"You are not waking those things up" KC said, I raised my brow at her.
"Things?" I said "Those things have been put through hell just as much as you have, beside we might need their help" I said "There are a few fighter types in amongst that lot, and they might be able to tell us what was going on in that place" KC looked for a moment like she would argue, but sighed and nodded.
"Fine, but if they turn on you I'll only say I told you so" she grumbled.
Back in the train we surveyed the menagerie of meta humans before us, my first port of call would be the pygmy, a known face and one I knew I could communicate with, I looked carefully at the collection of tubing that pierced his little body and studied the diagram of which drugs did what, KC stood back, pistol up; for insurance, she had said. I pulled a few tubes and switched off some drips, carefully removing the tubing from the tiny form. The skin pitch black and leather like, he had a small tuft of red hair and bright yellow eyes that stared off into space, their eyes were so huge they had no eye lids, instead keeping their glass like orbs clean by use of a polishing cloth; yellow eyes meant a magic user. I cleaned his eyes, or her eyes, the thing about pygmy's was you never could tell which one they were and gently undid the straps. We waited for a moment.
"Of all the ones to pick why did you choose that one?" KC asked and shuddered "That is the freakiest thing I've ever seen"
"They're good creatures" I told her "I spent some time in their company once, learnt a few things" the form on the table twitched, the breathing changed and then slowly it sat up, the unblinking eyes were unnerving, unable to tell if it had "opened it's eyes" so to speak, slowly it turned it's head and regarded me and KC.
"Tuk Tuk Kalhan boyto chuku" it chattered You who follows the chosen one
I couldn't help but smile, so it knew about me, that was reassuring, I spoke back in pygmy
Yes, the chosen one is nearby, we're just trying to work out what is going on here I spread out my arms to encompass the train and the meta human collection. The pygmy looked to KC whose face was now one of a thoroughly confused woman. She is with me, she helped me to find you I explained, the pygmy nodded.
Chosen one's helper helps me, so I will help you it said and jumped lightly from the table, it looked again to KC, she had her pistol pointed at him, I put out a hand
"It's alright KC, honestly, he's one of us" I explained
"Yeah sure" she said nodding and lowering her pistol "If you say so" she looked from the pygmy to me "Can they understand me?" she asked, the pygmy nodded to show that he could.
"You could learn pygmy from him, it won't take a moment" I told her, she shook her head
"Nope I'm good thanks, just fine" she mumbled, I think she was a little freaked.
"OK, let's get on with Meta Human number two shall we?" I said, I chose a fairly normal looking guy, he seemed human, his chart had him labelled as "Mannery". I took a quick look at his blood chart, there was something highlighted, lines of genetic coding, but I didn't know enough to tell what it meant, at the bottom of the page it noted "rare specimen" so he wasn't entirely human then, but I had no idea exactly what he was. Location of extraction was Boston, so he should hopefully speak English. As with the pygmy I went slow, carefully removing tubes. Behind me KC was trying to talk to the pygmy, holding out a candy bar at arms length, repeating her name over and over, I grinned.
"They don't have names K.C, and they don't eat" she looked down at the pygmy and dropped her shoulders, sitting on the floor in defeat, the pygmy edged closer slowly until he was beside her, tentatively plucking at strands of her hair, she looked like she was about o bolt, I laughed "He's fine, he just wants to play with your hair" I said
"Great, fine, whatever" she had given up, the weirdness of the creature that was the pygmy simply was too much and she sat in a dejected heap whilst the pygmy ran his tiny fingers through her hair, creating small braids, he chattered something to her. "What was that?" She asked me
"He said you're a mighty woman, a warrior, better than the Jishandi Priestess" I told her, slightly annoyed, he was basically inferring that KC was a better fighter than me, but then she probably was.
"So who are the Jishandi?" KC was curious now, she seemed more settled, and the plucking of hair seemed to have a calming effect
"They're a race of Amazonian warriors" I told her "I'm kind of the double to their priestess; he was paying you a compliment"
"Naturally" she said
On the table Mannery stirred, a soft groan escaping him, his eyes flashed open and for a split second I saw something hidden there, but what I could not say, we eased him up, sadly however he couldn't tell us much, simply that he'd gotten home from work in Boston to find armed men at his house, they'd drugged him and the next he knew he was waking up here, he'd been gone for five months though so he had been drugged pretty heavily. He spent the remainder of the time sat in the corner feeling very queasy. We started with the Meta humans we were familiar with, Orc, troll, dwarf before moving onto the more questionable meta types. They all had a pretty similar story, other than the Gnome and Orc who seemed to want to attack each other on first laying eyes on the other, turned out the Orc, Hacker had brought the Gnome, Geraldine in as a bounty only for himself to be subject to the same experiments, it did mean that Hacker and Geraldine didn't have the best cause to get along. But with KC's sharp tongue they fell into order with everyone else.
"What do we have left?" KC asked, we had separated an Orc, troll, dwarf, pygmy, gnome, yeti, human and elf from their drug prison, but we still had a few to go.
"I've got a ghoul, a giant, a merman, a big ass cat, a wendigo and I'm missing a subject called Adam" I told her "What do you think we should pull next?" I felt a tug at my sleeve, the dwarf pointed to a seemingly empty table, no, not empty, straps were laid over something solid, just . . . I moved my perception to astral, there was a man lying there, a . . . naked man to be exact, that must be Adam. Choice made.
After that we worked to wake up the merman, keeping him inside the tank so he didn't dry out, he spoke broken English but his story was the same as the others.
"Not sure how we'll get you out of here" I told him "There is a lake nearby" I told him, he nodded pulling up the water indicating I should try it, I grimaced, not keen on drinking merman bath water, the dwarf tugged again and told me the water was fresh, not salt, the lake would be fine. K.C organised the troll and Orc to carry the Merman to the lake, he hit the water then disappeared in a moment.
The Giant came next, he really was a young Giant, barely the equivalent of ten years old, he sat in the shade of one of the buildings, the pygmy sat on his huge knee patting him gently, a strange sight.
"How are we going to get him out of here?" KC asked, "he's a kid" she seemed concerned, a maternal instinct kicking in perhaps, with her features softened she really looked beautiful despite the scars, I got the impression that she didn't show that side of herself very often.
"We'll have to see what Lathain says" I told her, she grimaced and nodded. Theo the dwarf tugged again at my sleeve and handed me the chart for the next to be brought around, the cat, Cakador, something was different about the tubing and wiring here, he seemed to be under a different kind of sleep. After removing all I could find it became apparent that he was indeed different, he remained sleeping and would not wake up to any stimulus, I would need a doctor, or maybe Wizbit. He was huge, his fur white with large spots, was this the jaguar that Convoy had spoken of?
K.C put a hand on my shoulder "The boys are in Chicago, they went on ahead to finish their objective, Convoy, whoever he is said he'd meet you all there" they were in Chicago?
"What about extraction?" I asked, she shook her head
"We're to just meet them in the corridor apparently" That bastard Lathain! Theo handed me the next chart, one Wendigo coming up, I shuddered
"Well can you tell them that so long as we don't get eaten we'll meet them there" I said, she nodded and backed off towards the Giant, a rock giant he was truly huge and she seemed so small next to him. I gritted my teeth; Lathain had just left me out here, Wizbit too.
"Err I kinda feel like a fifth wheel, you got something I can help with?" a voice beside me said, I jumped seeing no one "Err yeah sorry It's me Adam" damn invisibility.
"Oh um, sure you could hold down this set of straps for me" I held out a leather strap attached to the Wendigo and watched it seemingly float across the other side and pull taut, weird. It occurred to me that this was probably what most people thought whenever they met me or Wizbit in our invisible form.
The wendigo bucked once it regained consciousness, Theo mumbled hurriedly to it, still it thrashed around, I couldn't understand it's snarls and barks, Theo seemed genuinely afraid, Adam and I held on for dear life to the straps to keep him restrained, Theo continuously muttering in a language I didn't know, eventually the Wendigo stopped thrashing and barked something.
"He say let go or he will destroy us" Theo mumbled, KC at this point had entered the trailer, gun up and ready just in case, no silver bullet though, but they should still slow him down if he decided to take a snap at someone. Careful to keep back from the jaws I let go of the restraint, the wendigo rose from his table, his magnificent horns so tall they scrapped the ceiling, his overly long arms brushed the floor as he stooped, he glared at me from his black sunken eyes before barking something I didn't understand and then he was up and bounding from the trailer, in a minute he had disappeared from view, my heart was racing and I was shaking.
"You're welcome" I muttered, I steadied myself as Theo handed me the final sheet, last but not least the Ghoul, this had been a brilliant idea . . .