Just an FYI , mostly to my loyal followers: I'm back on an antidepressant and I wanted to give you fair warning that they sometimes have the effect of making it impossible to write. I've only been on this one a little over a month and so far, so good.
"By all accounts she should be dead. After Creed backhanded her he managed to claw her up, and he kept going after she lost consciousness. Not to mention the fact she put on of his eyes out. He was beyond angry."
It was exceedingly quiet in the isolation ward save for the muted sounds of the heart monitor and the soft rush of air from the ventilator that had been required after she'd going into shock. They'd finally been able to stop giving her blood transfusions that morning.
"They ran tests on her blood and her DNA. She seems to have a low level healing factor like Weapon X."
Towers glanced up from her notes to look at the almost-comatose woman on the bed.
"She didn't mention that when she was questioned," she mused, looking over at her partner, Krista Sebring. "One more screwup to add to the list I've got going. I'm lucky they haven't sacked me yet."
Sebring shook her head.
"You have to commit literal murder around here to even get frowned at. There's so much hinky shit going on in this place, which is only one of a dozen or so – they're more worried that one of us will risk violating our non-disclosure agreements."
They were interrupted from further conversation by the quickening cadence of the heart monitor. Teva was having a fit, trying to pull the breathing tube out.
Voices punctured the bubble of Teva's mind, the cocoon she'd been wrapped in for who-knew-how0long, the darkness she'd floated in where she could pretend nothing hurt and nothing else existed. The passage of time held no meaning here, nothing did, but the bits of speech that somehow got in bothered her. The words were both familiar and foreign as if she'd understood them in another existence but now lacked the ability for comprehension.
She felt herself try to take a breath and then she was pulled violently out of that void into lights that felt too bright, and she was choking.
Someone was telling her to calm down, they were going to help her. Her throat hurt abominably and still she panicked, not knowing why she couldn't breathe. She wanted to tell that that voice to fuck off, ask them if they'd be calm if they couldn't breathe.
"On three I need you to exhale, hard. It's gonna hurt like hell."
She thought she nodded. Maybe. She at least tried to.
"Alright. One...two...three! Breathe!"
The offending apparatus felt like it was taking pieces of her insides out with it, and she couldn't stop coughing when she was finally able to draw air into her lungs on her own.
"Here." A blonde woman was standing by the bed holding out a cup. "Ice. It'll help, just don't take it all at once. Take your time."
Teva accepted it, the coughing easing somewhat.
"Where am I?" she asked after several attempts, her voice hoarse and cracking repeatedly.
The blonde exchanged glances with a brunette woman before answering.
"A Weapon Plus facility."
She'd been expecting that.
"Logan?"
Another exchange of significant glances.
"He didn't survive the reconditioning," the brunette replied after a moment. "He self-terminated."
Aside from a brief, sharp burst of pain in her middle, Teva couldn't find the energy to be shocked or to grieve. She merely huddled on the bed under her blankets and hoped that maybe oblivion would come to claim her again. It was preferable to dealing with this new reality, waiting for the numbness to wear off, but she didn't get to find out which came first.
A tall man of athletic build entered through the far door. He had three livid red scars bisecting his face, inflicted by an enraged Wolverine, and his cold green eyes nearly glowed with the light of hatred when they met hers. Somehow she knew that it was directed at her because of her association with Logan.
"You neglected to tell us that you have a healing factor," he began without preamble.
"So fucking what?" she replied, ever defiant. "Ye were only asking things that pertained to Logan and I sure as hell wasn't going to oblige ye." She lapsed into coughing for a moment before continuing, and she was pretty sure that her voice had taken on a growl. "I ken the kind of people - and I use that term loosely, – that ye are. Telling ye anything more about myself seemed like a good way to end up on a slab being stuck with needles and whatever else. Ye killed my husband and ye can go fuck yourself for all I fucking care."
He sat there a moment as if absorbing her rant, and when he spoke again his voice was completely void of emotion.
"Don't think that I wouldn't hesitate to paralyze you with the inhibitor and allow Creed to do as he pleases with you. Now that we know you can survive it he wouldn't need to be quite so careful." He put his hands on the rail of her bed and leaned in towards her, making sure to maintain eye contact; so close, she could see that he had flat, dead eyes like a snake's.
"An animal like him couldn't possibly satisfy all his urges in one go. I'm sure he knows things that are so much worse than rape."
She'd learned from the best how to maintain an expressionless face. That's not to say she didn't fear his threat; it was more that she was still trying to come to terms with recent events, and this was just one more thing on the pile.
"What is it ye want from me?" she asked with effort, having to pause several times.
He moved back somewhat.
"I want to know exactly what your X gene allows you to do. The full extent of your capabilities and your limits." A disturbing smile curved his mouth, the scar tissue pulling oddly at his lips. "And I want to know how you've now survived two attacks by Sabretooth."
"The first time was luck," she said automatically, without thinking about it. She'd gone mostly on autopilot despite the anger still roiling inside, making her feel like she was going to leap from the bed and attack someone, anyone, to hurt those who had hurt so many others.
"Oh?" He gestured off-handedly and was immediately provided with a chair.
She pulled her blankets closer and fought not to shiver with dread, knowing that she was damned whether or not she told him the truth.
"I caught him off-guard with -" She launched into another coughing fit, privately satisfied by his obvious annoyance at the delay. She sipped at the melted ice in her cup and started over.
"I caught him off-guard with my telepathy, long enough to use a gun. Even so he managed to nearly cripple me."
The Director nodded. "Yes, the medics mentioned that you had scar tissue on your leg. Obviously your healing factor helped mend it to a greater degree, but I've yet to come across another psionic with one. I haven't even heard of one."
Teva sighed and took another sip. Already she was beginning to feel the pain in her chest and throat diminishing, and even she was somewhat amazed at how quickly it was happening.
"Even more interesting is the difference between your initial blood sample and one taken just this morning: higher white cell count, which could be accounted for if you had an infection, except your lymphocyte count is off the charts. I can only imagine that between those two tests, something changed inside of you."
She couldn't stop herself from snarling.
"Ye verrae much like the sound of your own voice."
He stared at her for an interminable moment. Then he reached inside a pocked of his suit coat and drew out a piece of paper.
"It seems you have as reckless a tongue as Weapon X." He placed the paper on the bed and watched her pick it up.
As soon as she touched it she knew it was a photograph, and when she turned it over she felt her stomach bottom out.
The photo had been taken at a distance but its subjects were nonetheless in sharp focus: Teva herself along with a small group of children from the Institute, the ones taking private music lessons from her. Several months back she'd taken them on a day trip to New York City to see a symphony perform at the Lincoln Center. She could see Arli and Molly, and Josh Guthrie who never stopped looking at her with hero worship and a bit of a crush; it had been very strange to have him almost-expertly play back her own music on his battered acoustic guitar, his voice one of the sweetest and most entrancing that she'd ever heard. When she'd expressed interest in having him sing back-up or a duet on her next album, he'd been over the moon and she'd loved knowing she could make him happy with such a simple thing.
"I will kill ye if ye so much as breathe in their direction," she vowed. For the first time she knew was 'seeing red' truly meant, the color invading her sight.
A sharp burst of pain prevented her from saying anything more. When she could see straight again she could see he was holding the controller to her inhibitor.
"Do as you're told, step as you're directed, obey those put above you and those children will never know the horrors I'd visit upon them."
Teva felt herself tremble with both pain and fear and not a little anger now, and she answered him without prompting.
"I have telepathy to a small degree but mostly I'm an empath. I can sense emotions in others and make them feel what I want them to feel; the telepathy lets me read those emotions better, understand motivations. A couple years ago I developed a secondary mutation linked to my empathy which allows me to mimic other mutants' powers."
"How exactly does that work?" There was a note of excitement in his voice, like a child with a new toy.
"I need some kind of emotional connection. The closer we are, the more control I have for longer."
Now he was nodding and the blonde woman was taking notes.
"Ah, I see. Your bond with Weapon X allowed you to mimic his healing factor. Are the mimics permanent once you've taken them?"
She shook her head.
"Only that one was, likely because it was the first. A week at most if I've a particularly strong emotional reaction to them."
"Hatred counts, I'd assume. You must have mimicked some of Creed's healing factor, which would explain the second blood test." He steepled his fingers under his chin. "Is it possible to recall others' powers or must you mimic again?"
"Once it's gone, it's gone."
He nodded again, this time turning his attention to the blonde.
"I want her DNA completely analyzed, perhaps there's a way to make things permanent." He tapped a finger on his chin while thinking. "Oh, and have the techs assess whether or not she's compatible with the X-2 enhancements."
The Director smiled again and this time Teva swore she never wanted to see such a look of evil ever again. It was downright inhuman.
Every part of her was screaming, in agony, in fear, in despair, in helplessness. The man she'd expected to share many, many decades with hadn't been able to withstand their machinations; how in the world could she expect to survive?
A very small, previously-nonexistent voice from very deep inside of her questioned if she'd have been better off if she'd just not gone backstage, not met Logan. Just one night, five minutes of conversation, and somehow they've become inextricably linked together. Five minutes that were now the cause of so much torment that she saw no escape from. Five minutes that had her in the captivity of pure evil that wanted only to turn her into a source of the same, likely for a profit.
With some effort she choked off that voice, realized she was beginning to feel foggy.
"Make sure she's not going to relapse, Ms. Towers. We've stumbled upon something much more valuable than what we feared lost." He was halfway across the room when he stopped and turned back a moment.
"Will she be strong enough tomorrow?"
Towers nodded.
"Likely, but it'll be a couple days for the DNA analyses. We'll probably know yes or no on the X-2 in the morning, though."
"Excellent. Keep me apprised."
The blonde turned to Teva.
"Are you in any pain?" she asked.
Teva shrugged.
"Does it matter? I'm a fucking lab rat."
"To me, it matters. You're on a morphine drip but with the healing factor you probably need more. I can keep you under the rest of today and overnight."
"Whatever." Teva set her cup aside and lay back down, curling into the fetal position as if somehow that would keep her safe.
When next she awoke she was in a different room and she was strapped down on a cold steel table. One arm was secured at her side, the other at a 90-degree angle to her body, and when she turned her head she could see an IV catheter and port inserted into the bend of her elbow. Nothing else was connected to it for the moment but she knew that would change soon. The only thing protecting her modesty was a thin sheet, she'd been stripped of the hospital gown she'd been in before.
A couple people in labcoats moved about the relatively small room, seemingly uninterested in her at the moment. She used the time to take stock of herself, most notably that she was virtually pain free, though she couldn't move her head enough to see if she had any new scars. It had been somewhat amusing in the past that she could still get scars even with the healing factor.
Two familiar voices were coming closer, Towers and the Director followed by a very tall, thin man who was carrying a small metal case.
At sight of the Director she wanted to kick and scream, for all the good it would have done her; she couldn't claim super strength as one of her abilities. She still didn't know what he'd meant about the "X-2 enhancement" and she wasn't sure she wanted to know, just that she didn't want to find out. Every time, though, that she thought of fighting back, of spitting in their faces, she didn't even need to close her eyes to see the consequences.
Is this how Logan felt? she wondered. Willing to do anything, to endure anything, just to keep me safe?
The small traitorous voice piped up again.
He tried and he failed. He should have known neither of us would get out alive.
Teva let her head fall back so that she was looking up at the ceiling, and when the tears came they disappeared quickly into her hair.
"Will she be able to handle both?" The Director was speaking to Towers.
"If she rejects the X-2 she won't survive the rest," she replied, heedless of their subject right there and able to hear clearly. "They'd already begun analyzing her DNA when they were brought in so that's already done."
"Without the X-2 this is just another failed experiment. Proceed as you see fit, I have other business to attend to but I'd like regular status reports."
"Understood. Grant," Towers said, turning her attention to the man who stayed behind, "get the X-2 ready. I'll prep her."
Teva kept her gaze skyward until Towers touched her arm.
"What are ye doing to me?" she asked, and she hated that her voice shook, that she sounded so helpless, so weak. She bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood but even that wasn't enough to take her mind off of what was happening.
The blonde pulled on latex gloves and then swapped the IV port with an alcohol pad.
"It's just some basic enhancements." Even with the inhibitor blocking her telempathy, Teva knew she was lying but she didn't press the issue.
Towers accepted to vials of a greenish, semi-viscous substance, and the sight of it was enough to trigger a flashback to something that she'd not physically experienced yet she had near-body memory of it.
In addition to all the other horrors Logan had experienced at the hands of these monsters' predecessors, he'd been injected with dozens of different things, some to see how he'd react to them, others to keep him docile and compliant.
For a moment that seemed an eternity she was in his memory and she could see the probes embedded in her body. She could even feel them, dozens of points that ached because the healing factor couldn't heal around the probes, and she felt Logan's sense of rage and helplessness, his absolute hatred for his tormentors; they wouldn't stop hurting him, wouldn't stop trying thing after thing, torture upon torture, and he didn't know why.
The click of Towers popping one of the vials into a syringe pulled her back to the present, and she opened her eyes to see the blonde woman placing a needle on the syringe. From a nearby tray she took a bag of saline that she placed on a pole, then she attached an IV line from the bag to the catheter in Teva's vein.
The syringe was placed into the port on the line near her arm. Towers opened the line and began to slowly, carefully, inject the fluid into the helpless mutant.
Teva's experience of sharing Logan's memories and knowing how much pain he'd endured did not prepare her for the agony that she had no choice but to accept. Even strapped down she began to shake and seize, her muscles spasming in response. Distantly she noticed someone securing her head so she wouldn't inadvertently hurt herself.
It felt as if molten lava had been poured into every part of her body via her arm, her frantic heart dispersing it throughout. She tasted blood again in her mouth. Her eyes were shut tight as if that might protect her from this torment.
And just as she began to recover from it, as it began to wane, the techs began a fresh assault on her senses. She couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but a great rushing in her ears and her own heartbeat thumping away like an o-daiko drum from Japan. Her skin felt as if it were going to slough off, and she sought the darkness that was barely within reach.