Editor's note: As a word of caution, and a call to action, I do mention two real-life circumstances here: the USSR's infamous "prisoner experimentation", and the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The former we can all imagine happening under Russia's ruthless line of dictators and secret police, but the latter kept going for 30 or 40 years, ending only in the early 1970s... and it happened right here in America. :(

If you have the courage, you might want to look these incidents up. The words "never again" might come to mind, but only constant vigilance can truly prevent such medical atrocities.

Sinister Designs: Chapter 6

Hank hoped that he could "memorize" the twists and turns of the van. Perhaps he could use them to retrace his position. But then they loaded him into what felt like a crate, and from there he heard the distinct engine whine of a "big bird", at least a 727 class jet. So much for that idea.

Hurry up and find us, Xavier, he thought. This thing has to be plastered all over the news by now. You've got to be looking for us. For at least one of us.

He felt something placed on his head, like a circlet of metal.

"O-ho! Still conscious, are we, Henry?" Nathaniel's voice said with amusement. "Don't worry, I won't let you be bored for the trip."

:

How can someone tell when they go unconscious when their eyes are already closed? The cessation of sound, perhaps? A dream state? Someone calling out to you "wake up"? Hank had none of these clues, which struck him as a bit unfair. Nathaniel spoke his piece, and the next thing Hank knew he was opening his eyes to a hellishly bright light. He cried out in pain and surprise and squinted his eyes shut. By reflex he attempted to shade them. That was his first indicator that he was strapped down. In fact, he couldn't even move his head. It wasn't paralysis, but it was close.

Now that I can open my eyes, they've made sure it doesn't matter, he thought. Nathan, when I get out of this, I'm going to snap your neck.

Apparently he was alone in the room. Or, if not, whoever was there was being completely silent, and was deliberately not letting on that they knew Henry was awake. He tried moving his fingers and toes. That worked. They hadn't bothered encasing them. But he was bound at the wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, pelvis, shoulders, forehead.... They didn't secure psychotic cases this well to their beds. The straps were the tough industrial-grade web belts used for securing cars to flatbed trailers. Oh, and Hank was pretty sure he was nude. The light glaring down on him, likely some sort of halogen, provided a measure of warmth at least.

When his eyes finally got a bit more used to the piercing white that shone pink through his eyelids, he chanced opening his eyes again. Though it was a little difficult to see through the haze of white, he could make out the basic details. Apparantly he was alone, in what seemed to be a small testing room. No equipment that he could find, but since he couldn't move his head, his view was very limited. The room was a bit odd by his standards. He understood the need for tough, relatively sterile, brushed steel walls and ceiling, but the prison bars in front of him were a bizarre touch. A quick attempt at a weight shift told Hank the bed was solidly attached to the floor. So they made the room just for the purpose of keeping a subject bound... and having full view of them...

Even the infamous Soviet era "prisoner experiment" rooms had the decency to be fully enclosed, with just a viewing panel in the metal door. They didn't have the entire wall reduced to bars so everyone and their brother could watch the wretches in their death throws, like some sadistic sideshow....

"Henry, I'm honestly impressed," Nathaniel's hated voice said from somewhere past the prison bars. "I hadn't expected you to awaken this soon."

"Why, Nathan?" Hank asked.

" 'Why'?"

"Yes, Nathaniel. Why. Why are you doing this? What do you have to gain from allying yourself to mutant haters like Friends of Humanity?"

"This is the first decent conversation I've had from one of my test subjects for some time." The voice shifted, and coupled with the soft sound of footsteps, Hank could imagine Nathan walking closer down the hall. "All right, Henry. If you're going to keep your head so well, you deserve some answers for it."

Hank's bed began to tilt towards the wall of bars. Soon he was at a 60 degree angle. The light no longer shone directly in his eyes, and he could see past the bars now. There was another cell opposite him ten feet away. Like his, it had bars and featureless metal walls. He presumed his cell also had the same cement floor and small drain in the corner. The differences? First, there was no bed in the center of the other cell. Second, that cell had Moira and Isidro sprawled, unconscious, on the floor. At least Nathan had granted them some measure of dignity and allowed them to keep their clothing.

Nathan walked into the corridor between cells, dressed in ominously stained green scrubs. He looked down at the blood stains and smiled a bit.

"Please forgive the 'business casual' attire," he said. "You're not my only focus, you know."

"And here I expected you in a tuxedo with a few leggy assistants," Henry mumbled.

Nathan cocked an eyebrow. "And a white Angora or Persian to go with it? Too much Ian Fleming will rot your brain, Henry." He stood directly in front of the cell, hands loosely folded in front of him. "I can trade James Bond subrefrences with you all day, but somehow I doubt that's what's on your mind."

"Dammit, Nathan, you're one of the top geneticists and microbiologists in the world!" Hank blurted out. "You've got all the funding you could want, you've got government sanction for hundreds of projects, why are you doing this?"

"Ahh, yes, back to that. Why do I ally myself with petty little psychotics that want to stop evolution in its tracks?" His pleasant demeanor was all the more infuriating. "Well, they give me a far greater reach to test subjects than I'd ever be able to get on my own, they work for free, and they are persistent. The few mutants that die on the way here are more than made up for in the ones that survive their 'overenthusiastic' captors."

'Petty little psychotics'? Hank thought. That's hardly sympathetic.... In fact, it sounds like he's just using them.... Aloud, he asked, "The way you talk, they may as well be spilling water as killing people."

"You know the old saying, Henry: you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. They're a necessary evil at the moment. I'll jettison them soon enough, but not before they've outlived their usefulness."

"As I apparently have."

"Oh, come now, there's no need for that kind of surly tone."

"Surly? Surly? I've gone toe-to-toe with walking weapons platforms, watched people get turned into modern wall art, and had the man who I shared a friendship for ten years turn out to the next big Dr. Mengele! I think this has gone a bit beyond 'surly' by now!"

"Funny how you should mention him." Nathan examined his nails. "I can always tell someone's grade of education from that subreference. You have to admit we learned more about the human condition from him."

"I don't suppose you coordinated the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment too?"

Nathan smiled as he looked back up. "Not personally. I have very little interest in flatscans anymore, Henry. They're old news. A chapter of history about to be closed. We are the future, my friend. We are the ones who will take over." He looked above Hank, at the light, and then checked his watch. "We just need to make a few improvements first."

Hank's head went momentarily light. Something was tugging at him, as if he was on the verge of sleep, though he didn't feel drowsy at all. He closed his eyes for what he thought would only be a second, then found it an effort to open them again. His body trembled, the taut muscles twitching under his skin.

"Ah, there we go," Nathan said, a hint of smug triumph in his voice. "I really hadn't thought you'd be awake before the final phase, but consciousness will be an added bonus." He leaned forward. "It happened before, didn't it, Henry? You remember the sensation? Last year, seconds after the worst headache of your life?"

Oh God, no….

"Yes, by the looks of things, you do. I knew your secondary mutation had activated once. So many have, you know. Do you realize how many more subjects I've received since the general's little fiasco? Do you have any clue as to what that little tin soldier put into motion? If Stryker knew, he might have decided on a different method."

Hank forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at Nathan. The smug bastard was just standing there with his forearms resting on the bars, brazenly clasping his hands inside of Hank's cell. He even had one foot resting on the lower bar, like he was casually watching a zoo exhibit from behind the barrier.

"That's all this is to you?" Hank managed to spit out. "Some kind of exhibit? Something to watch?"

"Don't fight it, Henry. You know you won't win. You couldn't stop mother nature the first time. What chance do you have a second? This is your ultimate genetic potential I'm bringing out. Embrace it."

Hank jerked spasmodically, his whole body straining against the straps, and he felt a horrendous pain in his shoulder. He cried out, and his voice sounded deeper, distorted… even wrong.

"Mind the shoulder, Henry." If anything, Nathan's voice sounded even oilier. "Your shoulder blade may be intact, but the rest isn't very happy with you—"

"I'll kill you !" Hank screamed.

"Yes, I thought the testosterone levels would be shooting up about now. Thank you for the confirmation. What else do you have in store for me, Henry?"

At that point, a woman's voice called from the cell across from them both. "Nathan?"

Nathan looked around, mildly annoyed at Moira's interruption, but did not shift position. Moira scrambled on her hands and knees until she reached the bars. This had to be a nightmare. A hallucination brought on from injuries during their escape. A drug-induced aberration. Something! This couldn't be happening. She used the bars to haul herself to her feet, her eyes wide with horror.

Nathan gave a brief, irritated sigh and turned far enough so that he could see her correctly. "Woman, you have the absolutely worst timing—"

"Nathan, for the love of God, what are ye doing?" she shouted.

"I don't have time for you now. Cell four, shield down."

A thick Plexiglas plate slid down between Moira and the bars, so fast that she didn't have time to completely pull away. She lost the skin from her knuckles and was certain she'd broken at least two fingers. Blood streaming down the backs of her hands, she stood there, pressed against the glass. Hank's frighteningly distorted howls faded to almost nothing, making the sight of his agonized thrashing as surreal as it was horrible. And Nathaniel was just standing there, watching like it was some damned show. Moira half expected him to start pitching coins.

And then Hank's body began to change. His skin gained a blue tinge, then went completely blue, and finally the blue revealed itself to be shaggy fur, a good half inch long at least. The heavy straps that held him began to tear, like denim stretched too thin.

And Moira remembered that this had happened once before. Hank told her so last year. That after the "Worldwide Migraine", he come back to reality with his seemingly shrunken clothes in tatters, a layer of blue fur covering his body….

She pounded against the Plexiglas shield and screamed Hank's name. She knew it was futile; she had no hope of being heard, let alone breaking through. Blood dripped down her arms and spattered against the clear plate in front of her. The back of her hands were on fire, her fingers felt like they were being squeezed ever tighter in a vice, and she didn't care. She kept pounding, kept screaming, until someone grabbed her from behind.

"He can't hear you!" Isidro shouted over her cries, his voice ragged and uneven. "He can't! Don't wreck your hands like this!"

"Ya bowffing sasunnach! Yah basturt! Yah hoor!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her brogue too thick for Isidro to understand. She struggled wildly against him, her invective aimed squarely at Nathaniel. "Mon thenyeh fuckin erse!"

Nathaniel glanced back in the direction of Moira's cell without shifting his body. She must have been screeching like a proverbial harpy to be heard past the shielding. And from what little he made out between Henry's screams, the words were most unladylike.

"Going back to our lowland roots, are we, Moira?" he mumbled, turning his attention back to Hank. "Typical Scot; resorts to barbaric and infantile behavior at the least provocation."

Four of the straps were tearing, and the one over Hank's chest had completely snapped. Just the force of McCoy's rapid growth alone was enough to strain them. He may well break through all of his restraints, shoulder wound or not. Those subcutaneous sensors he put in should be recording all the biological changes by now, even if a few might be crushed by Henry's rapid muscle expansion. Nathan knew he probably should be back at the computer banks, watching the data stream, but he just couldn't pull away from this. It was one thing to see simulations, or even live data feeds. It simply didn't compare with watching the results in person.

Now each strap was showing signs of strain, and Henry's huge claw like hands were getting closer and closer to freedom. Nathan stepped back just beyond the bars. He'd best be prudent.

"Mister Dukes, I would appreciate your presence now, if you don't mind," he called.

"I wuz wonderin' when you'd want me in there," Duke's thick, gruff voice grunted.

Hank's hands were now free. The rest would follow soon.

"Cell three, shield down," Nathan said.

The Plexiglas shield slid down in front of the bars to Henry's cell, and the previously noisy hall was now almost silent again. If Nathaniel listened closely, he could still hear Isidro trying to calm Moira down, and Moira hurling invectives that would be better suited to a back-alley thug than a scientist. And, of course, there was Henry, but he wasn't so much screaming now as he was howling in anger. With all sound so muffled, it was easy to hear Fred Dukes as he entered the corridor a few seconds later.

Moira and Isidro silenced as a mountain of flesh lumbered into view. In all their life, neither had see anyone both so fat and so tall. Fred Dukes was a humongous monster of a man, the kind of person that sideshows of yesteryear would have exploited next to the "ape girl" and the three-headed cow from Pittsburgh. He stood over seven feet tall, but it was hard to get a good sense of perspective from someone with legs literally the size of tree trunks and a waist of well past 70". He wore something similar to an American varsity wrestler's uniform, which left his arms and legs free. His rolls of fat should have been jiggling with each step, but they didn't. Every part of him, every inch of skin, was as dense and unmoving as a lump of iron.

"Ol' Hank busted them straps yet?" he asked, looking over Nathaniel's head.

"Most of them," Nathaniel replied. "I think he'll be out of the rest soon."

By now, Hank was utterly unrecognizable. His already massive frame had grown heavier still, with even more muscles piled on top of those he already possessed. Underneath all that hair, his facial structure became more simian, and his teeth grew impressively thick, sharp incisors and bicuspids. His feet had grown much wider, with toes twice their original length, and his arms had lengthened so far that he could touch his knee without bending over.

And despite all this, Fred Dukes had him out-sized and out-massed. Fred grinned as he watched Henry rip out of the last of the straps and bounce from wall to wall in the confined cell, like an angry silverback. He hurled himself at the shielding full force. The Plexiglas vibrated, but it withstood the blow without chipping.

"Hey, I saw it move a little!" Fred laughed, pointing. "He's pretty strong!"

"And that shoulder must have been reconstructed along with the rest of his body," Nathanial mumbled to himself. "There's no signs of weakness or pain…."

Hank sprang off the bed, then the rear wall, and then feet first into the shield again. This time a hairline fissure appeared.

"All right, that's quite enough," Nathan stated. "Mister Dukes, I want him quieted down. He's not to be killed nor paralyzed. He still needs to be in halfway decent form."

Fred cracked his knuckles. "No spinals. Gotcha, Mister Sinister."

Nathaniel moved out of the way and Fred stepped up, his massive bulk taking up almost the entire entryway. He crouched down, grinning further as the foaming creature rebounded once again off the steadily cracking shield. He motioned with his fingertips for Hank to come forward.

"Come on, buddy," he taunted. "Come on. I got something for ya right here…."

"Are you prepared, Mister Dukes?" Nathaniel called from around the corner.

"Oh, yeah, I'm ready."

The bars and the cracked shield shot up with the same impressive speed. The thing that was once Hank McCoy leapt at Fred Dukes and wrapped himself around the massive man's neck and shoulders, biting and clawing with all he had.

"Hey! Watch the face, furball!" Dukes yelled.

Before Moira and Isidro's eyes, the mountainous pile of flesh grabbed Hank and slammed him into the cement floor, which spider webbed underneath them. Then he slammed Henry into the left wall, then the right, then finally tossed him into the far left corner. He left dents in the steel walls each time, and bits of the gray cement still clung to Hank's fur from the first blow. Finally he ripped the combined examination table and bed off of its stand, a stand that resembled hydraulic lifters found in a garage, and awkwardly used it to bludgeon Hank into submission. He finished his little attitude adjustment session by pinning Hank under the padded portion of the bed and pressing him into the already fractured floor.

"Nighty-night, Hanky," Fred panted, his grin as wide as ever.

Hank struggled for a bit, which encouraged Fred to push harder. Crumbled bits of foam leaked from the ripped vinyl and stuck to Hank's blue coat. In time, Hank stopped moving altogether. Fred eased up on the smothering pressure, then removed the implement for a good look at his victim. Too bad he couldn't see any swelling or bruises under any of the fur. Animals were like that. You could never tell. He kicked Henry in the stomach. Henry grunted, curled up a little, but not enough for him to have been fully conscious.

"Hey, guess you weren't faking, were ya?" Fred asked as he stepped back. "You're strong, fella. Give you that much. Stronger'n anyone else Sinister made here. But you ain't as strong as me. No one is. So if you still got a brain in there, you better remember that, or I'm gonna be back here again. Got it?" He backed out of the cell, still holding his improvised weapon, and called, "Okay, I'm done! Close up shop!"

The bars and shield slid down and locked into place. Nathaniel walked out with a small plastic box in his hand and viewed the wrecked cell with some dismay.

He pointed to the examination table in Fred's grasp. "Was that truly necessary? Those are expensive."

"He'd already warped it pretty bad by the time I got there. And all those rips in the vinyl were from him. I just finished the job." Fred rubbed his eye and cursed softly. "Little shit clawed me in the eye. I'm gonna have a shiner now. I hate it when I get stuff in my eye like that."

Nathan sighed and looked back in the cell. Dented walls, shattered floor, and irregular daggers of metal poking up where the bed had been. This was no place to hold a subject for viewing.

"So you've pacified him well, Mister Dukes?" he asked.

"He's KOed, if that's what you mean."

"Then I want him moved to cell one. Cell three will be closed for the duration."

Fred looked down at him while he rubbed his aching eye. "What, across from the nutcase? Thought you didn't want nobody in that one."

"I think the isolation stress tests have run their course for Richard Martin. Perhaps introducing Henry across the way might trigger something else useful in him."

Moira watched the conversation closely.

"They're sayin' somethin'," Moira muttered. "Somethin' about movin' him...."

"You can hear that?" Isidro asked.

"Nae, I read lips. Lost me hearin' for a while as a bairn…." She never took her eyes off of Nathan and his huge henchman. "They said somethin' about isolation tests …. And I think that's a name…."

Both bars and shield slid up again, and both Moira and Isidro watched silently as the huge guard dragged Henry out of the cell. He slung him under one arm and trundled off to the right, back the way he came.

"Jesus Cristo, tell me he's still breathing," Isidro whispered.

"Isidro?" Moira asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"I think there's someone in the cell next to us."

Neither one said anything. The idea that Nathan had other toys to play with didn't surprise them, but it horrified just the same. For his part, Nathan opened up the small box he'd been holding and removed a pair of sterile gloves. After donning them, he pulled forth a series of evidence gathering paraphernalia. Apparently, not a drop of Hank's blood, nor a strand of his hair, was going to go to waste.

TBC...