Chapter 4: Part 2, Home

"Wake up!" A voice called out, seeming as if it came from a great distance. The child closed his eyelids and tried to retreat into the darkness of sleep from which he was rudely awakened. "It's time to get ready for school." The father stated sternly. Cold violet lights began to intrude upon his sleep weary eyes, causing him to flinch reflexively. He fought off the painfully bright lights and struggled to bury his face in sheets which weren't there.

"Me!" The child said in frustration and immediately regretted it as it grabbed the father's attention.

"Did you just say something?" He asked curiously, but when the child didn't reply his demeanor abruptly changed to anger and a harsh slap split the silence. "What did you just say?"

The child let out the only word it knew "Me!" It was a word of childhood entitlement that encompassed everything within his world. Patchworks' lips curled back in a growl as his eyes flared open "Meeeee!" The scolded child within lashed out fighting the restraints which tethered Patchwork to the cold steel table. The iron manacles bit into his wrists as he reached in vain for the figure that hovered just outside the ring of light that surrounded him. After a second failed attempt he calmed the rage within and began to look around. Only a small portion of the room was visible but what little he could see had a familiar feel to it. It wasn't until the shadowed figure came into the light that he realized why it seemed so familiar.

A tall man dressed in soiled surgical scrubs walked towards Patchworks prone figure. His eyes were the only aspect of his face which were not covered in protective garments. An unspoken insanity radiated from those intensely black holes. It was that insanity which triggered Patchworks recollection. He was home.

It was a thought devoid of the warm connotations which a home coming usually entails. He was the bastard offspring of an unwilling ancestry and now he was forced to return to the abusive orphanage where he was conceived.

It all came crashing back to him. He remembered the scattered seeds of his consciousness flickering on like so many stars appearing in the night sky. Cut off from experiential reality, the unconnected bits of Patchwork floated in their vital fluids unaware of each other, waiting to be plugged back into existence. As Raimi worked to weave the fabric of grey matter together Patchworks awareness grew. The fragmented memories of each new facet collided in failed understanding as they tried to comprehend their new situation. Flashes of color splashed across his inner eye and electric fire bolted along nervous tissue as Raimi connected the puzzle-brain into its new residence. At first the infighting within his multiconsciousness tore the fragments of sensory data into meaningless shreds. They fired their salvos of neuronal energy like synaptic ICBM's, each trying to overpower the other. These neural ballistics caused Patchworks body to writhe and spasm uncontrollably as the war raged within his head. From beyond the chaos of war within his mind a flood of warmth inserted itself into the center of the battle and a calming armistice forced an uneasy peace.

An injection of T.C.C. had given Patchwork’s mind the respite it needed to knit the fabric of a new consciousness. As it anesthetized his senses a black shroud draped its cimmerian folds around his eyes, he was once again cut off from the world. He delved deep into the recesses of his mind trying to negotiate the convoluted neural paths that formed his new psyche. Forming connections and adding to his consciousness he quickly realized that "He..." wasn't the correct term for his identity. The growing awareness which was Patchwork wasn't male or female, black or white, or even adult or child. It was all at once and yet none of them, it was something which began to refer to itself as "Me..."

As the collective "Me" gained in unity a momentum began to grow as it assimilated every neural connection it encountered. This unity was a tentative one, based out of a necessity for continued existence and at each turn different factions of his mind would try to gain dominance. Even as the drug wore off, Patchwork remained shut down. His mind now had enough self awareness and drive to continue the assembly of identity. He could feel his senses coming back online but chose not to experience these. "Choice...?" Did he even have this option? The last time he felt anything, he was a slave to his warring nervous system.

Through the buzzing needles which bit into every inch of his skin he felt a slight rustle of air around him. Something tickled his cheek as a warm breath fell across his face. It caused him to become acutely aware of the penetrating cold within himself. Slowly he opened his eyes to the barest of slits and found himself face to face with the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Golden strands of hair trailed upwards from his cheek and disappeared as he became lost in the bluest of eyes. They calmed him to the point where it seemed that every part of him swam in their depths. He felt another bolt of warmth as something pressed into his neck and paused there for a moment. It pulled away and was followed by a deep guttural articulation which he couldn’t understand. Yet, he knew this sound, it was the deep rumble of a mans voice. "There’s no pulse Jen, he’s dead..." Patchwork didn’t understand the majority of the garbled undulations but there was something he did grasp. A finger had touched his neck and someone said the word "Dead".

No this couldn’t be right, he knew this word. Death was the end of thought, it was the end of everything. He ran through the volumes of memory crammed into his brain. There were silvery threads which ran through each page of memory and formed the coherency of lives. Some of these threads were short, and some were long, but they all had one thing in common. They all had a beginning... and they all had an end. Then something curious happened, they all began again. Though this time they twisted around each other and formed the roping consciousness that referenced itself as "Me".

Surely he wasn’t dead. His mind contained thoughts, or there was something akin to thought occurring. He had memories, thought these were scattered and disjointed. He was alive, he had to be. Fear forced his eyes wide and again he found himself staring into those azure landscapes. Something was wrong this time. Pale pink lids framed in fair lashes pinched at their corners. Contact had been made and something had changed, she was frightened. He tried to grab her and prevent her from leaving but his muscles wouldn’t respond. All he could do was close his eyes and hope that this was all a dream.

That seemed so long ago. His angel had been replaced by a demon parading in the pretenses of science.

"Can you understand me?" The demon’s surgical masked billowed slightly as he asked his questions. Patchwork shook with frustration and prepared for another assault. Raimi’s hand pulled back and then stopped short of another vicious blow. The gloved hand halted inches from Patchworks cheek and then descended slowly into a gentle caress. Patchwork watched as the corners of those black eyes turned upwards in a smile hidden by his mask. "I thought that you were lost to me never to be heard from again, and here you are. Even speaking, to my delight." Raimi circled the table like a shark after a wounded prey. "How can I be mad... I have everything that I need now to continue my search for the answers which lay within you." Raimi moved in closer to Patchwork, his voice barely above a whisper. "I’ve been busy since you’ve been gone, and I have someone I want to introduce you to..."