Family, a Kyle XY vignette by Glacis. Rated pg13 for violence, no copyright infringement intended.

XY XY XY XY

He’d do anything for his family.

Growing up, it had just been him, his older brother, and his mom. He never knew his dad; didn’t know if the man had run when he found out Sandy was pregnant, or if he never knew. Somewhere in the back of his mind, as a kid, he’d known there was something odd about him and his brother, but different last names were a little thing when your older brother was a genius. It never mattered, that Adam was a Baylin and he was a Foss, that they had different fathers, because they were brothers, and that was all that mattered.

Everybody loved Adam, because that was the kind of guy Adam was. Drop him down in the middle of nowhere and fifteen minutes later he’d have a whole tribe of people helping him out. Tom was never that way, but he didn’t mind, because he adored Adam. His big brother was never too busy with his research to help out Tom, never too busy to deal with nightmares and dreams. Tom was a loner, anyway, more at home in the woods than with people, so Adam was enough for him.

Then Adam went off to college, but that was okay, because Tom still saw him. Then Tom went into the Army, and sometime during Ranger training, Tom disappeared.

By the time he got out, found out, and got home, the shock and stress of it had killed Sandy. At least, that’s what he believed for a long time.

Then he started digging.

The detectives weren’t any use. The eggheads up at the UW weren’t any use. Kern, slimy little bastard, snake-tongued liar that he was, hindered, didn’t help, and that was his biggest mistake.

Well, maybe not his biggest. His biggest was trying to take Kyle back.

On the other hand, maybe his biggest was killing Adam in his insane experiments. Then came trying to take away the only link Tom had left to Adam. Kyle wasn’t Adam, but he was his child, in the only way Adam would ever have children. Child of his DNA.

It took fourteen years of patient digging, in the background, never letting up, never letting his face be known to anyone who might stop him. He’d been covertly observing the research facility for several weeks the first time he saw the man he’d thought was Adam. He knew now that it had been an early clone, but it had been the lead he’d needed. He dug in and got to work.

It was twelve years before he got a job interview at a place that, technically, didn’t exist. That was okay, in a way, because it gave him the time he needed to hack the specific databases and change his name, change his background, change anything that might connect him to Adam. After that, it was just muscle work. Grunt work, ugly work, and he regretted that he’d had to kill a man to get it, but needs must.

His need demanded he did, so he did.

The guard had been careless, and Tom took advantage of it. When he dropped the corpse at the feet of the man in the suit at the head of a dozen heavily-armed security guards, he’d taken his most calculated risk. Months of watching the facility, determining everything he could about the highly-classified genetic engineering work that went on under the cover of razor wire and communication blackouts, had given him the idea, and everything balanced on the outcome of this first direct confrontation.

The man, Cyrus Reynolds, could easily have killed him. Instead, he looked at Tom, looked at the dead security man with the broken neck, and asked, “Why?”

“Figured you’d want him quiet,” Tom answered easily, remaining completely relaxed in the face of enough firepower to wipe him off the planet several times over. “Man had no head for drinking.”

Reynolds stared at him, then nodded once. “What do you want?”

“A job,” Tom told him bluntly.

It worked. The background check came through clean, as he’d made damned sure it would. All the relevant notes of anti-social behavior, ruthless competence, outstanding marks on his military records and no living relatives they could find made him a perfect candidate for the job.

The fact that he’d learned to kill with his bare hands before Kuwait, and proven his willingness to protect their secrets before they were his own, clinched the deal.

The two years that followed were the hardest he’d ever known, in a life filled with subterfuge and pain. The first time he saw the clone numbered 781227, he froze. It was only for an instant, and thankfully no one else saw, but up-close, it was impossible to deny.

The kid was Adam, if Adam was twenty years younger, wiped of all personality, and kept in a cage.

He knew going in, though it was hard to admit, that Adam was dead. He knew, as well, that he’d do whatever it took to get the kid he thought was Adam’s out of that hell hole. When he found out the kid was the most recent of a series of clones, it made his need to get the kid out even more imperative. This wasn’t Adam’s offspring; in a real way, this was all that was left of Adam himself.

Even the best planning gets fucked up, and unfortunately, he’d had to move before he was ready. Four months ago, Tom had overheard something he hadn’t wanted to hear.

Late night, early morning, sometime after midnight and before dawn, after his shift ended, Tom stared at the security feeds he’d piggy-backed his own feeds from. One thing his resume never showed was how adept he was at using electronics. It was a good thing. The only thing that kept him a step ahead, sometimes. This time, it caught Ferguson, passing a death sentence on 781227.

“The next generation is nearly ready for implementation,” Ferguson told the man on the video screen. Tom never had been able to find out the man’s name. His face was in shadows, his voice distorted. If Tom ever found him, he would kill him.

“Terminate the previous lot.”

The screen went blank and Ferguson turned back to his desk. Tom saw a look of satisfaction on his face, that of a man who’d done his job well. He wanted to break that look off that face, and every bone in the skull while he was at it. But he didn’t have time.

The building where the cages were kept was not difficult to enter, and he’d long before mapped out the best way to get in without being seen by the cameras. He input a single code caused a small feedback loop to the monitoring system, just long enough to short the circuit to the lock on 781227’s cage.

Big blue eyes looked at him, uncomprehendingly. He put a finger to his lips, signifying silence, and 781227 kept his mouth shut. The door opened, and Tom reached out his hand. 781227 looked at it, looked at Tom’s face, searched his eyes, then slowly reached out to put his hand in Tom’s.

The escape was a blur, in some ways. There was no time for finesse, only speed. Tom had planned ahead as much as he could, but he’d had to take his chance before he was ready, in order to save the boy’s life. So it was that he ran, 781227’s hand clutched in his, through the shadows to his truck.

Moments stood out in stark clarity. Pushing the boy to the foot well of the truck and throwing a blanket down over him before they came to the first camera position, praying the shadows would camouflage the quivering lump until they got out the gate. Sliding his identification card through lock box at the side gate, giving the gate guard a friendly grunt before driving into the night, thanking any god that was listening that the alarm hadn’t yet gone off. Then they were out. Tom Bayne ceased to exist and Tom Foss came back into being.

Unfortunately for both of them, they had a tagalong. Bill Kern, the son of a bitch that led Adam to his death in the name of science and personal glory, had hidden in the bed of the pickup. Fortunately for Tom, not for Bill, the trees screwed up cell transmission long enough for Tom to catch a glimpse of him.

He threw the wheel to the side, slewing the truck off the narrow muddy path and into the trees. The impact threw 781227 into the side window, and he looked at Tom with big, wounded eyes.

“Stay here,” Tom ordered.

Of course, he didn’t. So he got a close-up view as Tom fought Bill Kern, fought to keep them from taking the kid back only to kill him… fought to kill at least one of the bastards responsible for his brother’s death. For a little guy, and an academic, Kern fought like mad, but then, he knew he was fighting for his life, so his desperation gave him strength.

Not enough. Not in the face of Tom’s hatred and rage, and determination to protect.

He finally threw Kern off, and shot him, twice to make sure. Tom looked over and saw 781227, clutching the blanket around himself, shaking as much from shock as cold. Tom opened his mouth to say something, anything, then froze.

In the distance, through the trees, he saw lights and heard the sounds of truck engines.

Damn it. They were too close. He couldn’t take the boy now. If they caught up, he and 781227 would both be killed.

He made the snap decision to be the diversion, instead. Pushing 781227 into the truck, he ignored the small distressed noises the boy made and turned on the engine. As he bumped down the track, peering into the darkness trying not to hit a tree because he didn’t dare put on the headlights, he glanced over at 781227.

“Listen to me, son,” he said quietly, putting as much command into his voice as he could. “I have to leave you here-”

“No!” the boy interrupted, but Tom forged on.

“If they find us, they’ll kill us. I’ll draw them off. You need to go into the woods. Do you understand me? Go as far into the woods as you can. Get away from the lights. Go until you don’t hear anyone at all. Then you’ll be safe.”

He stopped only long enough to push the kid out the door. 781227 stared over his shoulder at him, scared eyes under messy black hair, and Tom hissed, “GO!” He barely waited to see the blanket-clad form disappear into the trees before he gunned the engine.

They were nearly in Auburn when he lost them in the hills around the little lakes that dotted the landscape. He’d grown up in the area, knew it like the back of his hand, and he’d used that.

He’d gone to ground, then, only coming out a week later, and discovered his boy had a new home, a new family, and a new name.

Kyle.

Now, because he hadn’t been able to stop it, Kyle was remembering too much. Tom had done everything he could to keep Kyle safe. He’d found a homeless man, murdered him, framed him for Kern’s death; the detective on the case bought it. He’d gotten a job as a security officer at the community where the family lived, but he’d gotten caught laying the cameras in their home, and the woman, Mrs. Trager, had complained. The husband got him off the route that covered their house, but Tom had gone back anyway, let Mrs. Trager know she could count on him if she needed help, and gone back to his watch.

Then the shit hit the fan. Kyle somehow remembered the coordinates of the research facility and went back. After everything Tom had done to get him out of hell, his infernal curiosity had nearly put the boy right in his grave. Tom caught up with him, though the kid moved a hell of a lot faster than Tom expected, and managed to pull him off the fence. Did a little damage control, told him a few home truths… like the fact that if he kept looking to his past, he’d get his entire foster family killed. Tom hoped it would be enough.

Then he’d disappeared again, and gone back to watching. From the conversation between the girl, her boyfriend, the parents, and Kyle, it was obvious Kyle was going to protect them. And in so doing, protect himself.

Watching the cameras, Tom mentally reviewed the security set-up at the research facility. There was a chance, a strong one, that they might have been seen when he pulled Kyle off the fence. If that was the case, they’d be coming after Kyle. They’d probably be low-key, at first, use the ‘amnesia’ as a way to put in some ringers, claim the boy was theirs, then get him back to the facility and terminate him. If that didn’t work, they’d bring in a wet work team and take out the family. Make it look like a random nutcase.

Either way, Tom would be there. He didn’t break his nephew out of hell just to lose him again. He would do everything he possibly could to save Kyle.

Because he couldn’t save Adam.

And Kyle was the only family Tom had left.

END