Disclaimer: once again, I own no recognizable characters or situations. Please, may no one take offense. (That kinda sounds like a prayer!)
Note: I'll be honest, faithful reader—I felt the first two chapters of this little work were going no where. I think they just drug on and on . . . and I think had I continued with The Lone Gunmen and Quinn tracking the Genesis Project down, the same would have happened. It would have taken about a hundred pages to get to this chapter here. So! I've saved you the agony of reading through long babblings, and jumped right to the point.
The idea behind this came from a big news story near where I live. More on that below!
Enjoy!
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Finding
Toad was sobbing, hysterical, clinging to her as if to a life raft. His fingers squeezed her arms too tightly. Quinn soothed him, whispering soft words into his ear and stroking his hair. The Lone Gunmen faded to the back of her vision and attention.
Few of what words he was able to form were understandable.
"Your hair—" she was able to make out.
"It'll grow back, it'll grow back," she promised.
He continued to press against her desperately.
Eventually, Quinn was able to detach herself enough to tell him, "We've got to go, Mortimer. Come on, let's get out of here."
Ungracefully Toad complied as she helped him up. Once vertical, he took clumsy steps forward and cried out in pain. The reason became clear.
Quinn gasped. She heard the Gunmen behind her do the same.
Toad's thin pants were quickly soaking through with fresh blood. He stood shakily for a second, his liquid eyes filled with humiliation, before he whispered, "I'm sorry, Quinn," and collapsed back to the floor.
Quinn sank with him. She cradled his head.
"What did they do to you? Mortimer, tell me!"
He turned his face away from her, ashamed. New sobs choked him and jerked his body awkwardly.
Quinn glanced over him again. Slow dawning came to her as she realized the blood pooled near his groin.
"Oh god . . . oh god . . .." she repeated, stuck.
Frohike, ever the practical one when it came to injuries, appeared by her side.
"Let me help," he said quietly. "The bleeding has to stop."
Quinn let him take over Toad's immediate care. As Frohike attended him, Quinn gently released his head and stood up. He barely seemed aware she left him. She stumbled her way to the door of the cell.
Byers and Langly stood there, mostly helpless. As Quinn shuffled nearer to them, both men made an effort to take her shoulders.
"Quinn, take deep breaths," Byers instructed.
"Quinn—" Langly said no more as he tried to pull her into a hug.
She pushed him away. An animal look had come to her eye. Langly had the feeling she didn't really see him, only through him. She stalked down the short hallway, away from the cell.
"Quinn, what are you doing?" cried Byers, panicked.
Langly, not rebuffed, hurried after her.
Quinn picked up speed, fueled by rage, and kicked in the door to the make-shift lab. It hurt her foot, but she ignored it and stomped to the two men tied tightly to chairs. They were the only two she and the Gunmen had found in this place. It had been Frohike's idea to tie them up.
The two had been whispering to each other when Quinn kicked the door. They looked at her defiantly as she came to them.
"You'll never stop us, mutant," one sneered at her. "We are superior! You are an abomination of nature—"
Quinn stopped by the closer of the two. She took a handful of his hair and yanked his head back, soliciting a gasp from him. His companion was still going on about mutant menace, the mutant freaks.
"Open your mouth!" she screamed, six inches from his face.
Startled, he stared at her with dilated eyes.
"Open your mouth!" she screamed again, and punctuated it with the barrel of her handgun slammed painfully against his lips and teeth.
His eyes wide, he complied.
Quinn thrust the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
"Oh Jesus—" gagged Langly, bile in his throat. He scrambled backward through the door, retching, unable to remain in the room. He called for Byers to help, hysteria cracking his voice.
"You," Quinn spit, turning abruptly to the dead man's partner. His speech had been choked off mid-tirade as bit of bone and gore splattered him. He stared, frozen, at Quinn's gun, the barrel still dripping with blood. She aimed the firearm at him. "You tell me the names of every one of the people involved with this."
The man, still attempting to exert defiance, managed to reply, "I'll never give the information to you, freak—"
The bullet that tore through his right knee dissolved his words into screams.
Byers, outside the door, holding Langly up as he vomited, flinched. He heard her repeat her request, "you tell me the names," calmly. The man's screams had faded to blubbering and pleading. He heard the ominous cocking of the pistol again. The man, his voice now punctuated with sobs, began reciting a list of names.
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The man was done. He was now begging for his life, a desperate, whining bargaining that Byers knew fell on deaf ears.
Quinn, still speaking calmly, told him what he had to do to save his life. With a sob of relief the man agreed.
Byers, still standing out of sight in the hallway, listened to Quinn untie the man. He heard the shuffling of papers and the scratch of a pen on them. He caught Quinn's instructions, telling the man to write that the Genesis Project was wrong, that he was sorry for it, and that every member of the group had best stop. She made him repeat the last line, adding that Arioch would be hunting them down.
In a few seconds, the writing stopped.
"Sit here," Quinn ordered, and Byers realized she was walking to the door.
Stepping through, she didn't seem surprised Byers was waiting there. She thrust a piece of paper at him.
"Did he write what I said?" she demanded.
Glancing over it, Byers nodded, afraid his voice would betray him if he tried to answer aloud. Quinn grabbed it away from him and turned back into the room.
"Arioch, the demon of vengeance," Byers heard her tell the man. "She'll find your friends."
The man babbled something about changing, and letting the others know, and thanking her for his life.
Byers jumped as a shot rang out. The sound of something heavy collapsed out of a chair to the floor. There was a sudden crashing, breaking noise, along with Quinn's cursing.
Still afraid to stick his head in the door, Byers waited until Quinn exited the room. She shoved the hard drive to the Genesis computer at him without a word, then walked back down the hall. Byers followed her, clutching the equipment, unable to form any coherent thoughts as to what just transpired.
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Quinn found Langly and Frohike outside the cell. Langly couldn't look at her. The building wasn't large, and the shots she had fired had been heard by both of them. Toad, on the floor, reached for her. She knelt beside him. Turning to Frohike, she asked,
"What exactly did they do to him?"
Frohike paused.
"Tell me!" Her voice had a hard edge to it.
"They castrated him," he answered softly. "He's lost a lot of blood."
Quinn's knees felt weak and involuntarily she sat. There was silence among the group.
Finally she caught her breath and in a much more subdued tone said, "Let's get out of here. Can someone help me support him?"
Frohike nodded. Together they assisted a wobbly Toad out through the building to the waiting van. The other two followed, and climbed into the front seat. After settling Toad on the floor, Frohike dared to ask,
"What are you going to do, Quinn?"
"I'm going to track down every single person ever involved in the Genesis Project and kill them," she replied matter-of-factly. "The data on that hard drive will help."
Under her penetrating stare, Frohike could only nod in agreement.
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note (cont.): This idea stemmed from the news that a transsexual woman castrated her husband of one day (!) in a make-shift surgery room in their house. The husband died of choking on his own vomit from pain afterward. She's being charged with murder.
Something else—a person I work with knows her! Like they say: the truth is stranger than fiction.