The Weapon X Facility, Canada
The Summer of 2018Cornelius strokes the bottom of his chin, wishing oh so fervently that he could instead be stroking the bottom of Ms. Carol Hines bottom. Like a wolf scoping out a sheep, he stays at the back of the pack while he scrunches his nose and licks his canines taking it all in, all while talking on the phone.
"Patient Ten is rousing, Professor Thorton," he commented, trotting his gaze to the diligent pair of geeks taking turns with the remote control pad. Cornelius lent them his disdain for a brief moment, choking on the notion of the pus he was sure had rocketed his way out of their volcanic pizza faces, before stingily reclaiming his disdain for later use.
"Alright, everybody: Look Out," one of them called out.
A mere moment later, their chimera sat straight up, sloshing a liter of the gold/saline solution onto the floor up to ten feet away before rolling out of the operating tank. A hybrid being consisting of flesh, bone, dread, surrender and adamantium stood naked on the work floor, shining bright like electrum against the sterile white background. They watched as his sagging, raisin-esque skin, inflamed and erroneous swung around his body like a performer on a trapeze, tightening up ever so slowly. It was like watching a speed drawing video, as the flesh tightened itself around the metal underpinnings, shriveling into place.
The dweebs at the controls made him walk forward, or at least they tried to do so. The Patient was staggering and sputtering, hardly managing a pivot, much less a pounce. So they took it easy, allowing him to idle. As impressed as they all were with themselves, as grand a job as they all had done, they still knew not to take the beast lightly. Patient Ten had been reduced to a dog on a leash. Or perhaps it was more like having the mighty wolf Fenris in a muzzle made of moose jerkey.
The dweebs couldn't control his steps precisely even if they had wanted to. The technology they used to strut him around didn't control individual muscles, that level of control was inoperable for a single human and would require miraculous coordination amongst a team of master-class mavens. Instead, their grip on the Patient's actions was rooted in controlling brain chemistry.
Looking at the patient's face, you'll readily observe that it's a challenge to look him in the eye. That would be because of the giant metal helmet surrounding the vertical-most portion of his skull. This prevents the patient from hearing or seeing any inputs that The Weapon X Company of North America decides should be censored. This way he can't be triggered into any ill-advised attempts to reassert any sort of vector on his destiny. The contraption also has dozens of points where electrodes reach from the helmet and make contact directly with The Patient's brain, sharpening or dulling his attention toward various stimuli while auditory and visual suggestions are broadcast to him, through the headset, like a television network maintained for an audience of one.
The Patient stood, slouching with his fists in front of him, thoroughly blinded to everyone around him.
Easy there
the tickles in his skull seemed to tell him.
We wouldn't want to see you hurt yourself.
The word
self triggered a synapse, the firing of which was deflected, counteracted by a sniper-shot of an electron chain supplied by the headset. The engineers were ten patients deep into developing Weapon X, and they had learned that it wasn't helpful for their investments to be too preoccupied with themselves.
Self was one of hundreds of concepts rendered off limits by the cranial cagemaster.
Carol Hines didn't see the Weapon's brains wrestling against it's restraints. She only saw the string of slobber slithering off of his lip and down his scraggly chin. But as the saliva traced his Adam's apple, she realized that the body was recovering astonishingly quickly. Ironically, he looked more intimidating buck-naked with his plentiful hair and well-defined muscles than he did as a disintegrating science experiment. Then again, being half-dead is always a great excuse for looking like a caricature of yourself.
So thirsty, the brain begs, goaded on by a nation of microorganisms, while staring into the buffet of defenseless employees who observed their handiwork with equal measures of wonder and a wanton sort of sorry. All he needed was a quick bite and he'd be back in top condition.
Carol stepped away from the panting Patient himself, and strutted over to the dweebs who'd held Cornelius' disdain not even two minutes before. She got a good look at the control pad, knowing that there was no way she'd be allowed to touch it without all three of them being terminated. Even so, the one holding the contraption was evidently feeling rather suave, so he let her see the interface. A small screen flashed a textualized blast of The Patient's stream of consciousness, with a screen displaying his own ocular perspective, a joystick, about twelve basic buttons and a qwerty keyboard.
Cornelius grumbled and made his way over to his assistant's side, before glancing at the user interface itself. He read the stream of consciousness and began to think. Hmm..
"You know, boys, it might do us some good to have the Patient clean up the mess that that incompetent surgeon made a few hours ago," he said, pointing to the man-door that the dead man had marched to his doom through. A minute later, the onlookers looked on, crowding around the user interface as the operator punched in an order:
Drink up, sport.
As though he anticipated things to go wrong immediately, the operator smashed the keys to follow the message with "
Only this one that's already dead, though. For now, at least.
"
Watching through the camera, none of the Weapon X-ers said a word. Not one word as their former brother in arms was reduced to a convenient source of sustenance for their Patient. Even the guards who could be infrequently seen on the monitor, could be seen infrequently but dependably cowering.