The Weapon X Facility, Canada
The Summer of 2018Doctor Cornelius types away on his computer, his fingers skipping about the keyboard as a young girl would a concrete in a a game of hop scotch. Cornelius had the same excited air about him as that sort of girl, also sharing that gratifying chill of a joyous sweat, and his heart was charging like a drum kit with David Silveria sitting at the throne. Then he rung his boss on the telephone.
"Professor Thorton, have I got news for you! The new patient we've been working on, Patient Ten, he absolutely destroyed his predecessors in that labyrinthine Hunger Games-esque thing we put him through."
"Hmm.." Thorton meditated, leaning back in whatever rolling chair he was probably sitting in, "How much of that do you chalk up to him being under direct control of the staff versus his innate ability and instincts?"
"Poppycock! The boys at the controls we're completely incompetent. So much so that I had them terminated this afternoon."
"I see," Thorton hissed. As he drug the letter S sound out, Cornelius imagined that he was coiling like a Cobra and preparing to lurch directly at his throat through the phone line.
"As far as I'm concerned, Weapon Ten is Weapon X. He's reactive, dangerous and damn near unstoppable."
"So be it. It's time to get this show on the road then." Thorton hung up his analogue telephone with a metallic click before snatching right back out of it's nest, his heart charging as though it were a drum kit with Dan Lomeli on the throne. "Romulus, my lord: Weapon X is ready."
"Splendid. Execute Order 180."
The labyrinth, a place of darkness and confusion, which Patient Ten had stormed through hours before, was screaming with the echoes of hushed voices. Only footsteps haunted the place as a rather plain looking old man waded through the carnage. In spite of being massive and sprawling, he couldn't help but feel claustrophobic as the bloodstained walls threatened to squeeze the life out of him like he were a human ketchup bottle.
Finally, he came across Weapon One. He'd once been a handsome young man, Thorton had recruited him himself.
"See what that smart mouth got you? Wasn't much use when you were against someone stronger and faster, huh. Well boy, you're about as dead as a door nail, but soon you'll only be as dead as a half-decent attack dog."
The head was trashed, so Thorton sawed it off, swatting the flies away, depositing the corpse into a thick plastic bag and sneaking into the cramped, smelly darkness.