Part 5 of 'What we're dealt....'
Here's part five, the plot thickens!
“Where am ah?” Richards met her frightened gaze, readying his lie and moving closer to her to make her believe what he was going to tell her.
“You’re in a secure facility for mutants, a little out of the way but nowhere dangerous. Your perfectly safe here.”
Marie watched the man talk, he inclined his head to her as he spoke, his eyes never leaving her own for a second, even his demeanour was calm and relaxed.
“What do they want with me?” Richards moved back now, giving himself a little room now, he knew why she was here but she wasn’t going to know the details of it.
“Now that even I don’t know, all I was asked to do was pick you up. I’m not much more than a glorified go-fer.” He smiled his best ‘I just work here’ smile, the one where it softened his eyes just a touch, he saw her lose a little fear about him after that. “What about you? Where are you from originally?” She hesitated for a few seconds her fingers touching the silver necklace through the thin plastic before answering him.
“Meridian, kind of left in a hurry though,” he noticed her tears beginning, she didn’t get flustered just sad, nodding he reached out toward her hand on the plastic. Noticing she snatched her hand away from his, her eyes filled with fear, not for her for him, her voice trembling with it as she spoke to him.
“Ah’m dangerous to you, you can’t touch me. Ah’ll hurt you if you do, an ah don’t want to hurt you.” Her reaction almost made him stop, she was concerned for his safety not her own, he moved his hand back but not entirely away. Showing her he wasn’t afraid of her or her skin, looking at her tear-streaked face he decided to go for the information he needed.
“Have you always been a mutant?”
Her eyes grew cold as she looked at him, expecting him to move when she’d told him she could hurt him, when he hadn’t Marie had begun to wonder why. Her suspicions were growing but about what she didn’t know, just that it felt wrong to have someone in here with her letting her ask questions if it was somewhere she was in danger. Yet she’d never have another chance as good as this one to ask what she wanted to know. Swallowing her nerves she looked at the shabby man seated next to her bed, she could touch him if he tried to hurt her.
Deciding to answer him Marie began her story, telling him about her visit to the clinic for her father’s friends, her test and the switching on of her mutation, the one thing she didn’t even know she was. Until now, her own mind had been wondering about what Doctor Howard had said, that she thought it was a self defence mechanism of her body to keep her and the baby safe. She voiced that to Richards, his face creased as he followed her logic, “So you think it might go when the baby is born?” Marie nodded and held her hands over the proud bump that hid her child from the world.
Richards took that into account, if the doctor wasn’t sure about the mutation in the mother then the child may not inherit anything from either parent. He knew from the file on her that she’d shown no mutant power up until the first trimester of her pregnancy. Could the whole thing actually be from the donor? He’d just found out that the donor’s genetics didn’t mix well with normal humans so she might have been lucky in one sense but damned in another.
At least the child she was carrying seemed normal enough, he was about to continue when the door opened to the room, a trolley came in with a female orderly. The lunch wagon was here, the camera in the ceiling flicked back to life and he got up to leave, the rattle of the trolley covering his cursing. He turned to see Marie looking at the food trolley with almost relief in her gaze, if he’d pushed her any further he might have blown it with her. She needed to believe someone and he’d be the one she’d believe, he cast her a warm smile and pointed to her food, “Make sure you eat all that, we want you to be healthy, both of you. If you have any more questions just ask for Richards, the soldiers will find me and I’ll come to talk to you okay?” Marie took the plastic plate in her hands her mind telling her she might have an ally in the man who’d come to see her. Hope surged as he left the room, she might have someone else to get information from but if she could trust it was another matter entirely.
The orderly was about to leave when Marie got her attention, “Excuse me but do you know Richards. The man who was in here when you came in?”
The orderly just looked at her as if she’d asked if the sky was green, “Honey I don’t know everyone here but as far as I know he’s only been here as long as you have. Come up with you and went back for the other one.” She was fishing out the dinner menu when Marie saw her opportunity.
“Other one?” Her hand covered in plastic took the menu, protecting the orderly form her bare touch. Looking at Marie she came a little closer to point out something on the menu but her voice was telling her something entirely different.
“Don’t know who he is but they say he’s chained down like an animal, Rudy takes food down to him. Liquid food. He don’t say much about him but Rudy don’t like it, he’s a good man Rudy but he’s going to get himself fired if he’s not careful about what he says and to who.”
“Fired?”
“Yeah honey, fired. An I don’t mean with severance pay either.” The look that passed between them both made Marie’s blood run cold, the things she’d been told were no longer fun. It didn’t feel like a game to get one over on the people who were holding her here, it was survival. No one was trusted, even the staff, they were miles away from anywhere and anything could happen to her, the orderly plucked her card out of her covered fingers and spoke loudly to the camera watching above.
“SO that’s the salad, pork, mashed sweet potato and cheesecake with grapefruit juice, big order there honey, just hope you can stomach it all. Eating for two huh?” The woman had her back to her so she couldn’t see the pale reflection of Marie in the room. It was a risk to hope that Jeff Richards really was on her side, but if one person was couldn’t another be?
She wasn’t hungry but she ate anyway, a small call button was plugged in after her lunch so she could call for a nurse if she needed help. Her baby’s life and her own would have to rely on others for a while and for that she needed to trust her instincts about who she could trust and who she didn’t. At the moment all she knew was that she was locked up somewhere no-one knew or cared about, the father of her child was here as well and that was a priority to find out about. How she did it was another matter entirely.
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There were irons on his wrists, forearms and shoulders, forcing his eyes to open in the glare of the room he made out the shapes that were moving around him, the white of their clothing made his voice box rumble with hatred. They stopped work immediately leaving him alone, a single solitary figure approached him, a familiar scent filling his nostrils. He knew this one, this was one who’d caused him pain and his growl deepened, words he half understood made their way into his consciousness.
“Get him washed, take out the stomach tube, from now on he gets hand-fed. When he’s aware I want at least one person with him at all times and the physio machine running, he needs exercise to build his strength up. Get yourselves ordered into a rotation, I’ll take the morning shift, we’re collecting new sperm samples tomorrow for analysis.”
The movement of his bed from prone to vertical made his head spin for a moment, light dimmed somewhat for him and he took his first look at the face that had caused him so much pain. Mousy blonde hair, cut short in a bob that aged the face, dark circles under the washed out blue of the eyes. A face that watched every movement of his own body with obvious glee, she moved closer to him so he could sense the sickness radiating from her. A scent that told him of her dying body, of the corruption hiding just beneath the surface of her skin, she was death walking and his body was repelled by her.
Flexing his muscle to move away from her, seeing her eyes follow the movement and her smile waxy and pale filling her tired eyes. “Nice to have you with us Wolverine, I’m sure our distinguished leader would like to meet you at last.” She turned away from him as she moved around the bed he was on, her hands redoing the straps and ties that kept him to the bed securing him properly before risking her bosses exposure to him.
Fury was building inside his mind, scenes of depravity, pain, torture, humiliation at the hands of soldiers dressed in green, of being held down while he was beaten unconscious. The scent of ammonia filling his nose as they pissed all over his bruised and battered form, knowing he should be able to get up and fight back but his body couldn’t. Their laughter filling his ears as they dragged him outside, the snow cold on his battered skin, numbing the aches they’d given him. Leaving him outside to freeze as night fell, his naked body trying to keep warm as he shivered, the pain almost making him black out as each wave went through him. Frost-bitten he’d been left in a cold dank cell to recover, his body eating muscle mass to repair the damage. Pissing blood for days, his body too tired to digest whatever they threw at him, throwing it back up as soon as it touched his stomach.
That’s when ‘he’d’ come, the soft toned voice that made his nightmares flare into life, the things he’d done to him made the abuse he’d suffered so far feel normal. Stripping him of his mind, his humanity, his manhood, taking everything that was left of him until there was nothing left but the animal. Then the burning had begun, the testing of his body, the strength he had left being sapped away by ‘treatments’, his own body becoming heavier even though he could barely raise his head anymore without help. Then finally he’d snapped, losing his sense of self, of life itself, retreating after years of abuse, the final straw the sight of the blades in his arms. No longer human, no longer fighting the pain or darkness that covered his mind, losing himself in the animal they wanted him to be, Wolverine. Everything lost to the darkness that raged through his skull, to the world he was an animal to be used, trained, taught to act human until his skills were needed, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a mutant killer.
It was this face that he showed to the man who walked into the room, his small frame glowing with pride as he walked toward his bed. Lunging forward he listened to the voice that had haunted his nightmares, the soft cultured tone forming each word carefully knowing full well he could understand him. “Well, we have you back to your old self, Wolverine. I think if you continue to progress the way you have over the last week we should have you back in the program in just under a month.”
The face leaned closer so he could scent the pleasure radiating from his skin and his nostrils flared with the familiar scent making him test the restraints on him further, his flesh parting as he strained to get at the man who taunted him with his closeness. Seeing the blood flowing from his prize the man turned to the doctor who was watching the interaction between them, “Doctor if you don’t mind I’d rather the restraints were padded, we don’t want him doing himself an injury before we start work again.” The small pale hand reaching out, caressing his cheek, the snap of his own teeth barely missing the hand that was touching his skin, making it creep as the touch swept over the healthy surface. Letting go he turned his back on him talking to the doctor the words reaching him through the haze of hatred, “Make sure you feed him properly doctor, I want him back to his original weight before the month is out. We have a lot of work ahead of us and I need him fit to do it.”
His gaze landed on his strapped and naked form, eyes caressing every inch of him as if he were a lover, “We have so many things to do him and I, improving on nature takes time and effort, I have the effort doctor but not the time. Do I make myself clear?” He heard the female tormentor answer, watching him leave the sterile room smiling as he went, the scent of pleasure wafting toward him as the door closed on him.
Cut off from his view of the one he wanted to kill Wolverine howled, the song filled with rage and pain, echoing through the entire complex, making new-borns echo their fathers cries, mothers to be shaking in fear as the sound reached them. Marie a few corridors away heard the sound, it filled her with a terror she couldn’t understand but her instincts could. It was the sound of the dark, of the thing that lurks just outside the firelight, the killer that hunts the weak, old and very young. Wrapping herself around her baby Marie tried to shut out the howls that were coming from somewhere close by, her mind telling her that it could be her next. Falling to sleep her dreams were filled with scenes of wolves hunting over the snow, chasing her down, but their teeth never bit her, they just surrounded her, the sound she’d heard echoing through her room filling her dream and driving her deeper into sleep. Escaping the reality by running into her mind, where at least she had some control and she was taking whatever she could get.
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“What do you know?” Carter was still annoying, he could hear a mouse fart at fifty feet so he had no chance at sneaking up on him but he still tried. Richards sat himself in front of the desk that Carter occupied here at the base, running his hand through his now clean hair he ordered his thoughts.
“The girl doesn’t know anything about the donor, she’s a dupe, just like the rest of them here. She has no idea of who or what he is and why she’s here, or even where she is.”
“So she’s stupid?”
He shook his head as he undid the button on the shirt he’d borrowed from a closet in the barracks, “No, she’s smart. Street smart though, she knew to go by back roads, to stay low off the main radar. She got caught by thinking about her kid, she wasn’t a mutant to begin with so she learned to keep herself low. Using the spray plaster was a good idea to cover her mutation.”
Carter looked through him, “Her mutation is her skin, she drains the life from people who touch her, so she covered whatever skin was on show with a thin barrier of plastizied starch. Her skin could breathe but she was protected from random touching.” Carter nodded as he saw the sense of her decision, something that had allowed her to move safely and quickly through places she might be at risk otherwise.
“What about her child?”
Richards moved forward to look Carter in the eye, his gaze questioning, “Well that’s a bit of a quandary for us.” Carter looked through him again making him fill the silence, “Doctor Howard seems to think that her own mutation was triggered by the donor’s genetic material. She might not retain the mutation after the child is born, that is if it’s born normal.” Carter’s eyebrow lifted skyward, this was the cue for him to elucidate, “The sister was very helpful about this part, seems like our man in charge hasn’t been very honest with you or the guys running this show. The sister told me there were twelve occupants here needing attention but the rosta at the nurses station had nearly forty names on it. Seems like the experiment goes a little further than anyone realised, the children don’t live long, that’s those that actually make it to being born. And those that do aren’t entirely ‘viable’.” His mouth almost spat the word ‘viable’ across the desk into Carter’s lap, Carter steepled his fingers as he moved back in his chair.
“Go on.”
“Seems like the ones who do survive end up as guinea pigs for the rest, the non-viable that is. The ones who don’t look human.” He’d been down to the labs, gone on a security inspection at the orders of the man seated opposite him. What he’d seen had turned his stomach, babies being dissected on marble blocks, small tiny organs being removed into jars for further study. Some were still living, he’d seen their eyes follow him across the room as he’d been dressed in the green smock everyone else had been in. They’d been neutered, their humanity stripped away, they were specimens to be studied, labelled and pickled. Their shapes were horrific and now he knew why the women had been crying, each one had been breast fed for the first few weeks until their systems had begun to fail. They’d had every chance at survival but the genetic mix had failed and the bodies of the children were malformed or had no feeling at all.
“I saw two children who looked human, were ‘viable’ but they were sickly. Locked up in quarantine, not even barrier nursing to help them, everything has to be sterilised before they can have it near them otherwise they’ll die. They have little or no immune system to speak of, they’re useless unless you want a soldier who can fight from a plastic bubble.” He felt dirty still, even after showering for nearly an hour he could still feel the dirt under his clothes, it made him angry and he couldn’t be angry, not yet. There’d be time soon enough if he was right about the reason for Carter being here but for that he had to ask a few questions of his own.
“Permission to speak freely sir?” Carter nodded his assent, he knew Richards would want some answers soon and he’d give him as much as he could. “What are you doing here sir? Someone of your experience it doesn’t ring true to me and it shouldn’t to the rest of the security service either.” Carter fixed him with a cold stare, his face didn’t change as he leaned forward on his elbows crowding Richards with his bulk.
“What else would you expect from a disgraced former operative commander? A ‘welcome home all is forgiven’, no you get sent here, sent to look after the dirty laundry because someone has just as much on you as you have to deal with here. It’s not a job Richards, it’s a reprieve from ‘retirement’. Thing is you shouldn’t always believe what you read in reports or on the gossip vine, you know that yourself. You were at Farah, you know how important it is to get the facts straight.”
Richards almost swallowed his tongue, Farah had been a total fuck-up, a small insurgent force had been found according to the local militia. So they’d gone light, what they’d found was a whole regiment of Taliban fighters as well as a training camp. They’d just managed to get out with two vehicles out of the eight they’d brought, fifteen men cut down before they’d even had a chance to react to what was in front of them. He’d taken a shot to the shoulder himself and after that he’d made sure he knew exactly what he was getting into in Afghanistan, always checking every report with aerial photographs if possible. The entire thing had changed the way they’d reacted to reports from so-called ‘friendly’s’, thing was some ‘friendly’s’ were actually spies sent from the warlords to infiltrate villages. Letting them win a few minor battles and get some credibility before sending a bunch of soldier’s to their deaths in ambush.
Carter was telling him that he was the same, just because he looked the part didn’t mean he ‘was’ the part, Carter had always trusted him, given him assignments that he didn’t want anyone else near. Things that needed his ‘skill’s’, he seemed to have a sense for the work, to pick up on lies, to ‘feel’ out someone who was different or odd. That was why he questioned the removal of his then boss over a year ago and the rumours that had come out about his swindling of the government resources he had. Richards knew Carter and it wasn’t right, he’d spoken out but he’d been slapped down and demoted, sent on every crap job going, even this one, which had been countersigned by his section head. A pick-up job for a branch of the military, he’d complained until he’d seen the request, it had come from further up the line, almost as high as you could get. That was when he’d started questioning about who’d requested him and he’d been answered when he’d walked into that office to give his report about the crash.
The crash, there was still something niggling him about it and finally he saw it, there had been three guards at the roadside when he’d first come back with the girl, when they’d come with the donor there’d been four. That was what was odd, the guards had moved and acted as if they didn’t know the other one, they looked to the ones they knew and not to the new guard. The new guard hadn’t been one of those who’d helped them out of the ditch but every guard had been scrambled. That was the difference, “Sir I think we’ve been infiltrated here, I remember now what the thing was, what was odd, a guard at the gate, one who wasn’t there the first time I came in and was there the second time. When we crashed they weren’t there, even when all the guard on the gate was sent for, they weren’t there!” Carter smiled as he handed a gun over the desk to him.
“Keep it out of sight, use it *only* if you have to. Keep yourself near the one you brought in, she’s important if she’s the only one with a viable child. On no account should any harm come to her, shield her if necessary.” Carter’s words made no sense whatsoever to him, he’d asked him earlier to get as much information out of her as possible by any means necessary and now he was asking him to lay down his life if necessary to protect her.
Hiding the gun on his body he looked into his superiors gaze and saw a little fear showing there and if he was feeling fear then he should be out of his mind with it. “Sir, why the change of order?” Carter’s face was grim when he replied the light had gone from his eyes and a gauntness had replaced his usual full features.
“Because I’d rather be remembered as a Schindler than a Mengle Jeff, because this is how it starts. You’ve heard the rumours, seen the little gold insignia on the soldiers here, I can’t save everyone when whatever goes down goes down. But you’ll be clear enough from this to come out clean enough to have a conscience again, me I’ll just have to take what comes down the line.” He moved back and straightened himself, the shadows retreating a little from his eyes, “So make yourself useful to me and keep your eyes and ears open for our little intruder, something tells me they’re still here.”
Richards knew how serious it was and how deep he was in it, Carter had used his first name, he’d only ever used that the day he’d thought he was going to die in Farah. Telling him that he could die on his own time but not on his, and he was on his time, almost shouting it at him as he’d laid there on the jeep hood flying over the ground. His shoulder wound staining the brown of the jeep bright red and Carter screaming at him to stay awake, using his first name to get his attention back on him.
Leaving the office he had his orders and he’d follow them to the letter.
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The days passed in a kind of order, the only visible sign of change was the food. As she got nearer her due date the portions became smaller and lighter, she talked to the orderlies that moved her and gave her exercise. Strapping the little muscle stimulators to her body and setting them going, she still didn’t get out of bed much, only to have her baby scanned which seemed to be on odd occasions to her. Blood, faeces and urine were tested daily, there were books she could read if she wanted to, puzzles, games, everything but tv and talk to other patients.
Throughout it all she did as she was asked, as she was told but the flame of mutiny was still alive and well inside her. She was sure she wasn’t more than a month away from her delivery date when the sound of gunfire reached her ears. She was still strapped into her bed when her door opened she was almost frantic when she saw who it was. Jeff was there, his hand was holding a gun and he was coming her way, her mind refused to believe what she was seeing, she’d talked to him when she’d seen him. He’d dropped by usually when the lunch was being served to see if she had any more questions he could answer. She’d asked about the scream she’d heard that night, the one that had haunted her dreams ever since. He hadn’t answered her but he’d told her about the other women here, that she wasn’t alone there were others who were going through the same thing as her, giving her hope.
Now he was here with a gun and a serious face, he moved like lighting and went to the ties on her bed. Throwing them off he left her to get out of bed herself, her muscles weren’t used to moving quickly. She did manage to get upright but her legs weren’t used to the extra weight of the baby, she almost buckled and he caught her around the waist. “Come on little mama, we’re getting you out of here.” He went toward the door his hand reaching for it when it opened on it’s own, the gun the soldier was holding was already firing as he raised it at them both. Richards threw both of them to the floor as the gunfire went over them both, using the hand at her hip he fired twice into the soldier. Blood fountained from the wounds, the trigger finger still clutched the gun sent bullets everywhere in the room. Behind the dead soldier something big was happening in the corridor, people in black were running into every room on the corridor. Taking out the occupants under cover of their friends who were keeping the rest of the soldiers at bay. One looked behind at the two of them but he never got to shout his warning to the rest as Richards fired once into his skull. The blood spattered his compatriots who were having a hard enough time handling the people in black.
Marie didn’t have time to think, she just let Jeff take her, he pulled her down the second corridor, past the kitchens, into the storage area. Opening a store cupboard he pushed her inside, “STAY HERE! I’ll find us a safe way out.” He shut the door on her then the thought of doing as she was told went straight out of her head, this was her chance at getting out and she was going to take it.
As soon as she was sure he’d gone she opened the door, she had no idea where she was going but away from the fighting seemed a good idea. Her feet were bare as she padded down the silent corridor, the doors all looked the same to her but the floor was a different matter altogether. Tracks told her which was the heaviest wear on the tile and she followed them, leading her toward danger instead of away.
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He’d been tested, burned, skinned, drowned, milked like a bull, stretched to test the resilience of his ‘improvements’, electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, until he was sick of the sight of humans. The female doctor hadn’t been with him when he’d been tested, she’d always collected him afterward, making sure he ate, that he was as fit as he could be while her own health deteriorated. She had him strapped up into his bed as usual when the gunfire reached her ears, the sound making her own guards run off to find where the incursion had come from and why the alarm hadn’t sounded. For the first time in a month she was alone with him, her eyes glanced over at the door the soldiers had left through. She knew she didn’t have much time but if she was going to do something she had to do it now.
Her mind was on autopilot as she undid the straps that held him down, tears filled her eyes as she remembered the glee she’d seen in her superiors eyes as he’d tortured and ‘improved’ the man she’d cared for. He was a human being reduced to an animal, to a test subject, she’d destroyed everything she could of his samples already. Burning the stockpile of sperm she had, sending out a bogus health warning about the samples she’d sent out telling them they were contaminated and any progeny should be aborted as soon as possible.
Snapping the last one out of it’s socket she expected him to move but he didn’t, she shook the bed but he didn’t move. Running around to face him she saw his eyes were shut, his body still as if he expected something to happen to him, the tears obscured her vision as she grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him out of the bed.
She didn’t even feel it, the slide of the blades as they went through her stomach, both sets were buried in her and the purring rumble was the only thing she felt. They vibrated inside her as he opened his eyes to see her for the last time, her hand raised to touch him but he threw her body aside to land under her desk. Bleeding out from the open wound that had been her midriff, she felt nothing and she knew it was better than she deserved. Closing her eyes to the cold that was creeping up into her chest, at least the cancer didn’t kill her, she’d met her own death in her own way, she only hoped her superior would meet the same as she did.
He was free! The sound of battle drew him and he bolted to the doorway and the freedom beyond it, he bounded through the door claws drawn. Too late he saw the small figure just meeting the doors opening, one hand already plunged into a side that was way too big to be an enemy. The body turned and saw the thing that had hurt it, a silent scream was building but the pain was too much to voice. Instinct kicked in and the woman reached out toward him just as he pulled the blades free, her blood running freely down her side. Her nightmare come true, her life leaving her she would take the killer of her child with her.
When she touched him a bolt went through them both, locking their skin together like a magnet and iron, a surge like she’d never felt before went through her. The pain lessening then fading completely, a howling filling her mind too much for her to bear, falling dead away with her hand still connected to her killer. His own mind put out like a light with her touch, her taking everything he had to give, leaving him at the mercy of the people around them both.
Curled around each other, his body laying half over hers, protecting her stomach, his head laying on the cold floor behind her, lost to the world that was crumbling around them. Neither of them realising exactly what they’d be waking upto, if at all.
“Where am ah?” Richards met her frightened gaze, readying his lie and moving closer to her to make her believe what he was going to tell her.
“You’re in a secure facility for mutants, a little out of the way but nowhere dangerous. Your perfectly safe here.”
Marie watched the man talk, he inclined his head to her as he spoke, his eyes never leaving her own for a second, even his demeanour was calm and relaxed.
“What do they want with me?” Richards moved back now, giving himself a little room now, he knew why she was here but she wasn’t going to know the details of it.
“Now that even I don’t know, all I was asked to do was pick you up. I’m not much more than a glorified go-fer.” He smiled his best ‘I just work here’ smile, the one where it softened his eyes just a touch, he saw her lose a little fear about him after that. “What about you? Where are you from originally?” She hesitated for a few seconds her fingers touching the silver necklace through the thin plastic before answering him.
“Meridian, kind of left in a hurry though,” he noticed her tears beginning, she didn’t get flustered just sad, nodding he reached out toward her hand on the plastic. Noticing she snatched her hand away from his, her eyes filled with fear, not for her for him, her voice trembling with it as she spoke to him.
“Ah’m dangerous to you, you can’t touch me. Ah’ll hurt you if you do, an ah don’t want to hurt you.” Her reaction almost made him stop, she was concerned for his safety not her own, he moved his hand back but not entirely away. Showing her he wasn’t afraid of her or her skin, looking at her tear-streaked face he decided to go for the information he needed.
“Have you always been a mutant?”
Her eyes grew cold as she looked at him, expecting him to move when she’d told him she could hurt him, when he hadn’t Marie had begun to wonder why. Her suspicions were growing but about what she didn’t know, just that it felt wrong to have someone in here with her letting her ask questions if it was somewhere she was in danger. Yet she’d never have another chance as good as this one to ask what she wanted to know. Swallowing her nerves she looked at the shabby man seated next to her bed, she could touch him if he tried to hurt her.
Deciding to answer him Marie began her story, telling him about her visit to the clinic for her father’s friends, her test and the switching on of her mutation, the one thing she didn’t even know she was. Until now, her own mind had been wondering about what Doctor Howard had said, that she thought it was a self defence mechanism of her body to keep her and the baby safe. She voiced that to Richards, his face creased as he followed her logic, “So you think it might go when the baby is born?” Marie nodded and held her hands over the proud bump that hid her child from the world.
Richards took that into account, if the doctor wasn’t sure about the mutation in the mother then the child may not inherit anything from either parent. He knew from the file on her that she’d shown no mutant power up until the first trimester of her pregnancy. Could the whole thing actually be from the donor? He’d just found out that the donor’s genetics didn’t mix well with normal humans so she might have been lucky in one sense but damned in another.
At least the child she was carrying seemed normal enough, he was about to continue when the door opened to the room, a trolley came in with a female orderly. The lunch wagon was here, the camera in the ceiling flicked back to life and he got up to leave, the rattle of the trolley covering his cursing. He turned to see Marie looking at the food trolley with almost relief in her gaze, if he’d pushed her any further he might have blown it with her. She needed to believe someone and he’d be the one she’d believe, he cast her a warm smile and pointed to her food, “Make sure you eat all that, we want you to be healthy, both of you. If you have any more questions just ask for Richards, the soldiers will find me and I’ll come to talk to you okay?” Marie took the plastic plate in her hands her mind telling her she might have an ally in the man who’d come to see her. Hope surged as he left the room, she might have someone else to get information from but if she could trust it was another matter entirely.
The orderly was about to leave when Marie got her attention, “Excuse me but do you know Richards. The man who was in here when you came in?”
The orderly just looked at her as if she’d asked if the sky was green, “Honey I don’t know everyone here but as far as I know he’s only been here as long as you have. Come up with you and went back for the other one.” She was fishing out the dinner menu when Marie saw her opportunity.
“Other one?” Her hand covered in plastic took the menu, protecting the orderly form her bare touch. Looking at Marie she came a little closer to point out something on the menu but her voice was telling her something entirely different.
“Don’t know who he is but they say he’s chained down like an animal, Rudy takes food down to him. Liquid food. He don’t say much about him but Rudy don’t like it, he’s a good man Rudy but he’s going to get himself fired if he’s not careful about what he says and to who.”
“Fired?”
“Yeah honey, fired. An I don’t mean with severance pay either.” The look that passed between them both made Marie’s blood run cold, the things she’d been told were no longer fun. It didn’t feel like a game to get one over on the people who were holding her here, it was survival. No one was trusted, even the staff, they were miles away from anywhere and anything could happen to her, the orderly plucked her card out of her covered fingers and spoke loudly to the camera watching above.
“SO that’s the salad, pork, mashed sweet potato and cheesecake with grapefruit juice, big order there honey, just hope you can stomach it all. Eating for two huh?” The woman had her back to her so she couldn’t see the pale reflection of Marie in the room. It was a risk to hope that Jeff Richards really was on her side, but if one person was couldn’t another be?
She wasn’t hungry but she ate anyway, a small call button was plugged in after her lunch so she could call for a nurse if she needed help. Her baby’s life and her own would have to rely on others for a while and for that she needed to trust her instincts about who she could trust and who she didn’t. At the moment all she knew was that she was locked up somewhere no-one knew or cared about, the father of her child was here as well and that was a priority to find out about. How she did it was another matter entirely.
*************************************************
There were irons on his wrists, forearms and shoulders, forcing his eyes to open in the glare of the room he made out the shapes that were moving around him, the white of their clothing made his voice box rumble with hatred. They stopped work immediately leaving him alone, a single solitary figure approached him, a familiar scent filling his nostrils. He knew this one, this was one who’d caused him pain and his growl deepened, words he half understood made their way into his consciousness.
“Get him washed, take out the stomach tube, from now on he gets hand-fed. When he’s aware I want at least one person with him at all times and the physio machine running, he needs exercise to build his strength up. Get yourselves ordered into a rotation, I’ll take the morning shift, we’re collecting new sperm samples tomorrow for analysis.”
The movement of his bed from prone to vertical made his head spin for a moment, light dimmed somewhat for him and he took his first look at the face that had caused him so much pain. Mousy blonde hair, cut short in a bob that aged the face, dark circles under the washed out blue of the eyes. A face that watched every movement of his own body with obvious glee, she moved closer to him so he could sense the sickness radiating from her. A scent that told him of her dying body, of the corruption hiding just beneath the surface of her skin, she was death walking and his body was repelled by her.
Flexing his muscle to move away from her, seeing her eyes follow the movement and her smile waxy and pale filling her tired eyes. “Nice to have you with us Wolverine, I’m sure our distinguished leader would like to meet you at last.” She turned away from him as she moved around the bed he was on, her hands redoing the straps and ties that kept him to the bed securing him properly before risking her bosses exposure to him.
Fury was building inside his mind, scenes of depravity, pain, torture, humiliation at the hands of soldiers dressed in green, of being held down while he was beaten unconscious. The scent of ammonia filling his nose as they pissed all over his bruised and battered form, knowing he should be able to get up and fight back but his body couldn’t. Their laughter filling his ears as they dragged him outside, the snow cold on his battered skin, numbing the aches they’d given him. Leaving him outside to freeze as night fell, his naked body trying to keep warm as he shivered, the pain almost making him black out as each wave went through him. Frost-bitten he’d been left in a cold dank cell to recover, his body eating muscle mass to repair the damage. Pissing blood for days, his body too tired to digest whatever they threw at him, throwing it back up as soon as it touched his stomach.
That’s when ‘he’d’ come, the soft toned voice that made his nightmares flare into life, the things he’d done to him made the abuse he’d suffered so far feel normal. Stripping him of his mind, his humanity, his manhood, taking everything that was left of him until there was nothing left but the animal. Then the burning had begun, the testing of his body, the strength he had left being sapped away by ‘treatments’, his own body becoming heavier even though he could barely raise his head anymore without help. Then finally he’d snapped, losing his sense of self, of life itself, retreating after years of abuse, the final straw the sight of the blades in his arms. No longer human, no longer fighting the pain or darkness that covered his mind, losing himself in the animal they wanted him to be, Wolverine. Everything lost to the darkness that raged through his skull, to the world he was an animal to be used, trained, taught to act human until his skills were needed, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a mutant killer.
It was this face that he showed to the man who walked into the room, his small frame glowing with pride as he walked toward his bed. Lunging forward he listened to the voice that had haunted his nightmares, the soft cultured tone forming each word carefully knowing full well he could understand him. “Well, we have you back to your old self, Wolverine. I think if you continue to progress the way you have over the last week we should have you back in the program in just under a month.”
The face leaned closer so he could scent the pleasure radiating from his skin and his nostrils flared with the familiar scent making him test the restraints on him further, his flesh parting as he strained to get at the man who taunted him with his closeness. Seeing the blood flowing from his prize the man turned to the doctor who was watching the interaction between them, “Doctor if you don’t mind I’d rather the restraints were padded, we don’t want him doing himself an injury before we start work again.” The small pale hand reaching out, caressing his cheek, the snap of his own teeth barely missing the hand that was touching his skin, making it creep as the touch swept over the healthy surface. Letting go he turned his back on him talking to the doctor the words reaching him through the haze of hatred, “Make sure you feed him properly doctor, I want him back to his original weight before the month is out. We have a lot of work ahead of us and I need him fit to do it.”
His gaze landed on his strapped and naked form, eyes caressing every inch of him as if he were a lover, “We have so many things to do him and I, improving on nature takes time and effort, I have the effort doctor but not the time. Do I make myself clear?” He heard the female tormentor answer, watching him leave the sterile room smiling as he went, the scent of pleasure wafting toward him as the door closed on him.
Cut off from his view of the one he wanted to kill Wolverine howled, the song filled with rage and pain, echoing through the entire complex, making new-borns echo their fathers cries, mothers to be shaking in fear as the sound reached them. Marie a few corridors away heard the sound, it filled her with a terror she couldn’t understand but her instincts could. It was the sound of the dark, of the thing that lurks just outside the firelight, the killer that hunts the weak, old and very young. Wrapping herself around her baby Marie tried to shut out the howls that were coming from somewhere close by, her mind telling her that it could be her next. Falling to sleep her dreams were filled with scenes of wolves hunting over the snow, chasing her down, but their teeth never bit her, they just surrounded her, the sound she’d heard echoing through her room filling her dream and driving her deeper into sleep. Escaping the reality by running into her mind, where at least she had some control and she was taking whatever she could get.
******************************************************
“What do you know?” Carter was still annoying, he could hear a mouse fart at fifty feet so he had no chance at sneaking up on him but he still tried. Richards sat himself in front of the desk that Carter occupied here at the base, running his hand through his now clean hair he ordered his thoughts.
“The girl doesn’t know anything about the donor, she’s a dupe, just like the rest of them here. She has no idea of who or what he is and why she’s here, or even where she is.”
“So she’s stupid?”
He shook his head as he undid the button on the shirt he’d borrowed from a closet in the barracks, “No, she’s smart. Street smart though, she knew to go by back roads, to stay low off the main radar. She got caught by thinking about her kid, she wasn’t a mutant to begin with so she learned to keep herself low. Using the spray plaster was a good idea to cover her mutation.”
Carter looked through him, “Her mutation is her skin, she drains the life from people who touch her, so she covered whatever skin was on show with a thin barrier of plastizied starch. Her skin could breathe but she was protected from random touching.” Carter nodded as he saw the sense of her decision, something that had allowed her to move safely and quickly through places she might be at risk otherwise.
“What about her child?”
Richards moved forward to look Carter in the eye, his gaze questioning, “Well that’s a bit of a quandary for us.” Carter looked through him again making him fill the silence, “Doctor Howard seems to think that her own mutation was triggered by the donor’s genetic material. She might not retain the mutation after the child is born, that is if it’s born normal.” Carter’s eyebrow lifted skyward, this was the cue for him to elucidate, “The sister was very helpful about this part, seems like our man in charge hasn’t been very honest with you or the guys running this show. The sister told me there were twelve occupants here needing attention but the rosta at the nurses station had nearly forty names on it. Seems like the experiment goes a little further than anyone realised, the children don’t live long, that’s those that actually make it to being born. And those that do aren’t entirely ‘viable’.” His mouth almost spat the word ‘viable’ across the desk into Carter’s lap, Carter steepled his fingers as he moved back in his chair.
“Go on.”
“Seems like the ones who do survive end up as guinea pigs for the rest, the non-viable that is. The ones who don’t look human.” He’d been down to the labs, gone on a security inspection at the orders of the man seated opposite him. What he’d seen had turned his stomach, babies being dissected on marble blocks, small tiny organs being removed into jars for further study. Some were still living, he’d seen their eyes follow him across the room as he’d been dressed in the green smock everyone else had been in. They’d been neutered, their humanity stripped away, they were specimens to be studied, labelled and pickled. Their shapes were horrific and now he knew why the women had been crying, each one had been breast fed for the first few weeks until their systems had begun to fail. They’d had every chance at survival but the genetic mix had failed and the bodies of the children were malformed or had no feeling at all.
“I saw two children who looked human, were ‘viable’ but they were sickly. Locked up in quarantine, not even barrier nursing to help them, everything has to be sterilised before they can have it near them otherwise they’ll die. They have little or no immune system to speak of, they’re useless unless you want a soldier who can fight from a plastic bubble.” He felt dirty still, even after showering for nearly an hour he could still feel the dirt under his clothes, it made him angry and he couldn’t be angry, not yet. There’d be time soon enough if he was right about the reason for Carter being here but for that he had to ask a few questions of his own.
“Permission to speak freely sir?” Carter nodded his assent, he knew Richards would want some answers soon and he’d give him as much as he could. “What are you doing here sir? Someone of your experience it doesn’t ring true to me and it shouldn’t to the rest of the security service either.” Carter fixed him with a cold stare, his face didn’t change as he leaned forward on his elbows crowding Richards with his bulk.
“What else would you expect from a disgraced former operative commander? A ‘welcome home all is forgiven’, no you get sent here, sent to look after the dirty laundry because someone has just as much on you as you have to deal with here. It’s not a job Richards, it’s a reprieve from ‘retirement’. Thing is you shouldn’t always believe what you read in reports or on the gossip vine, you know that yourself. You were at Farah, you know how important it is to get the facts straight.”
Richards almost swallowed his tongue, Farah had been a total fuck-up, a small insurgent force had been found according to the local militia. So they’d gone light, what they’d found was a whole regiment of Taliban fighters as well as a training camp. They’d just managed to get out with two vehicles out of the eight they’d brought, fifteen men cut down before they’d even had a chance to react to what was in front of them. He’d taken a shot to the shoulder himself and after that he’d made sure he knew exactly what he was getting into in Afghanistan, always checking every report with aerial photographs if possible. The entire thing had changed the way they’d reacted to reports from so-called ‘friendly’s’, thing was some ‘friendly’s’ were actually spies sent from the warlords to infiltrate villages. Letting them win a few minor battles and get some credibility before sending a bunch of soldier’s to their deaths in ambush.
Carter was telling him that he was the same, just because he looked the part didn’t mean he ‘was’ the part, Carter had always trusted him, given him assignments that he didn’t want anyone else near. Things that needed his ‘skill’s’, he seemed to have a sense for the work, to pick up on lies, to ‘feel’ out someone who was different or odd. That was why he questioned the removal of his then boss over a year ago and the rumours that had come out about his swindling of the government resources he had. Richards knew Carter and it wasn’t right, he’d spoken out but he’d been slapped down and demoted, sent on every crap job going, even this one, which had been countersigned by his section head. A pick-up job for a branch of the military, he’d complained until he’d seen the request, it had come from further up the line, almost as high as you could get. That was when he’d started questioning about who’d requested him and he’d been answered when he’d walked into that office to give his report about the crash.
The crash, there was still something niggling him about it and finally he saw it, there had been three guards at the roadside when he’d first come back with the girl, when they’d come with the donor there’d been four. That was what was odd, the guards had moved and acted as if they didn’t know the other one, they looked to the ones they knew and not to the new guard. The new guard hadn’t been one of those who’d helped them out of the ditch but every guard had been scrambled. That was the difference, “Sir I think we’ve been infiltrated here, I remember now what the thing was, what was odd, a guard at the gate, one who wasn’t there the first time I came in and was there the second time. When we crashed they weren’t there, even when all the guard on the gate was sent for, they weren’t there!” Carter smiled as he handed a gun over the desk to him.
“Keep it out of sight, use it *only* if you have to. Keep yourself near the one you brought in, she’s important if she’s the only one with a viable child. On no account should any harm come to her, shield her if necessary.” Carter’s words made no sense whatsoever to him, he’d asked him earlier to get as much information out of her as possible by any means necessary and now he was asking him to lay down his life if necessary to protect her.
Hiding the gun on his body he looked into his superiors gaze and saw a little fear showing there and if he was feeling fear then he should be out of his mind with it. “Sir, why the change of order?” Carter’s face was grim when he replied the light had gone from his eyes and a gauntness had replaced his usual full features.
“Because I’d rather be remembered as a Schindler than a Mengle Jeff, because this is how it starts. You’ve heard the rumours, seen the little gold insignia on the soldiers here, I can’t save everyone when whatever goes down goes down. But you’ll be clear enough from this to come out clean enough to have a conscience again, me I’ll just have to take what comes down the line.” He moved back and straightened himself, the shadows retreating a little from his eyes, “So make yourself useful to me and keep your eyes and ears open for our little intruder, something tells me they’re still here.”
Richards knew how serious it was and how deep he was in it, Carter had used his first name, he’d only ever used that the day he’d thought he was going to die in Farah. Telling him that he could die on his own time but not on his, and he was on his time, almost shouting it at him as he’d laid there on the jeep hood flying over the ground. His shoulder wound staining the brown of the jeep bright red and Carter screaming at him to stay awake, using his first name to get his attention back on him.
Leaving the office he had his orders and he’d follow them to the letter.
***************************************************
The days passed in a kind of order, the only visible sign of change was the food. As she got nearer her due date the portions became smaller and lighter, she talked to the orderlies that moved her and gave her exercise. Strapping the little muscle stimulators to her body and setting them going, she still didn’t get out of bed much, only to have her baby scanned which seemed to be on odd occasions to her. Blood, faeces and urine were tested daily, there were books she could read if she wanted to, puzzles, games, everything but tv and talk to other patients.
Throughout it all she did as she was asked, as she was told but the flame of mutiny was still alive and well inside her. She was sure she wasn’t more than a month away from her delivery date when the sound of gunfire reached her ears. She was still strapped into her bed when her door opened she was almost frantic when she saw who it was. Jeff was there, his hand was holding a gun and he was coming her way, her mind refused to believe what she was seeing, she’d talked to him when she’d seen him. He’d dropped by usually when the lunch was being served to see if she had any more questions he could answer. She’d asked about the scream she’d heard that night, the one that had haunted her dreams ever since. He hadn’t answered her but he’d told her about the other women here, that she wasn’t alone there were others who were going through the same thing as her, giving her hope.
Now he was here with a gun and a serious face, he moved like lighting and went to the ties on her bed. Throwing them off he left her to get out of bed herself, her muscles weren’t used to moving quickly. She did manage to get upright but her legs weren’t used to the extra weight of the baby, she almost buckled and he caught her around the waist. “Come on little mama, we’re getting you out of here.” He went toward the door his hand reaching for it when it opened on it’s own, the gun the soldier was holding was already firing as he raised it at them both. Richards threw both of them to the floor as the gunfire went over them both, using the hand at her hip he fired twice into the soldier. Blood fountained from the wounds, the trigger finger still clutched the gun sent bullets everywhere in the room. Behind the dead soldier something big was happening in the corridor, people in black were running into every room on the corridor. Taking out the occupants under cover of their friends who were keeping the rest of the soldiers at bay. One looked behind at the two of them but he never got to shout his warning to the rest as Richards fired once into his skull. The blood spattered his compatriots who were having a hard enough time handling the people in black.
Marie didn’t have time to think, she just let Jeff take her, he pulled her down the second corridor, past the kitchens, into the storage area. Opening a store cupboard he pushed her inside, “STAY HERE! I’ll find us a safe way out.” He shut the door on her then the thought of doing as she was told went straight out of her head, this was her chance at getting out and she was going to take it.
As soon as she was sure he’d gone she opened the door, she had no idea where she was going but away from the fighting seemed a good idea. Her feet were bare as she padded down the silent corridor, the doors all looked the same to her but the floor was a different matter altogether. Tracks told her which was the heaviest wear on the tile and she followed them, leading her toward danger instead of away.
*************************************
He’d been tested, burned, skinned, drowned, milked like a bull, stretched to test the resilience of his ‘improvements’, electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, until he was sick of the sight of humans. The female doctor hadn’t been with him when he’d been tested, she’d always collected him afterward, making sure he ate, that he was as fit as he could be while her own health deteriorated. She had him strapped up into his bed as usual when the gunfire reached her ears, the sound making her own guards run off to find where the incursion had come from and why the alarm hadn’t sounded. For the first time in a month she was alone with him, her eyes glanced over at the door the soldiers had left through. She knew she didn’t have much time but if she was going to do something she had to do it now.
Her mind was on autopilot as she undid the straps that held him down, tears filled her eyes as she remembered the glee she’d seen in her superiors eyes as he’d tortured and ‘improved’ the man she’d cared for. He was a human being reduced to an animal, to a test subject, she’d destroyed everything she could of his samples already. Burning the stockpile of sperm she had, sending out a bogus health warning about the samples she’d sent out telling them they were contaminated and any progeny should be aborted as soon as possible.
Snapping the last one out of it’s socket she expected him to move but he didn’t, she shook the bed but he didn’t move. Running around to face him she saw his eyes were shut, his body still as if he expected something to happen to him, the tears obscured her vision as she grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him out of the bed.
She didn’t even feel it, the slide of the blades as they went through her stomach, both sets were buried in her and the purring rumble was the only thing she felt. They vibrated inside her as he opened his eyes to see her for the last time, her hand raised to touch him but he threw her body aside to land under her desk. Bleeding out from the open wound that had been her midriff, she felt nothing and she knew it was better than she deserved. Closing her eyes to the cold that was creeping up into her chest, at least the cancer didn’t kill her, she’d met her own death in her own way, she only hoped her superior would meet the same as she did.
He was free! The sound of battle drew him and he bolted to the doorway and the freedom beyond it, he bounded through the door claws drawn. Too late he saw the small figure just meeting the doors opening, one hand already plunged into a side that was way too big to be an enemy. The body turned and saw the thing that had hurt it, a silent scream was building but the pain was too much to voice. Instinct kicked in and the woman reached out toward him just as he pulled the blades free, her blood running freely down her side. Her nightmare come true, her life leaving her she would take the killer of her child with her.
When she touched him a bolt went through them both, locking their skin together like a magnet and iron, a surge like she’d never felt before went through her. The pain lessening then fading completely, a howling filling her mind too much for her to bear, falling dead away with her hand still connected to her killer. His own mind put out like a light with her touch, her taking everything he had to give, leaving him at the mercy of the people around them both.
Curled around each other, his body laying half over hers, protecting her stomach, his head laying on the cold floor behind her, lost to the world that was crumbling around them. Neither of them realising exactly what they’d be waking upto, if at all.