Chapter Text
“There is no time, Wrecker. Plan 99.”
“Don’t you do it, Tech.”
“When have we ever followed orders?”
“No!”
Hemlock stood on the observation deck, watching the beginnings of his new Clone X program. Clones filed in one by one in the faintly lit room below him- one hunched over, shivering. The sight caused a displeased frown to form on Hemlock’s face. That display would be broken out of him soon enough. The new conditioning process he had designed seemed to yield his expected results so far. There were a few complications, but nothing not already expected. He knew it would take time for the clones to completely surrender their loyalty, especially a specific clone piquing his interest.
CT-9904, as Nala Se had called him, but he was aware of the clone’s preferred name: Crosshair. So far, he had resisted the majority of the conditioning. Hemlock admired his will. He had lasted longer than Hemlock thought anyone could. Then again, the clone was once a part of a unique, elite squad. His arms crossed behind his back as a smile tilted the corner of his mouth, rubbing his thumb along the rim of cracked goggles. He was careful not to cut himself on the pointed shards.
There were still traces of blood on them.
CT-9904, or Crosshair- Hemlock wasn’t sure which name would be more effective yet- may try resisting all he wanted. Hemlock couldn’t wait to see the trick up his own sleeve play out, wondering how long the clone would resist once he saw the new state of his brother. But that would take time. He has quite a bit of healing to do before he’s fit for training. Hemlock knew he would be an exceptional addition to his plan.
He hoped once CT-9904 witnessed his brother willingly submitting to the reeducation, he would do the same. Then, there would be no more outbursts such as this. He sighed, shaking his head, as he watched the clone fight back against a commando. He turned against one of them with the vibroblade they were training with. CT-9904 managed to bring down one, impressive, but two more quickly surrounded him from behind. He fought them off like a wild, cornered animal until, eventually, the commandos got the upper hand. He curled on the floor, protecting his head and stomach as the commandos beat into him until his body went slack.
Two of them each grabbed an arm, dragging him out of sight and back to electroconvulsive therapy. A small puddle of blood left untouched on the ground remained a reminder for the rest that dared entertain the thought of resisting.
“Sir,” Scorch’s voice came through Hemlock’s comm. “We received the trandoshan’s coordinates.”
“Good. Prepare a squad,” he replied, still watching the clones. “I’ll be there shortly.”
It’s a shame the other members of Clone Force 99 would not go through the same process. They would’ve been great assets to the Empire, but he only needed one to convince Nala Se. He turned away just as a clone cried out in the room below, commandos beginning to swarm around him. Everything was falling into place perfectly.
Tech didn’t know where he was. He shifted, causing pain to flare through him—white, hot, agonizing pain seizing every nerve in his body that left him tense. Someone yelped, no, he yelped, he realized. He tried to pinpoint where exactly he was injured, but his whole body throbbed, and his head pounded. Every breath he took felt worse, and it was hard to concentrate. He could hear the hum of a droid nearby, hovering around him. Tech opened his eyes, but only his right eye was functioning properly. A sticky substance covered his left eye. He wanted to wipe it away, but his arms weren’t moving. He couldn’t move anything but his fingers.
Tech grunted as he struggled to turn his head. He could feel his heart pound as he took in his surroundings. A silent but aching boom boom boom in synch with the pounding in his skull. He’s strapped to some sort of machine. His head fell back against hard steel, too weak to hold it up anymore, and the painful pounding worsened. Boom, boom, boom. His breath hitched. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He tried to think and remember, but all his thoughts muddled together. He had been falling and- his head ached so badly. The left side hurt too much when he tilted it that way.
A droid floated above him, flashing a medical scan.
“He may not survive the process,” a mechanical voice said.
Tech registered the meaning enough for his fear to increase, even if he didn’t know what that process was.
Boom, boom, boom.
The next voice sounded more human. “No,” whoever it was spoke calmly, sending a chill up his spine. “He’s in the perfect condition.”
Then pain burst against his temples, overtaking his senses, and he screamed. It didn’t stop even though he begged it to. Tech tried to get away. He moved his head and fought against the restraints, but the shocks never stopped. His vision slowly blackened. He could feel his mind letting go.
He woke up to pain coursing through his head, screaming. He screamed until his throat was raw, and all he heard was the shocks of electricity hitting him. Eventually, it stopped, but he knew it would start again. He tried to look around, but his head felt too heavy to lift. He needed Hunter. Where was Hunter? The shocks would begin again soon, and he needed to get out. Medical droids swarmed around him, tending to his injuries. He barely understood what they said as he kept looking around for his brothers. Crosshair? Wrecker? Echo? Where- where was Omega?
He hoped somewhere far from here.
Wherever here was.
The machine hummed again. Tech tried to slide away, but something held him in place. He screamed again.
The wall was moving. No, that didn’t make sense. He was moving- on a stretcher. They brought him to a blinding white room. Tech cringed away, and something pricked his neck. They left him next to a bacta tank, slipping into unconsciousness.
He woke up to the searing pain again.
He was being tortured, Tech realized, but when did he get captured? Were his brothers here, too? He fought against the restraints, holding his arms. Was- what was her name? He had a sister. What was her name? He sobbed, wishing the shocks would stop. He couldn’t think, couldn’t remember.
What were their names?
Tech knew this.
He did, but the shocks were unbearable. They interfered with his memory, and he couldn’t stop it. He was going to lose everything. Tech fought harder against whatever held him down, but he didn’t have the strength of-
He couldn’t remember.
No, no, he had to. He had to remember. Tech knew his name. The shocks grew more intense.
What was he trying to remember?
Several Weeks Later…
The bacta residue from his recent submergement stuck behind his ears. He lay there for a moment, waiting for his mind and body to wake up, until he lifted a heavy hand to rub off the remaining sticky substance behind his ear. His wrist brushed the soft material of a bacta patch over his left eye as he laid it back down.
“You’re awake.”
A familiar, calm voice came from somewhere nearby. He squinted his good eye so the blurs of color would form into lined shapes, but just barely.
“Your recovery is going steadily. With a few more bacta treatments, you will be fit for training.”
CX recognized the voice now, seeing the blurry outline of someone standing at the foot of his bed. Dr. Hemlock stepped closer to his bedside, and his heart beat faster the closer the doctor got. He slowed his breaths to calm himself before the monitors would give him away, but it was too late.
“You’re anxious again.”
He stopped close enough to him that CX had to tilt his head up to meet Hemlock’s blurry face. He sat up quickly. Laying down left him feeling too vulnerable, and Hemlock noticed.
“You will only be reprimanded if you give me a reason to. You do remember the reason for the last time, yes?”
“I…” His finger lifted and brushed the side of his face as if he were going to adjust correctional lenses that weren’t there.
How odd.
“I questioned who I was.”
CX shut his mouth tightly after replying, keeping himself from asking for answers that he wasn’t given access to. Hemlock’s hand brushed against his forehead, and he stiffened. His eye bandage was ripped off, making him hiss at the sting.
“More specifically, you asked me for your name.” Hemlock’s usual calm and collected voice turned irritated. “Now, why would you ask such a thing?”
“I was confused,” he started without much thought except to answer the question. “Anyone I know of, and even some droids have names. They are aware of who they are- what their purpose is. But I am an outlier. I have no data regarding myself except the injuries that I do not even know how I received. I-”
CX winced at the sting blossoming over his cheek where Hemlock slapped him. He wished his eyesight were better or that he had correctional lenses. He could barely track Hemlock’s hand, making his nails dig into the bedsheets as he struggled to watch it move away.
“Your purpose,” the doctor started slowly. “Is to serve the Empire. Your loyalty is to the Empire and to me. Do you understand?”
No, he did not. Of the few people he knew, he was the only sentient being with no name. He knew countless facts and information stored in his memory about nearly everything but himself. Hemlock backhanded him again without warning, causing tears to well up in his eyes.
“Answer me.”
“Yes,” he gritted out, knowing any other answer would get him nothing but a bruised cheek.
“Say it.”
His mouth closed into a thin line. CX did not know the Empire, so he hesitated to agree. Looking back at his past, loyalties went in vain since he didn’t know what his beliefs were. It was impossible to answer the question truthfully. But he was sure that telling Hemlock he didn’t know would not end this conversation.
He flinched when a gloved hand touched his face. Hemlock’s thumb trailed over his skin, finding the corner of his good eye, and pressed down. He yanked his head back, but Hemlock’s fingers had tangled into his hair and pulled his head closer.
“Don’t think I won’t scoop your eye out and replace it with a spare. Disobedience will not be tolerated.”
Hemlock tugged roughly at his hair. He hissed as the doctor pressed against his eye again.
“Say it.”
“How would I know?” CX managed out swiftly as Hemlock’s thumb went deeper. “I don’t know any of the Empire’s policies. I cannot come up with a truthful answer if I know nothing of them.”
He held his breath as he stared at the doctor, waiting to see if the man understood. Hemlock’s grip released.
“I suppose you’re right.”
He drew in a shaky breath as Hemlock stepped away, only for the gloved hand to touch his face again soon, and he flinched away.
Hemlock sighed. “I am sorry.”
The regret in the doctor’s voice made him straighten, peering skeptically at Hemlock from his sudden change in mood.
“You were only answering a question I had asked you. It was wrong of me to get angry.” He sighed again. “I just wish you would let this go. It would make things go much smoother for both of us if you did.”
CX nodded, not knowing what else would be an acceptable answer. All Hemlock had told him was that he was a clone, engineered to serve in a war that no longer existed. The Empire had ended it, saving many lives and species from extinction. He guessed if the Empire had stopped the bloodshed, it could not be so bad.
CX just needed to know more, especially about his own being. He was an experimental clone, he knew, and that the Kaminoans, his creators, had manipulated his DNA to enhance his intelligence. But that was all he knew about himself. All clones were given the name CX, but there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of clones. How could a difference be made between the clones if they were all referred to with the same name?
He was afraid he’d never know anything else. He had tried once, hacking into Hemlock’s database while he was left alone for any information that could tell him more, but Hemlock had been monitoring the screen of any datapad and computer that entered his medical room. The doctor had told him so after commandos had ripped him away from the device and beat him so severely it set his recovery back and then sent him to the machines for extra reeducation.
He hadn’t tried to look again.
Hemlock slipped something around his head and over his eyes. Red tinted his vision, but he could see now. CX winced as it settled on his face, pressing into the still-healing lacerations and bruises around his eyes. He lifted a hand to touch them, but Hemlock smacked it away, adjusting them himself.
“Your left eye has healed enough to not need the bandage, but refrain from touching it. It will risk infection. You’ll begin walking today. Surely, you must be tired of moving around in that chair by now.”
“Yes,” he said eagerly, shifting in his bed just thinking about moving around without a chair or a guard for assistance.
The injuries he’d sustained were severe. Several anterior skull fractures, three broken vertebrae and ribs, compound fractures of the tibia bones on both legs and right femur, along with impalement on his side, nearly missing his small intestine. The severity of his injuries, and most of them being on his left side, made him wonder what had happened for him to be hurt so badly. CX could not remember, of course, and when he dared to ask, Hemlock never gave him any answer besides that he was found this way.
“You’re quite lucky I saved you,” Hemlock had told him during their first encounter. “Not many would go to the lengths I have to ensure your recovery.”
He could not determine if that was true since he had no data on others to compare with Hemlock besides the other doctors and scientists. But they rarely interacted with him besides short commands. Dr. Hemlock had been the only person who stayed long enough to have a conversation with, thus the only person he could gather data on.
“Stand up,” Hemlock ordered, and CX obeyed.
With sufficient practice, he could walk without any hindrances, and he wasn’t dragged by the guards to the electroconvulsive machine; instead, he walked. Feeling his feet hit the ground with each step helped him prepare for what he knew was coming. But still, he felt dread when he walked into the room and saw the machines. CX remembered resisting once, but that had only led to a much longer session. He hadn’t even remembered Hemlock’s name after that until he was told again.
The room looked darker through the red tint of his eyewear. CX went in willingly, though his head already ached before he was even strapped in. The electric shock never hurt any less, no matter how long he went through it, and he’d lost count of how many times it was. At least twice every rotation, sometimes more if he acted out in disobedience. He cried out as the machine zapped through his skull and made his mind muddled until he could not do anything but squirm and yell.
The shocks stopped, and CX gasped as the last of them ran through him. His body trembled under the heavy restraints that kept him in place.
“Do you know why we do this?” Hemlock asked, watching over him as he held his gloved hand.
CX felt his bottom lip tremble as he tried to answer. “Re-re…Reeducation.”
Hemlock hummed. “Yes, but I was looking for something a bit more specific.”
He blinked, trying to gather enough coherent thoughts. CX always had trouble thinking right after the ‘therapy,’ as Hemlock called it.
“What is the reeducation for?” The doctor asked.
CX didn’t know. Maybe he once did, but that knowledge had been zapped away.
“To become efficient and skilled soldiers,” Hemlock said when he hadn’t answered. He moved closer to the machine, standing at CX’s side. “This process, although painful, strengthens you. It is necessary if you are to become a valuable weapon for the Empire.”
Ah, yes. The Empire. CX still was unsure what his loyalty to that meant.
Hemlock went over to the console, and he was freed from the machine.
“Take him back to his room and bring the others in.”
His balance swayed as he stepped out of the machine, rubbing his head. A commando came up behind him, pushing him roughly. CX stumbled forward, looking over his shoulder at the emotionless helmet behind him with a scowl. He was pushed again. This time, he nearly tripped over his own feet.
“Get going.”
CX huffed but obeyed. They took the lift down and walked through the halls until they reached his new room. It looked more like a small cell, with only a bunk and a toilet, closed in by a door that opened and closed out of his control. He hadn’t time to enter before the commando shoved him in. CX collapsed on his bunk and stayed there, too tired to move, and his head ached too much.
He looked through the holes in his cell door as the commando left and heard several other doors open. Clones lined the hallway, walking in a single file to where he had just left, right by him. CX wished them the best, knowing where they were going. He nearly found the strength to roll over and face the wall so he could rest. Until he saw him pass by.
The clone that looked more like himself than the others- an experimental clone- with a tattoo around his eye.
A Crosshair.
Pain spiked in his head, making him wince, but CX scooted closer to the edge of his bunk. He remembered him, his brother. Something twisted in his stomach as Crosshair passed his cell, going where CX couldn’t see him. Crosshair never noticed him; CX was too focused on watching him during that sliver of a moment to get his attention. Seeing his brother here was always something CX forgot until the same line of clones passed by his cell, and he saw that tattoo.
He didn’t know why he called the tattooed clone Crosshair. Hemlock told him that all clones were named CX and nothing else, but he knew, even if he didn’t remember why, that his name was Crosshair.
CX had a brother, and he thought he may have more. Maybe a sister, too. He wasn’t sure, but if they were real, he missed them greatly.