by Mathy, Scott
Bernard only stared hatred at the smaller man. He wordlessly tugged at the mechanisms connected to his limbs before wincing at the searing heat.
The Doc regained her composure, “I can get you down, but you’re going to promise to play nice once you’re free.” She rose to her feet, waiting for Bernard’s response.
Dwight tapped his foot against the panel flooring. “We’ve only got a few minutes before the good doctor comes back to check on his favorite blood bank. Do you want to be here or not?”
Bernard took a moment, weighing his options. “Yeah, get me the fuck ou’ o’ this thing,” he eventually mumbled.
“Good,” Ellis said, approaching the suspended prisoner, “but I want a little more insurance first.”
She removed something akin to a wicked-looking metallic spider from her lab coat’s pocket. Holding it tightly against his bare chest, the contraption bored its way painfully into Bernard’s flesh, digging to rest flush against the surface of his skin. From the length of those claws, Dwight assumed that it was permanent.
Ellis waited a few seconds for a deep red light to go live on the device, “That looked like it hurt – good. That’s for what you did to Lia and me. The thing wrapping its spiky little legs around your heart is a high-powered explosive. If it detects my vitals go flat or even in physical distress, it’ll vaporize everything within a ten-foot radius.”
Dwight had heard the Doc threaten people before, but always in lighthearted jest. The tone she was using to negotiate with Bernard was steeped in unrepentant malice. If he hadn’t felt sorry for Bernard before, he certainly did now. The vengeful woman before him must have been lurking just beneath Ellis’s calm, friendly exterior ever since the night Bernard stole Lia from her care.
She continued, “From now on, you’re my minion. I own you until I say you can go. And when I do, I never want to see your backstabbing face again. You so much as look at me wrong and I will turn you into a smoking crater that you will not come back from. Got it?”
Bernard nodded; his eyes conveyed a sadness Dwight hadn’t seen in them before. “Yeah, mum. I gotchya,” he said weakly.
“Excellent,” she said bluntly, drawing a syringe and taking a hefty sample of blood from the imprisoned man’s neck. “Now you get to find out what it’s like to have your every action controlled by a sadist with a grudge.”
One by one, she retracted the pins that held the burning plugs to the end of Bernard’s severed limbs, beginning with his legs. The weighty connections fell away from the bloody, charred meat just above where his knees should have been. Almost immediately, the blackened flesh began to regenerate. By the time Ellis released the first connection where Bernard’s shoulder met his severed arm, the raw flesh of his knees were beginning to take shape.
Dwight moved to support Bernard, doubting the spindly limbs could support the weight of the giant’s torso. He caught the man just as Ellis carelessly unclasped the final connection on his first arm. Bernard landed heavily on those new, unsure knees, gasping in agony. A moment later, she removed the last searing shackle, letting the restraint drop away before it clanged against the cell wall. Dwight lowered Bernard to the cold floor.
By this time, Bernard’s feet were regenerating; the skinless muscles looked as though they’d been plucked from the pages of an anatomy textbook. The huge man curled into a fetal position. His arms were reforming just as quickly as his legs had, and Bernard’s strained breathing slowed as his restored powers repaired his body. Dwight watched in awe as the flesh stitched together and protected itself, forming a layer of rough skin over the bone and sinew. Ellis ignored the process, instead focusing on reorganizing her remaining tools for the trip back to the portal.
At last, Bernard issued a relieved sigh and opened his eyes. He rose to the full height Dwight remembered. Despite the months of suffering, the man before him looked more alive than the one he’d fought at Wulf’s office, as if his full powers had restored more than just his strength. He looked down at the bomb fixed to his chest, “Righ’ then. When are we leavin’?”
Ellis glanced at her watch, “My distraction should be running out right abouuuut…now.” She marked the passing with a tap of her finger on its face. “I need a minute or two at Dwight’s room, then we’re gone.”
Bernard cracked his oversized neck, “An’ if we meet unfriendly resistance?”
“You have my permission to make yourself useful,” Ellis said coldly.
Bernard beamed with the same toothy grin Dwight had seen during their bloodiest jobs, “’at’s jus’ what I wanted to ‘ear.”
Making their way out of the cell, Ellis tossed a hand-sized device behind her. The resulting blast blew a cloud of debris and gas out into the laboratory, the contents of the room incinerated. New alarms began sounding throughout the section.
Dwight paused to regard the furious scientist at his side, “Was that really necessary?” he asked.
She kept walking, grabbing a blow torch from a nearby table and stalking from station to station, setting the blueprints and mechanical components alight, “Not really, but even if we don’t make it out, I’m going to destroy as much of their malicious excuses for scientific advancement as I can.”
He followed with Bernard as the vengeful scientist torched every prototype and schematic in the room. By the time they reached the exit, the ceiling had become obscured by a dense cloud of foul-smelling smoke.
Dwight coughed, “Don’t places like this usually have some sort of fire suppression system?”
“I disabled it on our way in,” she answered, watching the flames consume the lab.
“So you knew you were going to do this?” he asked, uncertain he wanted her honest answer.
She sighed briefly, “I wasn’t exactly sure what we’d find in Geller’s lab, but I know who the man is, and I know that nothing good can come from his work. The things he could justify doing for the sake of profit are beyond moral or scientific reasoning; they’re unconscionable.”
She put a hand to Dwight’s shoulder as the three turned away from the inferno and sealed the door. “Please understand that I’m doing what I know is right, even if it looks like I’m being vindictive.”
Dwight thought on that, “Sure, Doc. I believe you. Let’s go.”
Bernard remained silent during the conversation, waiting for his next orders. Despite the active explosive attached to his chest, he at least seemed comforted by the burning lab.
Alarms still blaring as they went, they found the path leading back to Dwight’s quarters surprisingly free of guards. Dwight supposed that most of the base’s inhabitants fled to Acheron, or perhaps they were across the compound dealing with whatever mystery had caused a near-meltdown of their reactor. Whatever the reason, the group made their way into the tiny room without incident and shut the door behind them.
To everyone’s relief, Dwight located one of the standard-issue prison jumpsuits in the small closet. He flung it at Bernard while the Doc set to work, leaving the former partners alone to watch the entrance.
Bernard broke the awkward silence once he’d finished dressing, “I do regret it, you know.”
Dwight struggled with what to say other than, “Not now.” He hoped that would be enough to dissuade the blundering oaf from this line of conversation.
“I mean it, D. It was a stupid mistake that I didn’t think through. ‘is is why I always lef’ the plannin’ to you. I jus’ saw all the amazin’ things ‘at li’l girl could manage, an’ I lost my mind. I was so angry abou’ gettin’ me powers stolen.”
Dwight’s temper flared; he sparked the shock pads of his knuckles and pushed Bernard’s enormous back against the metal of the door. Pulling back his fist, the giant made no attempt to defend himself, “You don’t get to say that. Think for one damned second about what you did to Lia – what you could have done to the whole fucking city.”
Bernard closed his eyes solemnly, “I ‘ave. Every second since I got ‘ere.”
Across the roo
m, Ellis did her best to tune out the arguing men, her own frustrations exacerbated by the task of manufacturing the antidote with the newly-acquired blood.
Dwight released Bernard from the door, disabling the surging electricity in his hand. “You want to apologize to someone, try the traumatized psychic you enslaved for your own sick ambitions. Assuming she doesn’t permanently turn you into a drooling vegetable the second she sees you.”
Bernard turned his gaze back to the working doctor, “If ‘at’s what’s right.”
There was a celebratory jingle from the chemistry station. This time, Ellis didn’t dance to the tune. She removed a filled injector from the machine and walked over to the men. Without checking for permission, she placed it against the back of Dwight’s neck and pulled the trigger. He winced at the shot, before feeling dizzy. Bernard moved to catch him, but the much smaller doctor was already on it. She lowered him gently to the floor, allowing the medicine to do its work.
Inside his body, the antidote purged the excess serum from his veins. The constant pain he’d been in since waking in the Doc’s lab faded. All that remained was the touch of the steel harness fixed to his bones and the song the Doc hummed idly.
After a few minutes, Dwight felt well enough to open his eyes. “That was beautiful,” he said quietly.
Ellis looked down at the hitman, inspecting his recovering eyes, “My father taught it to me.” She added playfully, “If we make it out of here, I’ll tell you about him.”
The fury and spite of the wise scientist seemed to have fled with the poison in his veins, replaced by the kind, slightly unhinged demeanor he knew her for. She helped him up, finding it difficult to move the bulky frame.
Bernard offered a hand to complete the chore. “Lookin’ bet’ah already, D. When we’re home, can you tell me wha’ the ‘ell all o’ this was abou’? Doubt with the greetin’ you lot gave me you came all the way ou’ ‘ere jus’ to save me,” he feigned a sniff and a tear.
They left the suite, abandoning Ellis’s portable chemistry set on the desk. Doubling back to the main hall of the private wing, they spotted the outline of a small crowd gathered around the burning remnants of the lab. At the rear of the pack, Geller, the Warden, and Grenn watched as their personal science division was reduced to ashes. Dwight and Ellis exchanged a knowing glance, silently concluding that sneaking past the horde of Powers would be in their best interest. Bernard had not participated in the wordless conversation.
“Oi! You lot really take orders from a lady who calls herself Cyber-sex?!” he bellowed down the hall at the top of his lungs, stepping out into the middle of the corridor.
Ellis slapped her palm to her forehead, suddenly reminded of just how shameless an oaf Bernard was. “How the hell did you work with this idiot?” she asked sardonically.
Dwight couldn’t help but crack a nihilistic smile. He was feeling better than ever now that his body was accepting – rather than fighting – the steady flow of serum coming from his arm. “This is what he’s good at; we’ll be fine.”
“There are ten of them, and only three of us. Do I have to run the odds of survival?” She readied the various implements in her pockets for the inevitable.
Bernard was already halfway down the hall while his companions discussed their options. The Warden, frustrated but resolute, took lead at the front of the crowd, “Goliath, stand down and explain what’s going on. We can handle this however you want.” She held her hands up, signaling for calm.
Dwight was legitimately shocked by the prison leader’s non-violent alternative. In his experience, these situations always descended into a superpower-fueled brawl. Somewhere deep down, he was disappointed it didn’t seem likely today.
Bernard, equally confused, turned to his rescuers, “Boss?”
The remaining two members of their operation stepped into the hallway, the Doc disabling the armory of destructive tools hidden within her jacket. “This is all very new; do we want to go somewhere and have a sit-down? I’m honestly not sure how this works.”
“Are you all that insane? What the hell happened to the world since I’ve been gone?” The Warden’s expression of bewilderment at their expectations put them to shame.
“NO!” Geller’s furious voice boomed from the back of the crowd. He pushed his way though to the Warden. “You destroyed my life’s work to free some ignorant Neanderthal!”
Bernard pointed to himself, mouthing the question, “Me?” to his companions.
Ellis nodded before turning her attention to the enraged doctor, “You’re a madman, Geller – a miserable war profiteer without a single shred of decency.”
“So?” he responded. Fishing a remote from his pocket, he tapped a button and waited. One by one, the expressions on the faces of the gathered Powers fell limp. Even Dwight felt a minor mental inclination creep through his body, as if a voice was telling him to wait quietly and listen.
Geller stepped forward, “I told you I added a few more little things to my recipe. They’re mine now: an army of Powers at my disposal to retake Acheron, and then the world beyond.” Geller let out a maniacal fit of laughter at his own ingenious plan.
“Called it,” Ellis said smugly.
Dwight fought whatever Geller had slipped him in the prior dose of his drug. It wasn’t easy, but the commands of the remote weren’t holding him as firmly as the others. He combated it mostly by thinking of how hard he was going to punch the mad scientist when he got hold of him. Behind the cackling doctor, the glowing embers of his burning lab highlighted his megalomania.
“Right ‘en. Boss, can I ‘urt ‘im now?” Bernard asked, cracking his immense knuckles.
Ellis nodded lightly, “Yes, Bernard. Yes, you may.”
Bernard took off running toward the mob at top speed, plowing into them with the force of a runaway train. Over the brute’s insane laughter, Dwight could hear the elder scientist shouting ineffective orders; it seemed his drugs didn’t give him enough control over the stupefied Powers to make them a match for the giant’s unleashed vengeance. In the dogpile, he could make out one – the reptilian Grenn – at full capacity. The creature savagely struck Bernard in the hip with its tail, allowing some of the other brainwashed brawlers to land a few solid hits.
Ellis took action, never tearing her eyes from Bernard’s rampage. She reached up to the harness mounted to Dwight’s spine and began making impromptu alterations to the mechanism with a small wrench. The hitman tried to see what she was doing, but it was no use; any time he rotated his head around to catch a glimpse of her working, a forceful jerk pulled his vision back. “Knock it off before you hurt yourself!” she shouted up at him.
Finally, the machine made a pronounced whirring noise, as if powering up for the first time. He immediately felt the colossal strength behind the support mechanism. He suddenly wondered just how far he could slam an eight-foot-tall lizard in a single punch.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” the Doc said, slapping him across the shoulders.
Dwight obliged her, sprinting down the hallway faster than he had ever moved before. He dove under the extended, clumsy limbs of two Powers on his way to his target. He spotted Grenn preparing to crush Bernard with an overhead two-handed smash.
The Powers clinging to each of Bernard’s limbs didn’t see Dwight coming. The hitman crashed into the mass at full speed, taking Grenn in the abdomen with his shoulder and plowing through the rest. The impact scattered the drones holding down Bernard like bowling pins. Dwight came to a stop just past the freed giant; the same was not true for the lizard creature. The force of Dwight’s charge sent the monster careening over the mass of surging combatants, past the stunned Geller, and into the roaring inferno of the laboratory.
“’anks, D,” Bernard said, climbing back to his feet while he pitched a struggling Power in the same direction with a single arm.
Grenn reappeared in the doorway, the blue jumpsuit reduced to burning scraps on his enormous body. The creature tore the tattered remnants away b
efore hissing menacingly at the pair.
Bernard snorted in response to the monster’s warning, “‘Rock, paper, scissors’ for who gets to fight the geck—” Before he could finish his sentence, the Warden’s fist met his smirking jaw, sending him flying toward the Doc. Ellis dodged out of the way while continuing to toy with her miscellaneous inventions. The Warden ran after her chosen opponent while Dwight prepared to intercept the furious lizard rushing toward him.
Grenn’s opening swing – a vicious right claw – sailed over Dwight’s head as he ducked low to deliver a charged right hook into the monster’s ribs. Sparks erupted from the punch. The electrified reptile paused his attack while his nerves recovered from the shock. Dwight prepared to deliver another punch with his prosthetic, when another Power caught him in the back with a lazy attack. Disoriented as they were, the brainwashed Powers were still a distraction that could lead to a fatal mistake.
He swore as he kicked the metahuman prisoner away and sprinted back toward the Doc. Grenn chased after him, flinging several of the dazed Powers to the side with reckless abandon. Ellis dove into the adjacent hallway as Dwight ran by, the beast close behind.
“Why the hell do I always have to fight the giant lizards?!” he shouted. He leapt over Bernard wrestling with the Warden. In contrast to the brainwashing’s effects on the other inmates, the woman fought with the same ferocity as his ex-partner. As he passed them, Dwight wondered briefly if her multitude of implants protected her. For now, his mind was too focused on the terror of being eaten alive.
Rounding the corner without slowing, he reached out and grabbed the first thing that caught his eyes. The heavy cylinder pulled free with little effort. He slowed slightly, feeling the encroaching presence of the chasing monster gaining behind him. As the creature reared over him, preparing to strike, Dwight swung the tube as hard as his reinforced limbs allowed. The fire extinguisher exploded against Grenn’s reptilian skull, bursting with a cascade of white mist. Dwight’s replacement limb stung from the blow.
