"Don't worry, I don't plan on fencing your brother's nerdy artifacts." And that was that, the matter dismissed with a quick wave of his hand. Old shit didn't always mean Alec got his money worth for all the trouble he went through to get it in the first place. "But dinosaurs are new, even for me." Sure, they'd churned out the occasional transgenic where the soldiers had looked more reptilian than the average human could, but even Nomlies had a purpose. Dinosaurs though? "Sounds like this place likes to keep you on your toes."
This tongue flicked out to lick his lower lip, and he leaned back in his chair to get a better look at the other man seated next to him. "You're really not Ben, are you? Or some early prototype they didn't perform to their satisfaction?" But Alec already knew the answer to that. He'd be dead. Scrapped. "Look, about Ben [...] Fuck. Alright, look. We were created for a black-ops military project. As kids, we were [...]" Hell, why did his glass have to be empty, was there a bottle somewhere - and Alec angrily nudged at it. "Taught to kill. Cold, efficiently. Happily." Alec grimaced painfully at those memories flooding back in.
"Ben was in a different unit. And best as I can piece together what happened, when we were nine, a soldier - a kid - was in mid-seizure and was terminated." Alec grimaced again. "Killed. They escaped that night. And life for their twins -" Alec lazily gestured at himself with a smirk. "Got harder. We were discouraged from fraternizing. We suddenly slept apart. We were thrown into PsyOps to ensure our allegiance to Manticore."
"And when Ben turned out to be a serial killer, you can imagine what happened to me. Again."