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Crimson Claws
3.
I didn't see Fred again. The first day I didn't think about it (or at least tried not to think about it). But Fred had put a lot of bugs in my ear and looking into his room two days later and finding it empty - no Sykes and no duffel bag or anything to indicate that Fred Sykes had ever existed - didn't help ease my worries. I didn't really miss the loud, obnoxious guy... but it didn't help my well-being or need for security when people just disappeared. And it didn't get any better.
"Where are Carla and Alejandra?" I asked with a really unwarranted scowl at the dark-skinned man who was now standing at the cafeteria serving counter. He pushed the tray with the pasta casserole towards me.
"Don't know," he said gruffly, also in a southern dialect, and wanted to beckon me on because there were still people queuing behind me. My gaze flew to the slim, pimply young man in the background at the pots in the kitchen.
"Por fa-favor," I stuttered in the miserable Spanish I had picked up from former inmates of the mental hospital and I knew it sounded desperate. "Dónde están Carla ... y Alejandra?"
The boy just shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, looking genuinely clueless and not reluctant. He would have told me if he had known anything. I was pushed on by the annoyed remarks of other coworkers, sat down unhappily at a table in a corner, the wall in the back. I couldn't bear to be around other people at the moment. My head was buzzing. I poked at my food but watched many of the other employees thoughtfully. I only knew a few by sight. I hadn't been sociable, but now I realized that many of the faces were not the ones I had seen in the first few months. Why was there so much fluctuation here? Or ... was that normal for a business like this? Was this normal for any kind of company and I just didn't know it? Would I soon be "on the street" as Sykes had called it?
Maybe Fred had been right. Maybe everything here was falling apart. And he'd been sacked or had absconded before something blew up in his face.
A guy came up to me. I recognized him at least as one of the guys who had hung out with Fred. He had thick tattooed upper arms with veins visible. In a gesture of intimidation, he plastered his hands on the table in front of me. "HATE" was written on the knuckles of his right hand. On those of his left "LOVE". I looked up, frowning.
"Where's Sykes?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully, sounding really crestfallen. I hadn't liked Fred Sykes but now that he was gone I felt lost. Because there was no one to fill the void of the troublesome guy. I also couldn't imagine that the new cafeteria staff could or would fill the void left by Carla and Alejandra. I rubbed my fingers, dwelling on the pain of the cut on my thumb that I had covered with a band-aid, looking down at my food and the thought of eating it made me nauseous. Of course I would eat it anyway because it was mine.
"He owes me moolah and he was always hanging out with you. Now he's fucked off and you know where he's gone." His tone was full of barely concealed rancor. Which could quickly find another target.
"I have no idea," I replied. And added a little bewildered. "And he didn't hang out with me all the time. Why would he when he had so many friends? Go to them."
The guy grabbed me by the collar, almost dragged me across the table, snarling a malicious grin.
"They're all gone. Only you're still here, big guy. If he doesn't pay his debts, you will, got it? And if you don't know why he hung around you all the time ... you're dumber than you look. You were his shield from -"
"Todd Robinson!" someone shouted from behind in a dominant deep voice. Two guards in typical white uniforms stood in the room. "The doctor wants you for your quarterly evaluation."
The guy grunted unwillingly, let go of me so I slammed on the table, growled and turned around.
"Even if they throw me out of here- I'll find you and take what's mine," he huffed over his shoulder before being led away by the two others. The cafeteria, which had gone disturbingly quiet during the scene just now, came back to life. I straightened up, mechanically trying to wipe away the smudges that the pasta bake had left on my t-shirt. Before giving it up because it was beyond saving. I looked at my plate, then glanced around the room. A dozen eyes were on me, staring unblinkingly. Worse still - what should have been whispered was at room volume and swelled to a roar in my head that drove me out of the room without me touching my food.
.
.
Nothing remarkable happened until my lunch break three days later, which I didn't spend eating in the cafeteria because I was trying to avoid people (and especially the tattooed one or another of Fred's ex- friends). I hadn't had an appetite for a while anyway, and although I still valued food more than anything and basically never missed an opportunity to eat because my neurosis about it would probably always be in the back of my mind, I could skip a meal knowing that there was always something in the cafeteria. Even when it was closed overnight, there were plenty of snack machines and I didn't have to pay for anything - I could just put my employee ID card in one of the slots and get what I wanted. It was like magic- this new world outside the mental hospital even if I was just roaming the premises.
So I spent my break shutting out my whirling thoughts and reading. I flinched when there was a knock on my door and the Doctor entered without waiting. I slipped off the bed but stayed seated with my book in my arms so as not to tower over the smaller man because he didn't look ... stable. Yes - not stable, that's what Doctor Schmidke would have called it. I hadn't seen him since he'd taken Sykes to patch up his cut fingers and, although he had a big grin on his face, he looked harried and agitated. His hair a little disheveled, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and he had a muscle twitch in his cheek as if he could no longer control that part of himself. Kind of on edge, which made me instantly think of the manics from my old institutions but he smiled and I smiled back uncertainly.
"Do you need me for something, sir?"
"Hello, Klaus, I was just around the corner and thought I'd take you for your quarterly evaluation and health check."
"Will I get fired?" I asked, feeling the worry lines on my forehead, thinking of the guy with the tattoos who I hadn't seen again after he was picked up for his evaluation (but that could be due to my avoidance strategy).
The doctor's desperately casual expression melted into something else - before he bared his teeth like a predator and laughed softly.
"But no. Unlike others, you are a very valuable employee. Hiring you has been nothing but rewarding and I hope it keeps going that way." I relaxed a little and stood up when he gestured for me to follow him. So this evaluation was just a formality for me. Not like for Sykes or that tattooed guy. And maybe ... Alejandra and Carla were just sick. They always worked closely together - for sure if one got sick, the other got sick too.
To my amazement, he led me up two floors. I had only ever been here when one of the labs had been cleared for cleaning. It was clean now too. Except for a few documents, a running computer and some vials with green liquid in them.
"Sit down, Klaus, please strip down to your underwear. I'll be with you in a moment." He pointed to one of the silver stainless steel tables. One of the ones I'd had to scrape blood and excrement and fur off many times in the last few weeks. But ... that had only been animals. I was a human, I was safe and protected and valued. And right now the table - the whole room - was pristine and clean. The doctor knew what he was doing. He was tired, he had a lot of work to do but he made time for me so I was out of my clothes in no time.
To do this, I had to put my book down. I hadn't even realized that I had taken it with me. While the doctor tinkered a bit in my back, pulling open drawers of cupboards, rustling with objects, I put my clothes neatly folded next to it. Having spent more than the better half of my life in a state institution, prudery - especially in front of doctors - was more of an abstract concept. I shivered because the metal table was cold under my bare thighs. Sevarius came to me with a blood pressure monitor, tubes and cannulas to draw blood. Plus a syringe already filled with green liquid - vaccinations, of course. I wasn't wild about that - but as I said ... state institution - nothing I didn't know. And because I knew it, I didn't talk while he took my pulse and blood pressure. And the doctor only spoke to me when he strapped the tourniquet around my upper arm to take blood. I looked everywhere but at my arm. I didn't have a big problem with blood - but my own was something else.
"So, Klaus, how do you like it here so far?"
I looked at him standing so close to me, focused on my arm where I was not.
I relaxed a little. If he wanted to turn this into a little therapy session at the same time - all the better. It still wasn't comfortable, but this doctor wasn't primarily a psychologist, maybe he didn't have a comfortable couch and was doing his talking where it suited him best. I spoke while he had already turned away again and was fiddling with test tubes and petri dishes, largely concealed by his body.
"I like it very much. I like the tasks here, I'm not bored. I'm getting used to it, but I like a lot of it."
"Excellent, the well-being of my employees is very important to me. How do you get on with your colleagues? I know many of them are ... gruff characters and given the environment they and you, Klaus, come from, tension would not be unusual."
Although he didn't even look at me, I lowered my gaze and plucked at the light-colored hair on my thigh. What was the right answer here? The doctor didn't give me much time to think about it as he turned and continued speaking.
"And Fred Sykes. His room is next to yours and you have a lot of shifts in common. He can be ... difficult and - here comes the first needle, don't flinch please-" (I stiffened as the first needle jabbed into my arm - still not looking) " - as I said he can be difficult and I wanted your opinion on him. Was there anything special about him, anything that made him stand out from other people?"
I had no idea why Doctor Sevarius was now talking about Fred - I thought he no longer worked here. I did as I was told, weighing up my words.
"Fred Sykes is ... a rough character, as you put it. Whether anything else made him stand out from other people-" (I used the doctor's words and tried not to pronounce thought words like especially cheeky, especially loud, especially maladjusted). "I didn't notice anything overly special about him. But his room is no longer next to mine - it's empty right now. I thought he'd been fired."
I flinched again as a second needle was stuck into my arm and looked at the doctor, who returned my stare with a shark's smile.
"Oh, he hasn't been discharged. Quite the opposite," he said, eyeing me in a very strange way. Until his gaze drifted to the side to my book.
"You're still reading that?
I nodded.
"Yes. I'm a slow reader. And - and I usually read my books a second or third time because then I notice things that I ... didn't ... notice before."
"Not a bad way of working. I do the same with my research. Who is your favorite character?"
I looked at the doctor for a moment, puzzled, then lowered my gaze to the book, stroking my free hand over the somewhat detached golden elephants on the cover, which had been scuffed by many years and many fingers.
"I think ... I like Mowgli best."
The doctor in front of me laughed. He pulled the needle out of me, fiddled around on his tray for a moment only to stick a new needle into me - how much blood did he want to draw? I was starting to feel queasy - or was it the skipped meal?
"How boring! Both in the book and in the movie. Why do you like this character best?"
I took a deep breath, trying to sort out my thoughts so that I could answer his question properly. I wouldn't have taken the doctor for someone who watched cartoons ... on the other hand - great minds need distraction sometimes.
"Mowgli ... is looking for people who are like him and who understand him. And in the end he realizes that sometimes, but not always, he can have both together. Sometimes you learn the most from those you don't understand. And at the same time, he doesn't lose his convictions, which in the end ... are from two worlds. The law of the jungle and the law of man. He ... is always torn but at the same time, because of his unique ... perspective, he sees more than anyone else. And he's not afraid ... I think I admire that."
"I rather liked the antagonists. Oh, lie down for a minute, you're a bit pale. What did you think of Shere Khan?" Sevarius replied casually, as if he hadn't just drawn my third pint of blood.
I lay down on the table as he instructed. I was already feeling quite dizzy from giving so much blood. It was sensible to lie down for a moment. Even when the doctor fastened the leather straps at my wrists and ankles, it was all very sensible - I wasn't supposed to fall off.
"Shere Khan is really ... a sad figure ... "I replied but probably slurred it in truth.
"Sad! Rather determined and tenacious. Although he works with the worst conditions - with a crippled leg, without allies - in enemy territory, so to speak, and even burns his paws, he demands the human child for himself. If that's not strong-willed ... don't you find that much more appealing as a role model?"
"I... don't know. Maybe," I said and I really didn't know because it felt like Sevarius was sucking all the higher thoughts out of me along with my blood. My arm was hot. I suddenly felt really sick.
"In the end, Mowgli was cast out by man-pack and wolf-pack. That is sad," argued the Doctor.
"But he … hunted with his four siblings. And he found a wife and had children."
"Well- but that's a story for grown-ups, isn't it?" the doctor mumbled and although my head was pounding, I smiled at the quote.
Before I groaned loudly because I thought something was going to tear inside me.
"I don't feel well," I mouthed, breathing hard and even though I was lying down I had to close my eyes because the whole room was spinning. The ceiling light was suddenly SO bright and SO hot.
"That's completely natural - that's what the serum does. You inspired me with this book - and honestly, I think stripes look good on you."
"I don't understand."
"You'll thank me when you wake up. You know, even as the most brilliant geneticist in the world, it's hard to find a needle in a haystack. And I thought I found my needle- in the most unlikely place- rather- in the most unlikely person because let's face it - Fred Sykes and people of his ilk are ... human scum. Hardly good enough to waste a needle on. And yet ... Glory can be found in the most unlikely places and in the most unlikely people. There is something about him - in his blood, to be precise. Something that elevated him to true greatness, even if he is still an obnoxious creature.
But now - that's the crux of the matter - it has to be proven that it wasn't a once in a lifetime thing. That the success of the experiment can be repeated any number of times. And damn it - so far I haven't succeeded even though we've doubled the number of test series - even extended them to other personnel because I simply don't have enough bums to keep up. And it just doesn't work. And I checked everything - his medical records, which were more than incomplete and there weren't even any blood relatives. BUT maybe I don't even need them. Maybe all I need is someone - who has been infected by this peculiarity that makes Mr. Sykes unique. In whom a similar potential now rests. And I saw - in our surveillance footage - where you got this," the doctor grabbed my finger with the plaster.
"Just a scratch," I stammered and turned my head. In my blurry field of vision I saw some tubes filled with blood ... and the syringe in which the vaccine had previously been empty. Surely I was allergic.
"Just a scratch, maybe. But cutting yourself on the same glass as Mr. Sykes is perhaps an important detail. One that could have a decisive influence on the outcome of this experiment. Since the direct injection of Mr. Sykes' blood did not work on the others... perhaps to put it in terms you can understand ... perhaps his blood needs to ferment a little first. So ... don't disappoint me."
I shook my head - I didn't want to disappoint. But I had no idea what was going on here or what the doctor was talking about. His next sentences were drowned in static. I breathed hard and each breath was harder than the next - or so I thought. Before everything went black and painful.
.
.
For minutes I had been trying to escape the horrible glare of the light that was aimed directly at me. Or was it hours? Days? It was so intense that I thought it would burn through me. Through the skin, which felt too tight all around and too taut in certain areas of my body, as if it was about to split open. Through the muscles, which ached and were constantly twitching spastically, even though I wasn't moving voluntarily. Through bones that felt as if they were made of millions of sharp needles.
And then there were the ants. Because somehow they had gotten inside me. Into every cavity and even where there shouldn't be any cavities at all. And they were nibbling and gnawing and scurrying and I had to say something. Tell the doctor to get them out of me because there shouldn't be ants IN a person - ever. This was bad-bad-bad and the doctor was a good man. Eccentric, scary, too smart for me and theatrical but not so malicious that he wouldn't help me. If only I could - if only I could get a sound past my lips, which felt like they were rotting away and God, it smelled like that too. I tried to swallow against the nausea but my mouth was so parched and I bit with teeth that seemed too big and too much on a tongue that was too large and too rough. I tasted only blood but dry and rancid and not enough to quench my thirst.
My head was heavy, my breath rattling and the rush of my own blood in my ears so dominant and that even if there was anything outside the suffering, I probably couldn't even notice it. And the freezing cold - why was it so cold? I was so terribly chilled that I wasn't shivering but vibrating and the vibrations were transmitted to the table I was lying on. And at the same time I was sweating like a swine, my hair was soaked, it was constantly dripping from my body onto the table underneath me - a constant drip drip drip ping sound - however both (freezing and sweating) were possible at the same time. I couldn't remember ever being THAT sick. I had been sick more than once. As a child, when my mother had still been there, who had made me bitter tea, but sweetened it with honey (all the honey had belonged to Dad, but she had always siphoned off some for me). Mom, who had put damp cloths on my forehead and at the same time stroked my cheek with her warm hand. She had been so kind and gentle where my father had been choleric and physically and verbally cruel - to me and to her. Illness had felt like failure then. The temporary inability to redirect my father's resentment towards me, which inevitably resulted in Dad focusing his words and fists on Mom. He had dragged her by the hair and beaten her up while his sick child had had to watch with feverish eyes, a weak body and a throat too sore to scream.
Even as an adult in the asylum, I had more often than not caught the diseases that had been brought in either seasonally by the staff or as an involuntary gift from infectious patients. I had usually got off lightly, my body young and strong, and only a few times had I needed care myself with flu or an intestinal infection. I'd even had tuberculosis once and that had healed without leaving a trace. Lying here - now - on this hard metal table, wet from my sweat and warmed by my fever, my hands and feet bound with leather cuffs - felt like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was more, it was more all-encompassing and I couldn't even tell how I knew - how I could even know when my head felt like it was filled with iron marbles. This must be what dying felt like, I thought. And I wasn't even angry (at myself or the doctor for inoculating me with something that would kill me or at a god). I wasn't even sad because honestly ... what was I losing ... other than my life? Only that the road to the end had to be so arduous...
...
The first sound I consciously made was a whimper - choked breathless - when suddenly hands so rough I thought they were going to crush my fragile skull turned my head. Something was rammed into one of my eyes and suddenly the lids of my left eye were pried open. Where a black shadow pushed itself in front of the light from the ceiling (a mercy), a much finer, brighter light was immediately shone into my eye without me being able to close it. I bared my teeth involuntarily, growled and my aching muscles froze because- no, that wasn't my human growl. It was the growl of an animal. Of a beast of prey. The black shadow spoke in the doctor's voice, echoing as if he were in a much larger room than the one he had me tied up in for my own safety.
"Klaus. Are you with us?"
I gasped for air. THANK GOD! The doctor was here. Then everything would be okay. Even though I felt like this - the doctor wasn't going to let me die. Instantly, my world was not merely limited to the sensation of pain and discomfort in all its colors. I felt pressure on my finger. Sticky stuff on my chest. The beeping of a machine that accelerated at the same time as my heartbeat. Suddenly everything was full of sound and my ears were twitching but they felt like they were not where they had always been but somewhere else on my head. Where before I had accepted everything - floating in a swamp of impressions - I now felt different and was able to care again. And although I didn't want that, because the doctor who valued me would try to help me, I was now afraid.
"Calm down, Klaus. Everything is going according to plan," said the doctor in his distinguished voice, which always conveyed that his counterpart was not his equal. And it was good that HE had a plan, because I didn't understand anything. But if he understood everything - fine. As a result, I forced myself to breathe more slowly and the beeping also slowed down a little.
"Very good. Excellent. So, you understand me?" he asked patiently. Something pricked in my arm - just a minor sensation between the ant buzzing everywhere and the omnipresent pain, which only shifted back and forth in quality and location from a to B to C but never lost its intensity. I wanted to say yes. I was as clear as I could be with this fever. I wanted to cooperate, to respond. I wanted to point out the ants, ask him not to point his little flashlight at me even though the apparatus that was forcing my eyelids open was now moving from one eye to the other. But again, all that came out was a grumble - a grunt at best. Instead, I forced myself to nod despite the hands on my head.
"You can't answer me?" The doctor sounded interested ... and slightly puzzled. However, I tried again to get something out but apart from my larynx making a vibrating noise, nothing came out. Frustrated, I clenched far too many far too sharp teeth and nodded again.
"Mhmmm," Sevarius made a long drawn-out sound. Mhmmm? What was Mhmmm supposed to mean? I didn't want my doctor to go all Mhmmm!
At last the thing was pulled out of my eye and I blinked hard, holding still again as practiced but not really gentle hands - the doctor's - probed my neck and larynx. My ears twitched again as he stroked in the process the beard on my neck. Beard? How long had I been unconscious, I wasn't prone to excessive beard growth. When he finally let go of me, I wriggled on the table, suffering and gasping because the wings of my shoulder blades were too sharp on the hard metal and it felt like they were going to bust out of my body. And to my horror... with a wet noise that sounded like someone had squeezed an orange with their bare hand, something in my back ruptured. I panted for breath, not believing that my groans of pain could be heard under the doctor's words, who was clearly not talking to me.
"August 25th, 1995, Project Hybrid. Test subject two of the improved serum series 45, beginning of the 17th hour. Temperature of test subject at 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit), mutation rate increasing, DNA restructuring process stable, pupils already completely feline, bleeding process mainly external after visual and tactile inspection. Subject's speech currently seems impaired - further checks necessary - possibly reduction of other DNA in favor of a more manageable human direction."
I didn't want to distract the doctor but the pain - the fear. I breathed and breathed and I couldn't get enough air inside me. My panic was like a vice around my chest, which felt too tight for my organs. Everything was too tight! My skin, my skull, God, what was happening to my back, what was happening to me! Pain and fear sucked up everything else. I coughed because I choked on the air itself and spat up blood - it tasted thick and slimy and metallic on my tongue. I clenched my fists and it felt like little knives were digging into my palms.
"He crushed the pulse oximeter, Doctor. He's panicking. Administration of etorphine," another voice called out. I tried to sit up, had to cough up whatever was in my lungs, throw up - whatever, I couldn't breathe and something that was connected to me and seemed to be getting bigger by the minute stabbed into my back like I was lying on a dagger. I tugged at the restraints with a strength I hadn't had before, screaming, and it wasn't a scream like I'd ever heard before. At the same time - yes, somehow ... many many years ago, at night. `Shh Sweety, don't be afraid. It's just the lynxes calling for us in the forest,` my mom had whispered, snuggled up close to me in my much too small bed. `Watch out for the predators, otherwise they'll steal you away and you'll have to sleep in their den and eat squirrels and rats.`
My kicking became increasingly uncoordinated until I jerked and reared up without really wanting to. I tried to be calm but everything I wanted collapsed inside me until I had no control over anything.
"Damn it, hold him down!" Sevarius' voice shouted angrily. Was this still the plan? His plan? Impossible! What if his plan went wrong right now? What if - The heart monitor caught my growing panic as well as the voices that suddenly rose from the swamp of my limited perception and became people who might have been there all along.
"The new bone structures have broken through the shoulder blades. If he doesn't stop convulsing, he'll break them."
"Who cares! Give him a triple dose of etorphine and antihypertensives. Cool him down - we are SO close!" the doctor shouted and I had no idea who or what he was talking about. Someone tried to hold me down and slipped off me. All hands seemed to slip off me. The pain as someone broke my arm because they wanted to hold it still to inject me with something was almost comfortingly normal and the last clear impression I got.
Everyone suddenly had something to say and I didn't know what or who they were talking about. Only that their voices, although faster and agitated, became quieter and quieter - parts of sentences became increasingly incomprehensible to me.
"Seizure - increasing bleeding - fluid accumulation - lungs collapsed."
"Doctor- The heartbeat and breathing outside the tolerable range."
"Temperature at 45 C (113F) and rising!"
"Never mind! Get the liquid nitrogen. I don't care if he loses his arms and legs, just lower his fever.
He's burning up inside
... the experiment ...
failed! Damn it, NO! -
We have to... Xanatos is going into...
my legacy ...
...
.
"You have disappointed me, Klaus. Truly and thoroughly," Sevarius sighed sullenly, placing the pathetic book on the blood-covered chest of his latest pathetic failure. He pulled off his rubber gloves with a wet snap and tossed them onto the now and forever lifeless body - half stuck in metamorphosis like the others before. More hours- maybe a little ahead of the others- and of course he would sell THAT as a victory both in the records and in front of Burnett and Xanatos but in the end his latest and best hope had been dashed again.
"Get that out of my sight before I set it on fire right here," he growled with a dismissive gesture. Frustrated, he leaned me against one of the tables as he watched the two employees unstrap the monstrous carcass and push it off the metal table with grunts, just as they had done with the dozens before it over the last few weeks.
It slumped into the laundry cart in a bulky heap of twisted old and new half-developed limbs. Just like dozens of monsters had done before.
Or were there already hundreds? Sevarius would have had to pore over the records to find out. Which he would not do. Not because the loss of so many lives depressed him - because honestly, those lives had been absolutely worthless. A waste of space and resources since an inferior sperm had met an equally inferior ovum. No, Sevarius didn't want to know how many failed attempts there had been because that would only make him realize that he was still the world's best geneticist ... but not perfect. He lived in an imperfect world with imperfect people and imperfect circumstances, which simply made it difficult for him to pull off this project as effortlessly as a figure skater did in his performance in front of the Olympic jury. And this figure skater had also fallen down hundreds of times before this performance, hadn't rounded his circles enough, hadn't skated his pirouettes smoothly enough.
"I have to go back to the drawing board. Maybe start all over again," he grumbled, rubbing both hands over his face when the guys were out and he was alone. He was so damn tired. Sykes could not and must not remain the only success. Otherwise Xanatos wouldn't have the blueprint for a superhuman superior race but just one annoying freak.