Doctor Alchemy clapped his hands with glee when he saw the Omega suit was gone. “Ah, the first operation was a success after all. Splendid!”
He walked slowly around me. He stroked his beard thoughtfully as he inspected my naked body. His gaze lingered on my genitals. “I would have thought an Omega-level Hero would be more . . . impressive.” It was all I could do to not pee on him. Only the thought he might take his anger out on his so-called subjects instead of on me stopped me. “Never meet your heroes, as the saying goes. They will disappoint you every time. Be a dear and make sure the suit does not reappear, will you Theodore? I would hate to have to perform even more operations. I do so love my subjects and would hate to lose more of them. But know that I do not love them as children. You murdered the only child I will ever have. I love them more like pets. Speaking of which, this particular pet is dripping blood all over my nice clear floor. Boy, come clean up this mess Tiffany’s making. Be sure to save her neck communicator. It is a very valuable piece of technology.”
For the first time since entering the room, the elderly man in the corner stirred. Moving slowly, he got a big piece of plastic from the table and unfolded it to reveal a bag. After first taking the metal choker off Tiffany’s neck, the old man struggled to slide the bag over the literal deadweight that was her body. During this, a spatter of blood went flying. The blood landed on Rati.
Doctor Alchemy’s face darkened like a thunderstorm. Cursing the old man’s clumsiness in several different languages, Doctor Alchemy started slapping, punching, and kicking him. Unlike the remaining woman, who seemed to view everything through a filter of near euphoria, pain, fear, and resignation swirled on the old man’s face as he meekly and wordlessly bore Doctor Alchemy’s blows. He did not try to protect himself, much less fight back. The part of me that was a trained professional noted almost clinically how differently the old man reacted to Doctor Alchemy’s treatment than the women had. The rest of me was outraged. Watching a woman blow her own brains out had surprisingly not blown my outrage circuits.
“Stop it! You’re hurting him!” I cried, though I feared speaking up might just make matters worse. How I hated a bully. I shook with impotent rage in my restraints.
Finally, Doctor Alchemy stopped cuffing the old man, more because the storm of his anger seemed to have passed rather than because of my protests. He carefully wiped Tiffany’s blood off his wife, probably not trusting his subjects to do the job right. The old man—I refused to think of someone his age as ‘Boy’ even though that was all Doctor Alchemy called him—resumed his efforts to bag Tiffany’s body, though he moved even more slowly than before thanks to the blows inflicted on him.
While the man finished bagging Tiffany’s body and then struggled to drag her out of the room, Doctor Alchemy had the remaining woman soak the chain mail-like strip of metal and the straight razor in a liquid antiseptic. “It would never do for you to get an infection and die sooner than I intend you to,” Doctor Alchemy told me. Thoughtful. Then the woman rubbed some foul-smelling ointment all over my body. The ointment burned slightly, but not unpleasantly, rather like Vicks VapoRub. Using a hose attached to the sink’s faucet, she washed the ointment off me. The water gurgled into the drain under me, carrying with it the ointment and all the hair on my body. When she finished, I was completely hairless. Even my eyelashes were gone. Until that moment, I had not realized you could see your eyelashes. I had never noticed them before because I had been so used to seeing through them every moment of the day.
The woman used a towel to dry me completely off. She even scrubbed my genitals and between my butt cheeks. There was no sexual overtone to the woman’s intimate touch. It was clinical, like being poked and prodded by a female doctor during a physical. First Neha, then that stripper in Areola 51 when I’d gone to consult with Cassandra, now this. This was only the third time in my life a woman had touched my genitals, though I had dreamed about it lots of times. Real life never lives up to your wet dreams.
Doctor Alchemy clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation after the woman had finished prepping me. That was how he put it—prepping me. Like he was about to perform surgery on me. Then again, I suppose he was.
“Where do you think I should begin, Mother?” Doctor Alchemy paused, presumably listening to the answer from his wife. “The genitals? You always want to start with the genitals. You really are not fond of the male bait and tackle, are you Mother? Considering what happened to you, your bloodthirsty tendencies are understandable. I am not at all sure the genitals are the best place to start, however. That portion of the male anatomy is very sensitive. One should build up to it. It should be saved for the end. It is the crescendo, the pièce de résistance. The rich dessert at the end of a sumptuous meal.”
My flesh crawled during this bizarre one-sided exchange. I absolutely loved it when people talked about me as if I were not even in the room. I especially loved it when they were talking about carving my bits and pieces into bits and pieces. I felt like the Thanksgiving turkey I had thought about earlier. Would you like white or dark Omega meat, Mother?
Doctor Alchemy snapped his fingers.
“I know. We will let random chance decide where I shall begin. That is fair, don’t you think Mother? Maybe fortune will smile on you and fate will decide on Theodore’s genitals after all.”
Doctor Alchemy began to sing, poking one of my body parts with each word:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch Omega by the toe
If he hollers, don’t let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
My Mother told me
To pick the very best one
And you are it.
I let out the terrified breath I had been holding. On the word it, his index finger had moved off my penis and landed on my right thigh. Not that having the skin peeled off my thigh seemed like a fun time, but it was better than Doctor Alchemy doing a Lorena Bobbitt impersonation on me further north.
Doctor Alchemy looked at his wife, his finger still pressing into my hairless thigh. “So close, Mother. A shame. It just goes to show you cannot always have exactly what you want. Not even us. If we could, our daughter would still be with us.” Doctor Alchemy’s face clouded over and looked despondent. Under different circumstances, I would have felt sorry for him. It was impossible to feel sorry for him, though, with his finger almost brushing my genitals and with a beaten old man scrubbing a young mother’s blood and brains off the wall.
Doctor Alchemy turned away from me. He peeled his costume’s gloves off, pushed his sleeves up on his wiry forearms that were corded with lean muscle, and started to thoroughly wash his hands at the sink with soap and water. No doubt still guarding against me getting infected and dying prematurely. Considerate. He happily whistled as he scrubbed his hands. The tune was familiar, but I could not quite put a name to it. His mood had already changed for the better. His moods seemed to be ever-changing, constantly shifting like a weathervane in a storm.
Doctor Alchemy dried his hands, still whistling. Too few people had jobs they enjoyed; normally I liked seeing someone look forward to work. Not today.
Doctor Alchemy picked up the sanitized chain mail and straight razor from the table. He approached me. The sharp edge of the razor gleamed under the bright lights. I finally recognized the tune he whistled. It was that old song Mack the Knife. Of course it was.
Doctor Alchemy wrapped the chain mail around my thigh, fully encircling it with the flexible piece of metal. He latched it into place. It was tight around my flesh, like a tourniquet. Small nubs of my skin poked out of the holes in the metal. They reminded me of the little plastic bubbles on a roll of bubble wrap.
Doctor Alchemy brought the open razor toward the nubs of my skin which stuck out of the metal. I thought about how I had hurt Amok to get him to tell me what I wanted to know, just as Doctor Alchemy was going to hurt me now. My encounter with Amok seemed like forever ago. Karma apparently had a long memory. And, she most d
efinitely was a bitch.
I shivered, and not just because of the chill in the air. I won’t lie—I was scared. My knees felt weak. If this infernal contraption wasn’t holding me up, my legs might have buckled in fear.
In addition to that, I was boiling mad. Mad at what Doctor Alchemy was about to do to me, certainly. But, even more intensely, I was mad that Doctor Alchemy had a bunch of subjects that really were just his mind-addled slaves. I was mad at how Doctor Alchemy treated the elderly man who again stood in the corner, with his face to the wall. Most of all, I was mad that Doctor Alchemy had made a young mother shoot herself in the head to get me to remove the Omega suit. Two young children would grow up without a mother. Just like I had.
Before Doctor Alchemy’s razor touched my flesh, I said to him, “Somehow, some way, I’m going to free myself. And when I do, it won’t matter that you’re a grieving father. I’m going to put a stop to you once and for all. You’re a monster.”
Doctor Alchemy looked up from my thigh. His teeth flashed white in his dark face as he grinned at me with fiendish glee. He was enjoying himself immensely. “Mighty bold talk for a hairless bound man about to be skinned alive. I appreciate your spunk, if not your grasp on reality.”
He looked back down at my thigh. The razor hovered over me.
He said, “Remember that old commercial? ‘How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?’ The answer is an average of three hundred and sixty-four. I have done studies. Now I am wondering how many cuts it takes to get Omega to betray his friend and then die. Let’s find out.”
Doctor’s Alchemy’s tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as the razor descended. He reminded me of a child focusing mightily on his coloring book so he would get a drawing just the right shade of red.
The razor kissed my flesh. It swept away chunks of my bubbled-up skin. Blood welled up, and began to stream down my hairless leg, hot and wet. It dripped into the drain, no doubt mingling with Tiffany’s blood.
I looked away and clenched my teeth. No matter how much it hurt, I resolved to not give Doctor Alchemy the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
My spirit was willing, but my flesh was weak. I did not hold out for long. Certainly far less than a minute.
I started to scream.
CHAPTER 23
Over the course of many sessions spread over several days, Doctor Alchemy peeled my right leg like a potato.
“I have to proceed carefully. Slowly,” he said conversationally as he worked on the skin right above the black substance that still bound my leg. He sounded like an artist working painstakingly on a painting rather than the latter-day Torquemada he actually was. “If I remove too much skin at once, you might bleed to death. That would be most unfortunate. You will die when I allow it, and not a moment sooner.”
I was upside down as Doctor Alchemy explained this to me. Blood from my leg had dripped into my nose and partially clotted, making it hard to breathe. I was forced to breathe from my mouth. I tasted my own dripping blood. From time to time I spat it out. It was soon replaced by more. I felt like Sisyphus, doomed to roll the same boulder up the same hill over and over for eternity.
Eternity was exactly the right word. It felt like Doctor Alchemy had been slicing into me forever.
Unbeknownst to me until Doctor Alchemy had flipped me upside down days before, the ring I stood on was actually two separate rings, one inside the other. The one nestled on the inside that I stood on could be spun on its horizontal axis a full three hundred and sixty degrees. It was so my blood did not pool from standing still and upright for too long, Doctor Alchemy had told me days before when he had rotated me for the first time.
I had largely lost my voice thanks to all the screams forced out of me. The most I could do now was whimper. Even whimpering felt like a betrayal. My mind wanted my body to remain stoic. Silent. Indifferent. Like a rock. Perfectly Heroic in the face of fear, pain, and evil. WWAD. Unfortunately, my weak body had other ideas. I whimpered like a run-over puppy.
My only refuge over the past few days was the fact I passed out from time to time from the pain. Even unconsciousness was but a temporary respite. When I passed out, Doctor Alchemy waved one of his alchemy cartridges under my nose that emitted a green gas that would awaken me for a while until my body was overwhelmed by the pain again. He had also forced me to drink an elixir preventing me from having a heart attack or otherwise dying from the pain and stress.
As Doctor Alchemy worked on me, my right leg felt like someone had taken a giant George Foreman grill, closed it on my leg, and was searing it. The pain was unbearable. It was hard to think, hard to focus, hard to do anything other than whimper.
When people’s bodies underwent severe trauma and pain, like when sharks bit their limbs off, their bodies went into shock, largely shielding them from the pain. I had even read about one woman who had felt intense euphoria when her arm had been bitten off by a shark. I felt no euphoria, though. No numbness shielded me from this pain. I felt every bit of it. The elixir Doctor Alchemy had given me that also stopped me from having a heart attack made sure of that.
Frankly, I would have been glad to have a heart attack. All the pain I was in and had gone through had burned away my earlier resolve to escape so I could bring Doctor Alchemy to justice. The only thing that was left was the desire for sweet release, an extended stay in the black pit of nothingness I descended into every time I passed out. I now understood why old people whose bodies were failing often seemed eager to die. There comes a time when death seems a blessing, a warm embrace that will swaddle you in its arms, kiss all the aches and pains and troubles away, and make everything better forever.
There’s a way out of this, said something deep within me. Just tell him what he wants to know. Tell him about Isaac. Sooner or later, you’re going to crack. You’re not strong enough. You never have been. Dad, Hannah, Neha . . . the history of your life is the history of you not coming through in the clutch. If you tell him now, he’ll have mercy on you and end this. You’re extending your suffering for nothing.
That siren song was still playing in my head when I became faintly aware through my haze of pain that Doctor Alchemy had flipped me right-side up again.
“Ta-da!” he said triumphantly. “Mother, have you seen a better skinning job in your life?”
I pried my eyes partially open. Despite my best efforts to stop it, my head lolled listlessly between my shoulders. The movement made my body look like it rocked back and forth. Though it was hard to focus on it, the skin had been completely removed from my right leg down to where the black substance affixed my leg to the ring. My leg did not look real, more like a crazy sculptor’s rendition of a leg. Omega’s Flayed Leg, 21st Century, rendered in blood and muscle, the museum plaque would read. I’ve always hated modern art, and I hated it more now. What I would have given to be looking at a nice non-bloody portrait of a bowl of fruit instead.
“Yes, I agree, Mother. I too am surprised Theodore has not told us about Myth before now. He is tougher than he looks. Or stupider, though I would not have thought that possible. I cannot decide which. Perhaps both.” Though Doctor Alchemy was right in front of me, his voice seemed like it came from far away. My head kept rocking back and forth, like a metronome keeping time to the rhythm of my whimpering. Worst song ever.
“Tell us what we want to know, Theodore,” Doctor Alchemy’s voice said. Or maybe it was the voice in my head again. Or maybe it was his wife’s voice. Maybe I was going crazy too. Or maybe Doctor Alchemy had been the sane one this whole time and unceasing pain had battered down the walls of my preconceptions and finally let me see that. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of much anymore. “The sooner you tell us, the sooner this will all be over.”
I was sick of all the voices telling me to give in. I was sick of the pain. I was sick of being here. I just wanted it over.
With a monumental effort, I lifted my head and held it upright.
“I’ll talk. I ca
n’t take this anymore,” I said hoarsely. It hurt to speak. I wondered if all my screaming had ruptured my vocal cords. “Myth’s name is . . .” my voice lowered to a mumble.
“Eh?” Doctor Alchemy said. His face was alight with sadistic glee and triumph. “I cannot not hear you.”
“Hard to talk. Come closer.”
Doctor Alchemy’s head loomed in front of me like a mountain.
“Myth’s real name is . . .” I whispered into his approaching ear. When it was close enough, I mustered all my strength. I bit down on it as hard as I could. His blood spurted in my mouth.
Doctor Alchemy yelped in pain and surprise. He jerked his head away. He clutched his bloody ear. His other hand lifted the bloody razor he had been using on me. He looked like he wanted to slit my throat with it. Any other time over the past few days I would have been thrilled to have him do it. But now my show of defiance gave me a fresh burst of energy.
I spit his blood out. It was nice to have blood other than my own in my mouth for a change. A bizarre thought, that. Instead of merely drawing blood, I had hoped to take a chunk out of Doctor Alchemy’s ear à la Mike Tyson. Bound and bloody beggars can’t be choosers.
I whispered harshly, “Myth’s real name is Mister None of Your Goddamned Business. He lives at 6969 Go Screw Yourself Avenue. You want me to write it down, or can you remember it?”
Still looking like he was about to slit my throat, Doctor Alchemy just stared at me for several long beats. His normally brown face was mottled red with rage.
Finally, he lowered the red razor.
“You will rue this insolence,” he hissed. I didn’t have a witty retort ready. My earlier speech had taken all the wind out of my sails. My head sank down between my shoulders again.
Doctor Alchemy slammed the razor down on the table. Still glaring at me, he went to his wife’s wheelchair. She had been present during every one of these skinning sessions, staring straight ahead into eternity. According to the one side of their conversation I could hear, she had immensely admired her husband’s work on me. Bloodthirsty bitch.
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