Chapter Eight~
Mrs. Mayberry's mind bobbed back up to the surface of consciousness, and her bleary eyes blinked at the room's fluorescent lighting. Rolling her head away from the brightness, it then occurred to her that she was resting on something that allowed it to move to the side in the first place.
She was prone, she discovered, so Mayberry weakly attempted to stand and found that she couldn't.
She was lying on an examination table. Her arms were extended over her head and bound by buckled, leather restraints, and her ankles were similarly held.
Craning her neck, Mayberry could see and recognize, on the opposite end, the shelves, glassware, desk, and all of the other laboratory accouterments she spied from The Mirror. She could also see Wild Card, seated by the solitary desk, filling in his lab notes on his latest acquisition.
The room was much more expansive now that she was in it, but rather than ruefully ruminate on what mistakes she made to get herself caught like this, she turned her head to learn more about her immediate surroundings.
She rested on the first of three tables. On the third table across from her lay a male Sinner Demon. Conscious and gagged, he pulled at his own restraints when he noticed she had awakened.
The situation felt unsettling enough, but what Mayberry saw from the bed in the middle, from the apparatus that straddled it, gave her a stomach-chilling dread.
Rigged over the bed was a strange contraption, a crude, crane-like affair. A telescopic scaffolding was bolted to the bed frame and held up a large machine powered by cords wound to some out-of-the-way corner of the room.
The machine, which resembled a spherical, motorized pump, had runes of power carved into the housing, and had a hose long enough to lie in a coiled heap on the table, tipped with an end that looked like a hypodermic needle, but dishearteningly larger.
Set upon the device was a squat cylinder, possibly a container for whatever the pump extracted. A thin band of metal marked with dark, arcane symbols encircled it.
Hearing the male Sinner stir, Wild Card calmly stood and walked over to Mayberry. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. Do you know who I am?'
"Someone who likes to punch women?" she guessed.
"Not really, but you'll get that a lot here. I'm just a humble doctor of sports medicine. I gave you a sedative while you were out, by the way, just to keep you honest."
"Figures," she muttered, feeling frustratingly relaxed. "Sports medicine and a wrestler? You must work for Prezgut."
He nodded. "Have you ever heard of Overdrive?"
"Is that another wrestler?"
"No," he said. "A few Cleanses ago, I came across three Sinner corpses. Curious, I examined their remains and found traces of their individual curses that still survived the Angel attacks, so I proceeded further."
"You don't date much, do you?"
"With a little genius, chemical purification, and magical reinforcement, I managed to actually extract and capture a Sinner's essence with my baby, here," Wild Card explained, strolling over to the device hanging over the center table and giving it a proud pat.
"The next thing I did was reckless, but I had to see if the curses were transferable. The power I felt...Even though they each lasted only six minutes, this was a breakthrough. It was going to open doors. Change things on a fundamental level. I called it Overdrive, the next super-steroid. A near-miracle, if I do say so myself."
"Near?" May asked.
"Well, perfection can't be rushed," he shrugged. "I don't know why it's more stable in me than in my other unsuspecting guinea pigs in the company, but after six minutes, the curses fade. That's why it's not ready, yet. It's not permanent."
"Guinea pigs, huh? That explains what happened to Rage-a-Rama," Mayberry mused, chewing on his story before a bolt of connection suddenly struck her with a brilliance that rivaled the room.
"Wait a minute! It's you! You're the one who's been taking Sinners, probably under the cover of the other kidnappings! You need us for this Overdrive bullshit. You've been using those powers to bring Sinners here and steal their curses from them!"
He nodded approvingly. "Sharp mind."
"Bet my last soul, you used one of your powers to kill that kidnapper after I gave Prezgut the address last night. Do I add enforcer to you resume?"
"The Crown wanted to make an example of him," the doctor confessed.
Her captor walked back to her table and leaned close to her face, not wanting her to misread his answer. "Overlords are Sinners. You're part of the problem. When Prezgut told me about The Lesser Crown, I realized I was thinking too small. Here was a chance to truly help our people by giving them the permanent powers of a Sinner!"
"Why?"
"Because the doors would be open for the next step in our evolution-Overlord, the key to true power for us all."
"Y'know, there are better ways to effect change," she offered. "Have you tried petitions?"
"You are an invasive species!" he hissed, ignoring her jibe. "Castoffs that God wanted nothing to do with. But, somehow, just to prove a point with Him, the Dark Lord, in his infernal wisdom, decided that your kind should be held above us Imps and Hellborn to the point that you should rule over us...as Overlords! Why should convicts have dominion over us? You're not even natives!"
"Okay. One-I, personally, don't want to be an Overlord," she reasoned to the radical, which in retrospect, was probably futile. "And two-if you feel that way about it, why don't you just let The Cleanse keep doing what it's doing? It's been working like gangbusters, from what I've heard."
"Because Imps and Hellborn will need the curses that only I can harvest to someday help elevate them from the gutter," Wild Card answered with a mad sparkle in his eyes, straightening up to a proud height. "That's my destiny and the only good thing about you, you fucking trash."
"What about the Hell Hounds?"
He sneered. "Who cares about Hell Hounds? Fuck' em. Do you see why my actions are so important to the future?"
Mayberry fixed him with an unimpressed look. "No, but I'm beginning to think Lucifer might've been onto something. Because compared to us, you are one unstable motherfucker."
Wild Card tensed, but any rebuttal was interrupted by a knock on the door. Marching over and answering it, a diminutive Hellborn stood outside, his face a portrait of worry. "Got a minute, doc?"
"What's wrong?"
"Wrecker's in the infirmary. His match is comin' up soon."
"Is he injured?"
The visitor shrugged. "Naw, he just can't get it up for his finisher. He feels really down about it."
"Damn pay-per-view jitters," Wild Card sighed. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
With that settled, he turned back to the prisoners with slight indecision playing within him. He hated to leave them alone, but he was on call. His mind was on the next extraction, but he had a good job and saw no reason to jeopardize it with unprofessional behavior.
Thinking back to prior extractions, the restraints had proven their worth. It was improbable that his lab rats would find the time to escape, if he tended to the wrestler quickly.
With his mind somewhat at ease, he grabbed a doctor's bag on the desk, preparing to go.
"Performance anxiety?" Mayberry mocked from across the room. "Maybe Wrecker just needs a doctor's steady, gentle hands."
The glance he shot her promised future unpleasantness. "I'm coming back, and when I'm done with you, that shitty sense of humor will be the only thing left for the Angels to find."
He slammed the door on his way out to punctuate the threat.
A reprieve, but it would be short-lived. And with the other prisoner loudly trying to talk through his gag, it only succeeded in distracting Mayberry.
"Quit it! I'm trying to think. Ugh, now my nose is itching."
Unconsciously, she raised her tail from under her to scratch with the barbed tip, thought about what she just did, and an idea hit her.
Slipping her tail underneath her and out to the side of the center bed, she tried to reach the coiled hose on it, but only managed to get as far as the edge of the other bed's mattress.
The male lifted his head and spotted Mayberry's tail uselessly patting the table's edge, inspiring another series of grunts to her.
"What the fu-?" she asked in annoyance, looking over at the offender.
He lifted his tail, a slightly longer than hers, and reached out to poke it against the side of the middle bed's frame.
Biting down on his gag with a prolonged growl, he pressed the barbed end against it. Since the tail, as a whole, was too thin to bear much force pushing against the far heavier bed's resistance, the semi-stiff tail, at that point, bent to a painful degree.
As she suddenly understood what he was planning, the rollers began to inch the bed in May's direction in hard increments.
Her tail reached and hooked around the bed frame from her side. Trying to find what little leverage she could, Mayberry shifted her hips, gritted her teeth, and began to tug hard. Slowly, the bed crept closer to her, each captive easing the burden of the other somewhat.
Finally, the center bed almost touched Mayberry's. Slipping her tail up between the two furnishings, she snaked the caudal limb across the mattress and looped it around the needle.
She then dragged it across and carefully raised the end to one of her wrists while keeping an eye on its progress. When it was brought up to the side of one of the restraints, she awkwardly slid the needle's shaft underneath the looped strap in the buckle and began working it up and down, trying to pry it loose.
With the fulcrum of awkward flicks of her tail, the needle gradually pried the loop from the buckle until the thong flapped out and the leather cuff loosened around her wrist.
A few rotating shakes and the hand slid free, whereby Mayberry reached over and undid the other fetter before loosening herself from the bed entirely.
Glancing at the lab's door and praying that Wild Card hadn't finished his ministrations early, she rushed to her fellow captive's bed and released him.
"Sorry I yelled at you," May apologized.
"I get called worse at the office. Believe me," said the male, as they quietly yet quickly went for the door.
With the door opened, the male cautiously stuck his head from the room, sweeping the wide, empty, concrete hallway. Their location was answered with the word, Sub-basement, stenciled on the wall across them.
"Coast is clear," he breathed gratefully. "Thanks for the save, mystery lady. I live for the scoop, but didn't want to die for it."
"You're a reporter?"
"Yeah. I followed Asshat's trail before he got the drop on me. This is big, and thanks to you, it'll save Sinners' lives, even if nobody else cares."
Mayberry gave a wan smile at that. "Well, we Sinners got to stick together down here."
"You know it. Asshat probably took the elevator, so let's take the stairs and get the fuck outta here."