. : . Revelations . : .

[X]

Code Name: X

6 Months Ago

Somewhere In Puerto Rico

Buena Esperanza Psichiatric Hospital

"Subject K-04050908"

A slight noise is heard as the protective layer of a window is being lifted, a group of 4 doctors is looking thru the glass

"We found him a couple of months ago in California, Dr. Tobiel decided to send him here, seeing how this is his hospital, to see if we could help him somehow, he hasn't said one single word since he got here, we give him food but he would eat only when he would be all alone"

"Does he do something more than being... Well, like that?"

A doctor points to the man in question, curled up, with his head down, his hair covering his face, a string jacket firmly restrincs him from standing up

"Oh, of course he does, we just set him up like that for visits, the last contigent... Well, let us say they won't have a nice memory of him"

15 days ago, another group of doctors came to inspect the man, one of them got too close to the man, he remained calmed, his breathing was calmed and his vitals were stable, the doctor decided to take extreme liberties and try to pull the man's hair to the back to take a better look to his face... His nose was never the same

"On normal conditions, the subject spends from 6 to 10 hours a day in physical conditioning, we've reached the conclussion that he is harmless when engaged on this activity, it is like if this was deeply linked to what he used to do, we have increased the difficulty of those exercises to see if we could hear him say anything, a complain or something, we've got nothing so far"

In spite of the mental state of the man, his body seemed to be in very good conditions, the habit of exercising several times a day during long periods of time gave him an unusually fit appearence, but with the environment on the hospital, the string jacket and the padded wall room, his appearence resulted more terrifying, he wouldn't move, in spite his breathing was evident

"Not even a name? Or a nickname? Something to identify him, or will he always be 'Subject K-04050908'? You must have something to identify him besides the serial number"

"Actually... Now that you mention it..."

The doctors look at him, the silence invade them, Dr. Emmanuel Lewis was second in command in Buena Esperanza and he would ocassionally allow other doctors to visit him and his research for educational purposes, at his 45 years, Dr. Lewis would always try to stay in good shape, a slight tan can be seen, as well as a few grey hairs on his right, he also sports a discrete moustache and glasses

"When we found him, he wouldn't even look at us, but whenever one of us would give his back to him, it would be all over... It's kind of a sick joke... But he killed around 10 people of our group"

"... How?"

"Using his nails"

"Excuse me!? His nails, you say?"

"It would be like some kind of trance, the subject would be in a stage of excitement that would increase the blood pressure and the adrenaline flow in his body, allowing him to gain strength above the human level, he would scar the people on their chest, with the shape of an "X" using both hands"

"So... "X"? That's it?"

"I told you it was some sort of sick joke"

One of the doctors, who had remained silent until now, was a 28 year old psichiatrist, Maria Dos Santos, she had remained in silent, but contemplating the man the whole time, taking notes for herself, trying to be witness of some kind of reaction from him, it was natural for him to be aware that there was company there, seeing how he heard the protective layer of the window going up, at that moment, two male nurses approached Dr. Lewis

"Excuse us, Dr. Lewis, but the effects of the tranquilizers are about to fade, we need to provide him with another dose"

"By all means, please go ahead"

The nurses proceed inside the padded wall room, as the other doctors look at Dr. Lewis, naturally, with several questions on their minds

"K-04050908 seems to be able to control the flow of adrenaline inside of his body, and the blood pressure as well, that is the reason why he can do things like... Gutting someone with his own hands, a triple dose is required in order to keep him awake, but harmless"

"A triple dose? Doesn't that kill him?"

"The continuos flow of adrenaline counters the effects of the tranquilizer, with elevated doses, both the tranquilizer and the adrenaline seem to neutralize each other, driving the subject to an idle state, in which he's awake but not fully counscious"

"It sounds like this guy is some sort of human weapon... I never thought I would find or see someone who is allegally able of controling the flow of adrenaline in their body or the blood pressure as well, it's simply fascinating and hard to believe at the same time"

The nurses proceed to apply the dose, while the doctors watch, as the nurse with the syringe approaches, the man appears to awake from his trance and rapidly stands up, headbutting the male nurse on the chest, the nurse lands on his back, while the man tries to go for the second nurse, but leather leashes tied to his string jacket prevent him of going any further

"K-04050908 is a trouble maker per sé, string jackets alone are not enough, we are forced to provide him with triple doses of tranquilizers, plus leashes tied to his string jacket and on to the floor with a security lock"

"Don't you think that's a little extreme, Dr. Lewis?"

"Au'Contraire, Dr. Dos Santos, K-04050908 is like Houdini, for some reason, escaping from situations like these results in a very easy task for him, he has attempted to escape several times, the last time he almost makes it"

The second male nurse retrieves the syringe and sucessfully delivers the tranquilizer to the man, as the man calms his moves, he lays his eyes on Dr. Dos Santos, his brown eyes told her a story, a story of confusion, rage, pride and death, it was a contact of mere seconds, but it was more than enough for Dr. Dos Santos to realize that he was not a normal kind of patient in a psichiatric hospital, eventually, the man stops fighting and gets on his knees, leaning to his right, against the padded wall

"Dr. Lewis, is there a possibility that you could allow me to study him in a closer fashion?"

The doctors remain in silence, as Dr. Emmanuel Lewis looks at Dr. Dos Santos

"I don't think so, he's highly unstable, and I just can't send you to the morgue, besides, I've been studying him since he got in here and I haven't got any advances"

"Have you ever considerred the possibility that he might feel more comfortable talking to a woman?"

"Come again?"

"You said it yourself, he exercises, therefore he takes care of his body, meaning that before whatever mental breakdown he had, he did something of importance, physically speaking of course, maybe incousciously he doesn't feel comfortable talking to someone of the same genre"

"I'm not so sure about this"

"30 Minutes, if I don't get anything, forget I said anything"

By all response, Dr. Lewis opens the door, but before letting Dr. Dos Santos enter, he extends her a contract

"Sign this, so whatever happens to you won't be our responsability"

Relunctantly, Dr. Dos Santos signs the contract and gets in, Dr. Lewis reminds her of her deadline, Maria Dos Santos approaches to the man and sits in front of him, a slight grunt comes from the man

"Hello, I'm Dr. Maria Dos Santos... You can call me Mari if you want"

The man remains in silence, Dr. Dos Santos could sense that in spite of being blocked by his hair, the man's eyes were on her

"So... Do you have a name?"

"..."

"You know? Under all that hair and eerie personality, I can see you're different, there's something about you... Lemme guess... You were the kind of guy who could drive girls crazy, a heart breaker, right? Maybe an actor? A performar of some kind? Perhaps a musician?"

The man leans against his back, trying to crawl away from Dr. Dos Santos, she notices one of the tattos crossing part of the man's neck

"Whoever you were, it seems that either image was kind of a big deal to you... Or that you have a lot of memories you didn't want to lose, is that so?"

"..."

The doctor approaches more, seeing him from different perspectives, the man would remain calmed, breathing steadily

"Does the name "X" mean anything to you?"

"... X..."

His deep voice was merely a whisper, a letter often used as a variant to denote the unknown, in the past, something as simple as one single letter meant fear, death and destruction anyone opposing this man, but right now, it seems to be nothing but a long lost memory

"Do you have a family? Brothers? Sisters?"

"..."

The apparent impulse was gone, the man almost spoke something more than one letter for the first time in months, everything was linked to the variable of the unknown

"I had a brother, he was older than me, he moved out to the states, in spite of having a college degree he followed a different path that is not accepted by my family, he wanted to be part of a wrestling promotion, for stupid as it sounds, he was hired by this guy... I can't remember his name, but my brother was killed because of him... Then, my younger wanted to avenge his death and ended working for the same man, they even changed their names, you know? My older brother changed his name to Logan Sykes..."

Suddenly, like a lighting bolt, a reaction starts in the mind of the man, he looks up slightly, as Dr. Dos Santos continued his story, the man interrupts her

"... John... John... Sykes... John Sykes..."

"... That's my younger brother! How do you...? Oh my god..."

Standing up, the man is soon limitated by the leashes, a growing fury inside of him gives him more strength as the security locks on the floor begin to break

"John... John... John Sykes!"

The locks finally are broken, as the man stands fully, Maria Dos Santos tries to get away from the room, the man is now in front of her and with an incredible skill, he gets rid of the string jacket

"Oh God, please don't...!"

The man approaches her, still with his hair covering his face places his hand on her lips

"John Sykes... He's been a good man to me... You... You are his older sister, he doesn't stop talking about you..."

In that moment, the door opens, the man takes the chance and slams it on the face the male nurses and takes the key ring from one of them, he then looks at Maria Dos Santos, who still couldn't believe what she was seeing

"I finally remember everything..."

Commencing a frantic race, the alarms and sirens go off, free of his string jacket, the man known as X runs barefoot and with only the white pants from the hospital, several nurses appear in front of him, but withput giving any signals of stopping, he charges against them

"Code Blue On The North Wing, Floor 5; Code Blue On The North Wing, Floor 5"

X keeps on running, until he finds the first door, checking witht he several keys the key ring has, he eventually opens the door, just in time before the security guards can trap him, once he's on the other side, he locks the door again and breaks the key while inside, he keeps on running while on the other side of the building a massive movilization of security guards has started, X finds another male nurse heading his way, but not stopping at all, he just holds the nurse's face with his right palm, lifts him into mid air and with the same impulse, smashes him on the ground, he eventually reaches a door with a tag that indicates "Floor 4", and next to it, another door with a tag that indicates "Floor 6", X intends to go to the 4th Floor, but when he opens the door, several security guards are going upstairs, X then slams the door, cursing his luck and goes upstairs, frantic as possible, he feels a renewed power on himself while going upstairs, maybe it is because of the pressure, maybe it is because of the possibility of being shot right there and end his days in a psichiatric hospital, but he has started to think about a suicidal idea, running as fast as he can, he goes over the floors 7, 8 and 9, reaching the roof top, kicking the door until it opens, he finds himself on the talles building of the whole complex, his plan seems to have a bit of hope, 75 feet ahead of him, the building ends, but there's also a cliff leading to the ocean, that gotta be several hundreds of feet tall fall, but the possibility of reaching freedom was there, or the possibility of having his life ended by the merciless fall.

Not thinking too much about it, X takes impulse and begins to run to the edge of the building... 60 feet... 50 feet... He could feel like everything around him was slowing down, except himself... 40 feet... 30 feet... The scent of the salt was caressing his face, the lights on the complex were frantically looking for the fugitive who, once again, dared to defy their security... 25 feet... Just when he was getting ready for his leap of faith, something made him feel uncomfortable, something was wrong, then he saw it... The engine was roaring and its roar could be heard thru the air, X tries to stop but he slipe and lands on his knees, as an helicopter has materialized in front of him, he rapidly stands up, just to see the door that conducts to the roof was being opened and from there several security guards were coming out, the black Apache Helicopter had him on sight, and 50 feet in front of him, the guards were approaching, it seemed like this would be it for him... Suddenly, he felt a familiar sensation, turning around slowly, almost in slow motion, he recognized it, could it be? He gets confused for a second, could it be real? One of the men of the helicopter was motioning for him to approach them, were they waiting for him? The guards notice that and now run to X, there's no time to doubt, there's no room for indecision, it is a matter of seconds... Live to see another day behind an armored glass, with your memories taken away, or risk your life, attempting to live as free as possible... There is no room for indecision... There's no time to doubt... It was a matter of seconds...

He took impulse, and sprinted, he ran as fast as he could, once he reached the edge, he used all the strength he could, he relied on every single cell in his body to attempt to conquer freedom, everything surrounding him was frozen, he was flying... His body was one with the wind, looking down, the ocean, enlighted by an enigmatic moon, for a moment, he saw freedom too far away, for a moment, freedom was nothing that a dream, unattainable for someone who wasn't living in a dream anymore... He was falling, he could feel the guards behind him looking at him with surprise and awe, getting ready to see the man fall to the ocean and have his body destroyed by the fall and his remains devoured by the sharks... It was one of those moments in which you see your life go thru your eyes... For the first time in ages, X remembered his whole life as he was preparing to leave his mortal coil... But sometimes, for some reason, someone else gets to decide for us... This is one of those times... A saviour extends his arm and holds X's hand, X was now hanging off the helicopter as it was taking off

"Gotcha!"

X is helped to get into the helicopter, as it abandons the facility, he feels confused and at the same time in home, what does this mean? He turns around and listens to a conversation

"Target Retrieved, we're returning now"

X simply leaned his head back closing his eyes, he felt like he was waking up from a nightmare

---

"Did we get him?"

"Yes sir"

"He failed the undercover mission almost three years ago"

"We examinated him, an accident happened during his stay on that place"

"Accident?"

"A car wreck sir, it made him forget"

"Forget what?"

"His memory is like a computer, it's controlled in segments or sectors, when the accident happened some of these "Sectors" were locked, so, in a way we can say he didn't remember he had a mission, he could have believe his cover was actually real"

"Are you implying that a killing machine was on the loose for 2 and a half years with no control or supervision whatsoever?"

"Yes sir"

"Was the Killer Trigger activated during then?"

"Several times sir, but he would claim to have another entity inside of him, the Killer Trigger to him was simply something else inside of him"

"The Icon Of Sin..."

"Precisely, he was in denial of his own strength, so to make it easier, he decided to create an entity that would control him, a more vile and aggresive entity that would go around slaning anyone opposing him"

"Good God... If I knew this was gonna end like this, I'd have never sent him against Jakub Lee"

"Are you gonna do something about him?"

"We might need to cancell him..."

"Uhh... Sir?"

"Yes?"

"About that cancellation, I don't think it can be done"

"Why is that?"

"He's no longer in his chamber..."

"God dammit... Find him! If someone else finds about him or his complete story, we'll be fucked!"