Feline Sanctuary 3
It took six months of scouring LA and the surrounding area to find any answers. Then it was only a burned out building in the outskirts, five miles from where he'd found the cubs. He stood on the ground floor, the faint scent of the cubs nearly obliterated by the overpowering scent of gas and decay.
He followed the scent to a warped door, behind it was a flight of stairs going down. He followed them, but the fire damage was worse on the sub level. He could smell charred flesh. There were seven cells on one side of a corridor that went the length of the building above. In each cell there was a pile of bones and burned flesh. The scent made him gag, fire wasn't his favorite way to kill. He could smell the bodies were covered with gasoline before being ignited. There were offices on the other side of the corridor but they were burned as completely as the cells across from them, only pieces of twisted metal remained of any furniture.
At the end of the corridor was another staircase. It led down to another sub level. There was a hallway that went left and right from where he stood, and another long corridor in front of him, with doors on only one side. He went left, and found another corridor at the end of the hallway. This floor had minimal fire damage, and he could smell all the cubs strongly through out the floor. The first door he came to, he looked inside. It was a small room, with a one way observation window that the person inside the room couldn't look out, but could be observed from outside. There was a small cot, a few toys abandoned on the floor, and a slightly singed drawing on the wall of the sun. He could smell Rini, strongly in this room.
The next room was about the same, except it was Tymi's scent. Each room on the corridor told the same story, with a different scent. Jane was next, then Rex. He walked down the second corridor, these rooms seemed to progress backwards in age, the third corridor the rooms had cribs instead of cots, except the last four, those had neo-natal incubators in them...twenty one different cubs in all, and only three scents unfamiliar to him, and those were from the infant rooms. The very last room held Kara's scent, and his rage grew with every step he took.
Across from the infant rooms was a single door. He let his rage control him and kicked it right off it's hinges. Inside was the lab, but with no power, and drawers in desks and filing cabinets hanging open and empty. There were four exam tables, like you'd find in a doctor's office, but these had steel restraints. The scents in this room were overpowering to him, pain, fear, grief, tears, agony. People had been tortured in this room, to the point of complete despair, and his claws lengthened in response to the burning rage growing even stronger inside him.
The animal was close to the surface, ready to rend and tear, but he needed to find something, anything to explain what they had tried to do here. He noticed one drawer half open in one of the desks, all the other drawers in this desk were closed but that one. He reached out to push it closed but it wouldn't. He yanked the drawer out and looked inside the opening. He didn't see anything, and was about to throw the drawer across the room when he felt something with a finger tip on the bottom of the drawer. He flipped it over. It was an envelope, a thick one, that had kept the drawer from closing. He ripped it from its place, and opened it. Inside were papers, and disks, computer disks. He glanced around. There were no computers here, they must have been destroyed with all the other evidence. He folded the envelope and slipped it into his coat pocket. He'd look it over later.
He glanced around the lab, familiar with most equipment after his years with Stryker and the Weapon X program. These machines were designed to keep DNA frozen, until needed, most likely sperm, since the smell from the tables was all female, he assumed they'd harvested ovum directly from their subjects. He turned, to walk away, but the rage consumed him.
It was at least an hour later when he came back to himself. The lab was completely destroyed, his claw marks where he'd ripped metal to shreds testament to his rage. His cubs had been created here, and hurt here, and he wanted to be able to tell them that it would never happen again.
He walked slowly up the last flight of stairs and pushed open the warped door. Standing in a pool of sunlight streaming through broken windows was a familiar face.
"Creed."
"Fury, what do you want?" Victor snarled.
"To find out what you found out, down there." Nick said, his leather jacket creaking as he moved slightly.
"Not a damned thing." Victor lied.
"I don't believe you." Fury said.
"There's nothing down there, but you already know that."
"I was hoping your nose would pick up on something. There were a hell of a lot of kids down there, and they just vanished." Fury said, his teeth gleaming against his dark skin as he smiled at Victor. Victor knew that smile, it meant Fury had the upper hand, or at least thought he did.
"Nope, nothin." Victor snarled.
"Too bad, I understand you're starting to breed endangered cats?"
"What's it to ya?"
"I wouldn't want anything to happen to that little ranch of yours, your license to breed get pulled, or your foster home rating...bunch of good lookin' offspring you got there, Creed."
"You stay away from my cubs, or I'll rip your other eye out." Victor snarled.
Fury just laughed. "I'm not interested in your cubs. I just want to know they are safe, well cared for, and away from trouble if it comes."
Victor snarled.
"Creed, these kids, this place was not sanctioned. Your work on Weapon X, as much as it was dirty from the start because of Stryker, was at least sanctioned. This was a rogue group, working on their own, trying to create something that frankly should have been left alone. All I care about is that the kids are safe. SHIELD won't bother you or them."
He thought about that for a second. SHIELD already knew he had them, and was taking care of them. He just nodded.
"If you found anything down there, all I'm asking is you share the information, and if you do, I can funnel some work your way, your kind of work and at a decent rate." Fury said.
"I didn't find shit." Victor growled.
"Call me if you change your mind." Fury said and turned to walk out the burned doorway.
"I'll think about the work offer...got a lot of mouths to feed." Victor growled after him. Fury just nodded and walked through the door.
Victor followed a few minutes later, but Fury was nowhere to be seen. SHIELD contracts were safe, he wouldn't have to worry about keeping the cubs fed if he got caught doing unsanctioned work. If the information in the envelope was something he wanted to share with Fury, he'd give him a call, but first he wanted to look at it himself.
He climbed onto his motorcycle and headed north. He had a bolt hole in northern LA, and he wanted time to go over what he'd found.
He climbed into the window, the bike parked at a nearby bar where no one would even look twice at it. He pulled the envelope out and spread the contents over his cot. There were several hard floppy disks, and pages of notes. He picked the notes up and started to read.
Week 5: Subject 1 and 4 took invetro well, embryos developing at a normal rate. Subject 2 miscarried after three weeks. Subject 3 is progressing with difficulty, probable miscarriage mid term. Hopeful the primate mutation develops with the alterations.
Week 20 Subjects 1 and 4 progressing against all expectations. Am noticing definite signs of mutation in the fetuses, however not primate, am noticing vestigial claws on finger and toe development as well as almost feline features in the face on ultrasound.
Week 41 Subjects 1 and 4 returned to confinement. Given gene therapy to speed recovery after birth. A female and a male infant developing well. The decision was made to name the infants, Rini and Tymi. Both infants show definite mutation of a feline feral variety, which is surprising considering the source for the sperm used for the invetro. Will have to try to adjust the genetics differently on the next round. We now have 5 subject females to use for gestation.
Second round
Week 8 Subject 3 and 5 progressing, Subjects 1, 2, and 4 miscarried. Hopeful the mutation modifications proceed normally. Rini and Tymi are just over one year, elongated canine teeth on top and bottom jaw as well as retractable claws in each finger and toe. Rini is showing signs of enhanced senses, Tymi exhibits territorial behavior around Rini. This breeding pair showing viability even this young.
Week 32 Subject 3 went into premature labor, delivered healthy baby boy. Named him Rex. Rex showing same feline characteristics as first subject group. Beginning to think it is the manipulation of the genes creating the outcome. Rini and Tymi exhibiting enhanced senses, TPTB have decided to continue with the feline enhancements, forgoing the primate mutation in the original sperm samples.
Week 43 Subject 5 finally delivered female infant, low birth weight, low APGAR scores, monitoring for the next 48 to 72 hours. Jane shows same feline characteristics. Will continue modifications to gene sequence in next round of development.
He'd read enough for now. He groaned. He was going to have to sort out who came from which subject mother, just to make sure there wasn't any cross breeding as they got older. He looked at the disks and hoped the information on how much the mutation had changed between birth groups, as well as within the male genetics to allow for a breeding population.
He packed the disks back into the envelope along with the notes. He already hated whoever had created this project, and if he ever caught any break finding out who they were, he'd rip them to shreds. His cubs shouldn't have to go through this, and he was going to blunt the blow as much as he could. He sat down and worked out a rough chart of siblings.
Rini had three siblings, David, May, and Baby Kara. Tymi had two sisters, Gerri and Mary, Jane had only one sibling, Paul. Rex had a sister Jenny. In the next eldest group, the ones that had been seven when he found them, Keith had a younger sister, Susan. Peter had two siblings, John and Jake. His little Maggie had one brother, Matt.
He drove through the night, the list running through his head. Should he tell them, or just wait and see if they needed to be told. He knew how much it had meant to him, knowing Jimmy was his brother, not just a kid he was responsible for. Maybe if they knew, the older siblings would take a bigger responsibility for their younger siblings. He turned it over in his mind, and still wasn't sure what he was going to do the next evening when he pulled to a stop in front of the house.
Rini and Tymi were sitting on the top step of the porch, and he chuckled as they jumped up and ran toward him.
"Any new kittens?"
"Not yet. Did the one's I shipped home arrive safely?" They both nodded. The black panther cubs had been a lucky find.
"Are you staying a while?" Rini asked.
"I don't know yet." She'd grown over the last two years, and was a gangly, awkward thirteen year old.
"Let him get off the bike, sheish." Tymi tried to snarl, but it cracked. Victor had to grin. He was definitely growing into his voice. He was not quite into that awkward teenage stage, even being thirteen years old, and barely had any fuzz on his chin.
"I need ta talk ta you two, later." Victor said as he unpacked his saddlebags.
"We didn't do it." They both said, and this time Victor burst out laughing.
"You're not in trouble, I just want ta talk about where you came from." He said.
They both stopped, and just looked at each other, then back to him. "Cubs, I found the lab, okay. I want ta hear from you what happened in there. I ain't mad, well not at you. I'd like ta find the assholes that did this and rip their guts out." He snarled.
"You found it?" Rini asked.
"Yeah."
She just nodded, and grabbed one of his bags. "It wasn't bad, until they decided to shut it down." She said softly. "We stayed in our rooms, and got to go up to the first floor once a day or so to play in a big playground. We had lessons and stuff up there too. Then one day, we were in our rooms and I smelled smoke. It smelled really bad, but then it started to rain and the doors opened up. Tymi and I grabbed the other kids, and carried the babies out."
"The upper floor was on fire, we could smell something really bad, and hear people screaming and moaning, but we just had to get the littles out of there. We went up to the first floor." Tymi picked up the story. "It was burning and there were no people. The front door was locked, but we found a back door that wasn't and we got the littles out that way. It was an alley, and we moved down it as quietly as we could."
"We moved from place to place til we found the building where you found us." Rini said. "We were having problems with the babies, we couldn't steal food for them, and three of them died. We kept trying with baby Kara, and one day I got lucky, there was a woman in a park who had a baby with her, and a bag on the ground with some bottles in it. It wasn't milk like we made when you brought us stuff, it was a lot clearer, and didn't smell like milk. I took three of the woman's bottles and Kara seemed to like it."
"That's when she decided we needed money to buy baby stuff, 'cuz Kara started to get better." Tymi glared at her.
"I'd seen girls not much older than me go into alleys and stuff with older guys, and I'd watch what they did. I figured I could do that, if I could get paid for it. But, well you saw how bad the guy beat me up the first time I tried." Rini said, blushing and tears on her cheeks.
"Well it worked out, you're here and safe." Victor pulled her into a rough hug. He never did well with frail shit like tears.
That night, after the cubs went to their own beds he started going through the disks. It was a lot of information, and he knew he was going to need help deciphering some of it. He didn't know any geneticists he trusted so he just locked the information in his desk. It would keep. The cubs had a few years before they needed to know anything more than they did.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number he'd rather forget.
"Fury."
"I've got some info on the lab. I can send you copies." Victor said, a deep growl in his voice.
"I'll swing by and pick it up." Fury said. "I might have a job or two lined up, if you're interested."
"I'm interested." He growled. At least working for SHIELD the cubs would be safe, he'd see to that.
"I'll stop by tomorrow." Fury said and hung up.
Victor made quick copies of the disks and the notes, and then locked the originals up in his safe. He wasn't going to let those out of his possession.
He collapsed into his bed, and almost as soon as he kicked his boots off, Maggie and two of the toddlers came creeping into his room, and up onto the bed. He just sighed as Kara curled up against his shoulder, her little had resting on his neck. Someday he was going to have to stop them, but tonight, after what he'd seen, having them here would keep his own nightmares at bay.