It was only one life. What is one life in the affairs of a state?

Benito Mussolini

Chapter Four

Lee did not want to wake up. She wished the padded walls would fall onto her and suffocate the life out of her rather then go through another day of torment by Phineas' side. His idea of involving her into every step of his new project was choking what little life she had left in her.

By no means did Lee like that vile, dangerous creature that was kept caged under tighter security then she. But watching them toy with it day in and day out was pulling on the small spring of compassion residing inside. Its screams made her blood run cold but also made her ache for its torment. Although it gave as good as it got, the creature was still unable to fend off the determined scientists. It was a rage filled thing, but it's menace and threats could not stop cold, clinical triumph.

They prodded it with electric lances to test its reactions. Jabbed over large needles into it's thick hide which only ruined them in the acidic wash of its blood. One on the team, a dead-eyed man that Lee found as flat as the whitewashed walls around them, clipped off a finger of the creature's to study. It had retaliated by taking an unfortunate assistants lower jaw clean off. The small room had been filled with blood of both kinds that day. By sheer luck they'd stopped the burning viscous fluid from eating through the floors and walls by using a amalgam Lee wasn't familiar with to soak it up and neutralize the corrosive properties.

There was a lot of excitement about the inner mouth with it's steel-like teeth that snapped abruptly out to catch those unwary or too close. Both of which happened on separate occasions. That thing in the small room went through two teams of eager scientists who flocked like lemmings to study it certain that they'd be part of a glorious finding under Hallquist's heading. Lee could find no pity for them whatsoever.

Through it all she stood behind the large pane of glass in the hallway, beside Phineas and they watched the madness and brutality unfold in the room. In the thick sheet of glass, Lee studied his reflection as often as he studied hers and what she saw made something greasy twist inside her gut. His eyes were too feverish and consuming, like he could visually absorb everything he saw and keep it under his own lock and key, his tidy kingdom with his own rules.

Weeks, months passed. She wasn't sure anymore. Time was slippery and out of her control. When she slept, she dreamed and Lee did not want to dream anymore. So she kept herself up singing small childish songs her mother had taught her when she was a little girl. Or she'd pinch her arm, sometimes drag her ragged fingernails down her sides to pull her awake. The pain felt hot and so very good for so wrong a reason. Phineas and his two guard dogs never saw the marks and if they did, she found she wasn't sure what they would do. What could they do? Would he really care? The man inflicted pain to aid life.

Watching him work, watching the depraved and hungry assistants flock on the creature in masse day in and day out felt like it would be the end of her sanity. But the biggest insult to her very existence came too soon for her. They deviated away from the secured hallway where the specimen was kept and toward the labs again. Phineas was bursting with excitement over his newest discovery he practically vibrated. Lee's legs didn't want to work and Maynard had to drag her along behind giving her a disapproving look every step.

They walked into a med bay so reminiscent of Absum's that the breath caught in her lungs and burned with the painful memories. But there was no Haskel, or Cara, or Ruthie. Not Wyatt and his glorious smile tinged with that hard edge she wanted to smooth away with her fingertips. There was only rows of cots, all filled with patients and they looked so wrong that for a moment Lee couldn't figure out why. Then with a horrified cry of disbelief she backed away from the room, intent of fleeing because on their faces were those things, those spindly legged horrors that were violating the very room with their existence.

"Wh-what are they doing?" Her voice was cracked and rough from weeks of disuse but it still somehow managed to fill up the room and echo back at her. Bile rose in her throat as she noticed a long finger-like appendage on the nearest abomination twitch and tighten it's grip.

"Leah, calm yourself. This is all part of the scientific step toward a perfect, healed whole." As always Phineas' voice was so calm and thoughtful, so right in his convictions.

Trying to squirm out of Maynard's tight grasp, Lee could only stare at him, "No, Phineas, it's not. You can't keep doing this to people! Look at them!"

He favored the long row of victims with a slow, genuinely puzzled look that made a sob well up in her throat. He'll never see, he'll never realize what he's doing. He has no soul, he's so cruel!

Something on her face, perhaps the open play of emotions on her expressive features made Phineas' mouth twist in a moue of disgust. "They're comatose, Leah. Don't be so absurd, they can't feel anything. Their brains are useless material but their bodies are being used for something far more important to this endeavor."

Grabbing her arm, he led her out of the room and toward another wing of the med bay that had large viewing windows much like the ones for the specimen room, she noted with dismay. Inside were more rows of unconscious patients, free of the monsters but still just as pitiful for their lack of life and vitality. She counted twenty in all, most likely the same amount in the neighboring room they'd just visited. Forty lives that would be extinguished here.

Any retort for him was never fully realized when one of the persons in the room started to thrash and heave themselves off of the bed. Mewling in distress, Lee tried to pull herself out of Phineas' hand and seek the sanctity of the nearby empty corner but he wouldn't let her.

"Watch, Leah. See for me."

So she did watch and the horror bubbled up thick and rancid in her throat like vomit as something tore its way out of the patient's chest, screaming like a newborn disease that it was. A group of nurses and orderlies were there to capture it before it squirmed out of the hollowed, bloody cavity, flicking blood drops like rubies all over the immediate area. Then she could take no more, had to turn away and be sick in the hallway, dry heaving on nothing but sour acid from her stomach.

"Do you see, my dear? Do you understand the sheer capabilities? Tell me I have reached you at long last." The pleading in his tone ate at her like cancer and for once in her miserable existence since stepping foot on this planet, she wasn't tired or lost. She was livid. Closing the distance between them, she pushed out all her hate, her anger she'd been holding, all just for him.

"You killed them! You killed them all, you sick fuck! I hate you! I.hate.you!" With every word she clawed at him and tried to strike him. Tried to make him bleed. Maynard jerked with surprise at the attack on the good doctor, Pavla just froze and watched with bewilderment. Phineas' glasses were knocked aside as her fingernails cleaved a path over his eye ridge and cheeks, across his nose. She dug and tore at him and made him hurt. Too soon she was bodily lifted and torn away from him by Maynard, with such a wrench of his back that he'd probably be feeling that in the morning for weeks to come.

She writhed like a live wire, trying to worm her way free. In her flailing she managed to land a sharp kick to Pavla's ribs, when he finally mustered the initiative to subdue her, that had him hissing in pain and reaching for her with hooked fingers intent on returning the pain. And oh, he did. She keened in pain, the virulent hatred draining out of her when his fingertips dug into her nerves and created fire through her limbs. She couldn't even fight Maynard's creeping arm that slid under her neck and snuffed the air from her throat, constricting her airway. The last she saw was Phineas' narrowed gaze studying her in such profound disappointment before blackness ate up her vision and the pain finally stopped; unconsciousness took her.

Following her rebellion, they had locked her up and seemingly forgot about her. Which was fine by her as she'd never wanted to be the center of Hallquist's attention anyway. Unfortunately they had stopped feeding her solid foods, substituting a diet of pills, vitamins, and liquids. Just enough of hydrate her and keep her body running, barely. Her thoughts were getting sluggish and dull, but even then she knew her special treatment was over. They were prepping her body for tests. This she knew from Haskell's parents. He had remembered all too well the special diet his mother and father had been on for weeks before their treatment.

Instead of being alarmed she was just tired. It had little to do with the vitamin diet. Mentally she was just exhausted from fighting him. It was a losing battle anyway. There was little chance of her getting out of his compound by herself when all her friends were gone.

Before her eyes the door clicked open, Maynard and Pavla stood waiting for her. There were two other guards behind them. This most certainly didn't bode well for her. Phineas stepped between the four guards and took two steps into her room, taking his place beside the door with a clipboard in hand. "Take the test subject to room S-02 on the fourth level."

Alarm flooded Lee's mind. He'd taken all personalization out of the order. She was no longer "Leah" to him, now she was fair game. And just what did the S stand for in S-02?Trying not to panic openly when the guards entered the room, she stood unsteadily and leaned back against the wall. Her legs felt like jelly and the room swam. Before she could put up more of a defense Maynard grabbed her arm and hauled her into Pavla's awaiting arms. She didn't even bother to struggle. She had to conserve her energy for later.

The guards, with her between them like a parody of a vanguard, followed Phineas down the hall to an elevator. The ride down was uncomfortable and silent. Lee snuck sullen glances at the good doctor from time to time, but his stony face gave nothing away. One level down they pushed her out of the elevator and pulled her through a maze of dim hallways. It was chilly this far down under the soil and the air had a slightly damp quality. The upper levels of the compound hadn't been rushed, quite unlike this level.

It was the darkened hallway with three doors that tipped her memory of the creature like spilled ink. The guards halted in front of a set of doors guarding the hallway. There were no other people around. Phineas went through the usual motions to open the doors and onward they went a short distance and stopped between three doors side by side. The code on the doors were: S-01, S-02, and S-03. The paint looked fresh this whole wing had new feel to it. Apparently the compound had been busy while I was in solitude, she thought dryly.

"Put the creature into Specimen Room number two."

So she was a specimen now. Cozy. At the moment she was more scared then angry. If she was specimen number two, what was specimen number one? The black creature came to mind, with needle teeth and pent up rage. And suddenly she did not want to go one step further into that room. When the guards opened the door with a pass card, she back peddled away from the darkened doorway and into either Pavla's or Maynard's chest. She didn't care whose at the moment. As both guards grabbed her arms to push her forward she balked and let her legs buckle becoming deadweight. Terror sank it's fangs into her mind and she felt like whimpering in dread. Whether she wanted to or not, they were going to put her in that room. Half dragging, half carrying her they almost had her through the door when she lost all sense of pride and grabbed hold of Hallquist's arm and beseeched him.

"Phineas, please! Don't do this to me. Let me go-let me go home! I won't tell anyone. Please." To her horror, tears streamed down her cheeks and shame flared hotly across her face. Still she continued to beg, "Let me see my momma. Please, please just-"

"Gentlemen, get this thing off of me and into the room." Hallquist didn't even glance in her direction during her pleading.

Lee gasped as all four guards shoved her into the room and slammed the heavy metal door behind her. A paltry light filtered in from the monitor windows on the doors giving her new room some depth. She was in a cage. Before her was a heavy concrete wall, and on both sides were bars separating her from the rooms to the left and right. From bars to bars, the room was roughly twelve feet across and the floors were bare concrete; very cold on her bare feet.

Blackness pooled all around her and she hugged herself against the chill and dread that settled deeply in her empty stomach. I'll die here, in this dark room or on some little table being filleted open by Phineas. I'll never see my mom or my father again. They would be so ashamed of me…

Wallowing in self pity was all to easy when one had nothing to look forward to. Lee could not see a way out of this, not without her friends. Not without her family. Not without anyone else's help. She'd proven she was too helpless alone.

As her thoughts mired in a loop of hate, doubt, fear, and loathing for herself, she paced the cell and the bars on her left side. The metal was freezing to the touch and left a nasty feeling on her hands she imagined more than felt. The silence of the three cells were broken only by the soft sound of her footsteps and tick of her fingernails across the bars. Staring into the cell beside her, she looked into the deep pool of shadows and stopped breathing when something seemed…off about the black gloom. Squinting her eyes, she focused on a spot furthest from the bars and light, the corner where a suggestion of movement…of sound…

A large, shining weapon of black edges hurled at her face with enough force to create a small breeze that ruffled her bangs before the impact hit the bars beside her cheek. She screamed and hurled herself away from the bars, clutching her face like she'd been injured even when she remained untouched. Her breath labored harshly as the creature, the very one and the same that had watched her from behind a thick plate of unbreakable glass, unfolded from the corner and pulled its tail back to it.

Keening in terror as it crawled sedately up to the bars, Lee backed away till her back hit the other set across cell. They'd put her in here with that thing! The bars were too flimsy, they'd never keep her safe from it. Its tail alone could pierce her in her sleep, when she was unaware and alone. She sobbed when it reached a spindly thin arm through the bars and reached for her, just testing it's reach. It could not reach even halfway into her portion of the cage, but it was enough to make her curl up in a ball and cry futile tears.