The copper taste lined her tongue threatening to ignite the gag reflex. It wasn't unusual for her to taste blood in her mouth. She wasn't what you would call a cooperative patient. It was never her style which in itself made her a hazard to the program. After all their methodic planning, brutal efforts, and fierce determination they hadn't managed to stamp out her will. Having a mind of your own, let alone will, was forbidden. It's why the doctors were hired, to ensure there would be no will of their own. Something went wrong in their design and planning for 333 alias AJ.
As much as she frustrated and even pissed them off, it wasn't nearly equal to their intrigue with her. Not that little itty bit of her that struggled to survive in an environment that's sole purpose was to snuff it out, but in her body. Her physiology and brain were their concern. Aside from the light she fought to maintain that gave her hope for a different life, she had unique abilities that they couldn't replicate. They particularly appreciated her ability as an empath. She could influence people's emotions and even actions at will. They referred to her as a pusher. This alone frightened them and strived for years to combat her ability. Escape would have been easy if they had managed to fail at finding someone that could resist. A man that spent her entire existence building a resistance to her slowly injecting him with a poisonous compound for humans that cost the lives of those like her. The Others as they were called.
They couldn't be categorized into any defined group that normal society recognized. They were neither human nor mutant. They had been changed so much that they had become a mutant to the mutants and humans alike. Their numbers were few and ever dwindling with their methods of training and evolving them. It was volatile and at times terminal.
It was as if someone were flashing a large overhead medical lamp on and off rapidly leaving AJ's surroundings a blur. What were they trying to do give her an epileptic seizure? What use to them would that be?
"333," the voice barked on the verge of losing control. He was always close to snapping these days when forced to work with her. Annoying the hell out of those who decided your fate was a talent right? And they've always said The Others shouldn't waste their talent.
"I've ordered you to push him," his voice was strained now standing next to her.
This was the last thing she wanted to do. She couldn't fallow this order. Instead she focused on him trying to break through the barrier he had built against her. This wasn't going to be easy but there had to be a way. She thought about what she wanted the tyrant to do she'd settle for him turning around but it wasn't working and her head was beginning to hurt from the force of it.
Maybe another tactic. Perhaps something slightly more aggressive.
"You fucking sack of meat," he yelled gripping his head.
A heavy lidded man with a face the shape of a rectangle block narrowed his eyes the corner of his mouth curling up in pleasure punching a black button he fondly referred to as the bitch switch. As in teaching the bitch a lesson, a lesson reserved for her alone.
Volts of electricity flowed through the holes in her skull to the rods placed there forcing her to the ground with a loud thud. Muscles contracted of their own will in response, her body folding up on itself in agony. Her teeth slammed together with such force she expected some of them to be cracked when this was over, the muscles in her neck and jaw strained.
"There's nothing you can do," he spoke loudly, his voice booming off the walls in the empty grey room.
They had learned quickly that leaving any furniture in the room of any kind or item even a paperclip was deadly to them. She was done being their puppet. She searched the room, her head arching back at a painful angle the electricity finally ending to stare up at the man in the heavily sealed room. They had lined it with layers of animantium in hopes she couldn't penetrate it with her thoughts pushing the controller to kill themselves or better yet her Master. He merely sneered at her through the protective room, payback was going to be hell an none too swift for him.
333's limbs twitched their final submission to the torture, her body not in her control. The Master tilted his head down at her satisfied that she couldn't fight.
"Do your purpose, push him." His orders fell on unwilling ears.
Anger and frustration fueling his body, The Master drew his leg up then plummeted the heel of his black boots in her face the crushing of cartilage and bone echoing in her head, over and over until his rage subsided. Stretching his neck, tugging on his shirt The Master returned to the window looking down on the room where the participants stood twelve feet below in another room.
"Your efforts at humanity are wasted," he began. "You are nothing, a number, a sack of meat to mold into our design. Into my design. Her death is on your hands despite your error in character." His voice was icy. 333 who called herself AJ tried to move her legs, her arms but they simply twitched her face bleeding upon the floor.
He nodded to 834 participant, the male counterpart in the simulation. The screams of the woman in the room with him pierced the walls tearing 333's heart to pieces.
The room slid in her vision. Every time she focused on an object or person they slid out of view melting into darkness until they formed a face.
Wolverine.
Her mind raced, they had found one another again. They were in Canada. Why was she recalling the past? The Facility? Why couldn't she awake?
Then something painfully familiar assaulted her senses, alcohol, bleach and other disinfectants. All adding up to one frightening memory, The Master.
