in the quiet of the room alerting them that the proper chemical reaction was taking place.

Rand walked quietly from the room. He closed the door behind himself without looking back.