A Simple Case of Scientific Curiosity
Part Two
They raped me. All of them. They raped me, and they laughed as they did it. My body is naked, bloody and torn, my soft, tender secret place ripped to shreds from their searing caresses. My face is a mess, my eyes puffy and barely open. I think my nose is broken. I'm breathing through my mouth just to be certain, because I don't want to drown in my own blood. It cakes my body like a second skin, covering the multitude of cuts and bruises that pepper my flesh. My breasts have been slashed with the edge of a switchblade and my nipples are red raw from being touched and squeezed and pinched and licked and bitten by Scalphunter and his friends. I cried a lot last night when they finally left me alone, as I whimpered softly in a cold, sticky pool of my own blood. I screamed a lot, too, when I felt my broken bones pressing into my flesh. My stomach and back ache dully from where they beat me – where they gave me bruising forget-me-nots; where they sent me love letters straight from the fist. There are long lines of crusted blood on my abdomen, too – evidence of Scalphunter and his favourite game. He cut me with a hunting knife after he, Scrambler, and Blockbuster had had their way with me – after they had pumped at my hips like animals in heat, thrusting themselves and their seed inside my body one after the other, and made me sob with desperate and futile little gasps as I tried to get away from them on broken legs. They tore at me as if I was nothing more than tissue paper to be carelessly shredded into tiny pieces. They giggled madly as I coughed blood and bile and most of what I'd eaten the day before onto the floor of their little playroom, and begged for them to stop, without any success. Arclight licked the blood from my body and crowed with glee when I screamed with pain and disgust and, perversely, envy – envy that she was able to walk and talk and move without agony arcing through her body, agony that sizzled up and down my spine and through my flesh like pork fat on a griddle.
The end result of their bloody fun is that I can barely move. The chains they have slapped on my broken wrists and shattered ankles are pretty much totally redundant. I couldn't escape if I tried. The most I could manage would be a crawl – and a slow, painful crawl, at that. A sack of broken bones dragging herself to an early grave, leaving a trail of blood and tears, like a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor. That's all I'd be. I would cut myself in two on the sharp edges of my cracked and fractured bones before I even got halfway out the door. I can barely breathe. I can barely blink without making a huge effort not to cry out in pain. My sobs are quiet, coming in racked gasps, echoing back to myself and driving home just how short and painful the rest of my life is going to be. I know the others will be searching for me, but I also know that they won't find me until I am just another trophy for Scalphunter to display on his wall.
The door in front of me opens and the man himself steps through, his long black hair tied back into a loose ponytail. "How you feeling?" he asks, as if I am simply suffering from a head cold, or something that I could recover from after a night's sleep.
"How do you… think I'm feeling… you bastard?" I whisper, a searing symphony of pain running through my body with every word I manage to speak, my voice almost dissolving into sobs again.
"Now, now," he says, wagging a finger at me. "Play nice, or we won't give you the present we all want to give you." That surprises me.
"…What?" I say, looking up at Scalphunter through teary, red-rimmed eyes. "What do you mean?"
"The boss agreed to let us put you in a tube for a few hours. Fix you right up." He smiles, and reaches for my face with his right hand. I draw back, fear welling up inside me. My eyes feel as wide as saucers as I retreat from his touch, my breathing fast becoming quick and panicky.
"Don't touch me," I say, my voice small, afraid – pathetic. My weakness makes me hate myself almost as much as I do them, but I can't help it. "God, please, don't touch me." Scalphunter shrugs.
"Your choice, toots, but I have to carry you out of here if you want to be fixed. 'Course, if you want to die looking like Quasi-fuckin'-modo because you didn't get proper medical treatment, don't blame me." That puts me in a quandary. I don't want to lose what I so recently regained, but to get it back I have to let this… man… touch my body again. In the end I simply relent and let him pick me up gently – a remarkable contrast to last night – and bring me to the central axis of this base of Sinister's. Sinister himself is busy pouring thick liquids from test tube to test tube, monitoring Bunsen burners that are cooking various samples in their own juices. He does not turn his head to acknowledge Scalphunter's entrance, nor does he say anything to either of us. Scalphunter, at least, seems unsurprised.
"Don't mind the boss," he says conversationally. "He does this a lot. He has a lot on his mind." It occurs to me that he's trying to make me feel a little better about him and what he and his companions did to me last night. In fact it almost seems as if he thinks this machine he is going to use on me will wipe away the scars on my mind as easily as it will heal my body.
"Why are you doing this?" I whisper, as he sets me down gently inside a small pod that is edged with hardened glass and has little blinking lights dotted around its base.
Scalphunter's true face shows itself, finally, as he grins nastily and says, "I told you you'd be a long time dying, toots. This way we get to play with you a while longer. Ain't life grand?" He slips an oxygen mask over my head and waves to me as the tube begins to fill with a translucent green liquid that smells like peppermint and has the consistency of thick jelly. It pumps upwards from vents in the floor until it has filled the tube almost to the top, supporting my useless legs with its buoyant texture and taking away the pain that had wracked my body for what had seemed like an eternity. I float there for awhile, my view of the world coloured a viscous green and blurred by the refractive properties of the material of the tube itself. I can see the other Marauders milling around aimlessly, some of them playing video games and others practising with their powers. In the tubes next to me are what I presume are clones of Harpoon and Prism, the two Marauders I killed (or who killed each other – I haven't quite made up my mind who's responsible for that yet, and I think it's a fairly redundant question now that they are alive again) during my capture at the mansion. Riptide is there as well, his purple-haired face seemingly at peace – for this brief period, at least. He'll soon be back to his murderous best, as will the others. Then, right in front of me, I see Vertigo sauntering towards me, swinging her hips in the same way she did before she and Arclight tore at my flesh last night. She smiles and kisses the glass of my prison with her green-painted lips, waving silently at me in a bashful sort of way with the fingers of her left hand, as if to tell me that she intends to do exactly the same as she did before once I am fully healed. She licks her lips and saunters away, secure in the knowledge that she has passed her message on.
It takes about a day or so for the thick green solution to seep in through my pores and set my bones as though they had never been broken. My muscles still ache, and my mind is still scarred, but I am whole again, at least where my skeleton is concerned. I am able to see without squinting through bruised eyelids and I can move around a little, as well, which is good. It might leave me able to find a way out of here. My powers are still dampened, of course, but that doesn't mean that I can't think of something. I've relied too much on my mutant powers recently – they have a way of making you view the world in a specific way, and without them, that view is turned on its head. When I'm headblind like this (which has happened before, but thankfully not that often) I feel as if an essential part of me has been torn away, but I try hard not to let that colour my overall view of the situation. Scott would never do that, and since he is the team's leader I try to follow his example. If I can be half the X-Man he is, I'll have done a good job.
Scott. Just to think that name breaks my heart. Not because I love him – though I once thought I did, what seems like an eternity ago, thanks to Kwannon – but because he is being used by Sinister yet again, although in a less direct fashion than myself. To know you're being treated as a living, breathing petri dish every day of your life must be a huge burden to bear.
Scalphunter carried me out of the chamber himself in a repeat performance of yesterday's little humanitarian gesture, my body still naked and tender, and now he arrives back in my cell, his face split into a nasty grin. "Come on, bitch," he says coldly. "Time for you to give us all some sugar." He laughs nastily and cups my chin in his hand, resting the blade of his knife against my jaw as I try desperately to get away from him, drawing back as much as I can. I can feel him tracing it up and down my jugular and drawing it gently across my throat, as if he wants to slit my neck open there and then. "You know," he says thoughtfully, "I always thought you were shit-hot, even before you got that Asian stripper's body. You know, in a prim and proper English kind of way. The times I jacked off to thoughts of you… man, too many to count." He snorts with laughter again, as if he has just told me some hilarious joke. "And you know what? The reality's even better than I thought it would be." His face twists until it resembles a demon's. "Much better." He reaches up and undoes the restraints at my wrists that keep me strung up as if I have been crucified. He strokes his fingers across my breasts before he does so, however, making me shudder involuntarily. "Don't touch me," I say, in a voice that indicates I know I have little choice in the matter.
"Or what? You'll use some of that ninja bullshit on me?" Scalphunter strikes a clumsy defensive pose, and then laughs crudely. "Please. Give me a choice between using that and a bullet and I'll take the bullet any day. Any day, anywhere, any fuckin' time." He strokes my face again, and pushes me back against the wall, drawing his body close to mine. For a moment I am afraid that he is going to begin the evening's torture right here – I can feel his erection pressing into me through his costume, thick and hard against my hip – but then he smiles his nasty smile and whispers "Time's up, bitch. Let's go." He grabs my hair and moves quickly out of the room. I stumble after him, unable to really get any sort of balance – which, I think, is what he wanted. For all his bravado, I think – I know – that he would be my inferior in hand to hand combat. If only I could get the chance to prove it, I would show him exactly how much of a man he really is. How scared and afraid he would be without a weapon to protect him.
He drags me like an animal towards the Marauders' rec. room – they obviously want to be able to drink their beer and smoke their cigars while I bleed and cry and thrash like a fish on a hook. Vertigo, Arclight and Harpoon are in there already, their faces lighting up when they see Scalphunter entering with me in tow. Vertigo and Arclight are playing a card game – I think Sontag is trying to teach Vertigo how to play poker, without much success – and Harpoon is playing pool by himself, sending little pulses of energy along the cue now and again, in order to give the cue ball an extra kick. I know how that energy feels – the bastard touched me and sent it through my body over and over again. He made me lose control of my body's most basic functions – I was covered in my own excrement because my bowels emptied themselves at his touch. As if I hadn't been humiliated enough.
Harpoon puts the cue down and strides over towards me, a sick grin on his face. "Hey there," he says in his deep, melodious voice that might have sung songs in another life – beautiful songs, songs that Warren and I could have made love to – but now simply makes me feel ill at its very sound. He reaches out with his fingers and strokes my cheek, tracing the line of my neck down past the curves of my breasts to my stomach, and towards my sex. I know he's going to shock me with that energy of his, and I know that it's going to be painful, so when he brushes his fingertips lightly against my centre and the pain burns up my spine, I do not scream. Not immediately, anyway.
That comes later.
The days blur into one another, until I have been here for more than a week. Or at least I'd assume that they do. I haven't been outside since I got here, so I have no idea about the passage of time. My lungs have breathed nothing but sterile laboratory air and my feet have felt nothing underneath them but cold metal and plastic tiling. Every so often the Marauders will leave Sinister's base and come back with gruesome little trophies of where they have been – Scalphunter proudly shows me the hide of a mutant from the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, who he said could transform wood into metal, and back again. He doesn't tell me why Sinister wanted him dead, only that this poor little mutant (and they were little. From what I could see they weren't more than four, maybe five feet tall. Probably smaller) wasn't "good enough" to be allowed to pass their genes on to the next generation. This is Sinister's idea of "pruning" the genetic tree that is humanity – murder and genocide are his stock in trade.
And all through this, the Marauders have their brutal way with me almost every single night. My body aches with the pain of a thousand beatings and twice as many cuts and bruises, my mind coming close to snapping more than once. I keep telling myself that the others are just about to break down the doors of this fortress and rescue me, but I know that's a lie, even as I say the words. Knowing Sinister, this place is probably heavily shielded against telepathic scans – even those of Professor Xavier's strength – and without my own telepathy, I have no way of letting Warren know where I am. I hope that they are able to find the Marauders on one of their dirty little excursions, stop them, and then follow them back here, but the Marauders are professionals. They're not likely to let themselves be tailed so easily. Right now, though, it's my only hope for help from the outside. I have to do something myself if I am to escape, I decide.
My opportunity comes a few days later, when Vertigo sashays her way into my cell. She and the other Marauders have started taking turns to drag me to wherever it is they want to tear me apart on that particular night. The night before last it was Arclight. Before that, Scrambler. Before that… I can't remember. They've all begun to look the same to me. Suffice to say Scalphunter obviously got bored with herding me towards the others and ordered the rest of them to pull their weight.
"Hi, sexy," Vertigo purrs, fluttering her eyelashes at me. "Pleased to see me?"
I'm too miserable and tired to answer with anything but a shake of my head. Vertigo's smile widens.
"Never mind," she says in her smoky whore's voice, her face splitting into a malevolent grin. "I just love seeing you, baby." She laughs coldly, kisses me roughly on the lips, and runs her hands through my hair, which has become sticky with old blood and dirt. She ignores my reflexive attempts to pull away from her and presses a finger to the centre of my forehead, using her power to upset the balance of the fluid in my inner ears so that I am disoriented and nauseous while she undoes my restraints. She might have been forcefully evolved from a Savage Land primate, but Vertigo does show a remarkable amount of sense when she needs to. When I am free, she helps me to stand and then slaps some heavy restraints on my wrists. Unlike Scalphunter and Arclight, she has no formal combat training besides that which Sinister programmed into her head, so she obviously feels a lot more comfortable knowing that I won't be able to hit her.
Enjoy it while it lasts, you bitch.
I walk behind her for a while, my body prickling with goose pimples as I feel the cold air currents of the corridor against my skin. I wait until Vertigo has become certain that I will be docile – which I can tell through her body language; the way that her shoulders relax, how she carries herself, that kind of thing – and then I aim the heavy cuffs at the back of her head, so quickly that she cannot avoid them. They hit with a heavy thud, and Vertigo falls with little more than a sigh. I am tempted to revisit my suffering on her while she is unconscious – to make her virtually crippled with pain, doubled over in agony that reflects back upon her body like an echo – but my better instincts win out.
Just.
I search her body for the key to the cuffs, and, holding it in my teeth, I unlock them and feel them fall to the ground heavily. I strip Vertigo down to her skin, taking her costume because it is the only item of clothing I have to hand right now, and I would imagine that she has been naked in the place more than once. It's a bit too tight at the waist, and a little short in the arms and legs, but its fabric will soon stretch to accommodate me, I'm sure. Before I go, I make one small concession to the feelings of wanting to exact vengeance that have bubbled in my skull since that horrible first night here, and kick Vertigo in the ribs, as hard as I can. Something gives way beneath my foot, and I feel vindicated, ever so slightly. I spit on her prone body and leave her lying naked in the corridor.
Time to find my way out of here, I think. From my nightly excursions through the base I have been able to form a more-or-less complete mental map of the layout of the place. The central hub has access routes to every major part of Sinister's lair – I have seen genetic repositories, cloning banks and storage facilities while I've been being dragged around. I made a point to memorise everything – one of the latent benefits of my mutant power is that I can recall pretty much everything I see with crystal clarity. I'm sure Jean would say the same. If I've remembered correctly, the way towards the main exit should be to the east.
I proceed that way, in the absence of any other plan, and I find to my delight, that I am correct. I can see the night sky outside, and it fills my heart with joy. I'm cold, I'm hungry, and I'm drained both mentally and physically, but I'm going to finally get out of here. I reach my hand out to stroke the door release button, when I hear a voice that makes my heart sink and my soul curl in on itself.
"Do you think, Elisabeth Braddock, that you would be here now unless I had allowed you to be?" Sinister says, a fine edge of contempt gilding his words. "This is my world, you foolish child. I have watched you from the moment you escaped Vertigo. She is an idiot – a diversionary tactic made flesh – but she has served her master well since I made her a Marauder. As Rebecca will." I turn, finally, and I see a young woman standing next to Sinister, her blonde hair falling about her shoulders in long waves, and her eyes filled with the same icy determination and amoral gleam as Sinister's are. She is clad in a skin-tight blue uniform that accentuates her body's curves and is decorated with long black zigzags which follow her long legs and arms, going right up to the tips of her fingers. Her eyes are a vivid red, like Scott's. Sinister smiles his awful smile again and spreads his hands wide. "Elisabeth, meet my newest Marauder. Her name is Mindwipe, and she's your daughter."