Crimson Claws

2.

July, 12th. 1995

I dropped my tray with a loud clatter. The plate broke into several larger pieces, meatballs fell to the floor and potatoes rolled away. My first reaction was to dive for the food I had been given.

"Oh, sorry, mate, I didn't see you," said the biggest nuisance in the whole facility, accompanied by the affirmative laughter of other Gen-U-Tech employees. I jumped up, fists clenched, and for three telling seconds the arrogant grin on my opponent's face slipped because I was almost a head taller than him and more muscular to boot. Then Fred Sykes chuckled, raised his hand and patted me on the shoulder. However, his buddy-like niceness was never really nice, always had something spiteful and belitting about it, as if he could never take anything seriously.

"Man, bud. What's with the bitch face? Just be cool. It's just slop—like the whole cafeteria isn't full of it. Fix that knot in your skirt and come with us to the bar tonight."

"No thanks," I said grudgingly, but relaxed my hands. I didn't want to get into a fight, even though this guy was unbearable. I wasn't violent and this guy wouldn't push my buttons. In the psychiatric ward, I had encountered all kinds of people, and many had displayed 'challenging behavior,' but a guy like this was new to me. With his loutish attitude, he couldn't possibly have come from a "facility" like me (even though the doctor had advised me not to tell anyone where I had lived before). From overheard conversations, I knew that some of the other guys had been in jail for "petty things," some were just unemployed, and some didn't even have a permanent address. Like Sykes, who had become the leader of a whole group within a few weeks simply because he was loud and brash and mean.

I just didn't understand the "normal" people in his place. How could you follow or like someone like Fred Sykes, laugh at his dirty jokes, think of him as a buddy? Or... it was just me and Fred Sykes was the kind of person you had to be "out here"? But then, why was he here, in the same place as me, so to speak? Maybe my perception was distorted by the isolation, as I had discussed so often with Dr. Schmidtke, and I was being too sensitive and all Sykes did was friendly banter between guys. But the thought of actively trying to befriend him repulsed me. How could the others follow him, attach themselves to him, when there were so many better people to look up to? Like the doctor or the caretakers.

I couldn't stand Sykes and couldn't imagine that his nasty, condescending manner towards me (which, by the way, got worse the more he realized that I wasn't going to use my strength against him) was a sign of great affection. He was loud without saying anything of any importance. He had an opinion about everything and everyone, but his opinions weren't particularly clever. He was full of himself and even adopted a snotty attitude in front of the doctor. Not that any of us had much contact with the doctor except for brief instructions or the daily schedule, which we received and had to work through.

Although I never really saw Sykes working. He didn't even do his work conscientiously. He was a drudge, an unskilled laborer like me, but where I spent hours scrubbing all the floors and surfaces in the authorized laboratory rooms with special cleaning agents, stowed sometimes very heavy deliveries in the designated storage rooms, took care of the animals in the basement or cleaned test tubes and other laboratory utensils according to the most precise written instructions, my colleague just hung around. Close enough to grab a broom or cleaning rag when the doctor or one of the other higher-ranking employees came near.

Fred rolled his eyes and put an arm around my shoulder, lowering his voice as if he were my best friend, sharing his wisdom to make my life easier.

"Maybe a few drinks would make you less Spock and more Kirk. Or do you love being the doctor's pleasing pet here so much, Klaus-mouse?"

I took a deep breath at the pet name everyone was laughing at. Apart from the fact that I had nowhere else to go, it was really similar to my old institution, even if a lot - a lot - was strange for me and I didn't feel comfortable enough yet to ask anyone about all the weirdness. Even though this was clearly not a psychiatric ward but some kind of research facility (perhaps to test drugs) and there were no therapy sessions here as the doctor had promised me, there was structure and fixed tasks and I was sure that if I continued to conscientiously do my assigned chores and stick to the rules, I would soon be allowed to interact with the patients on the upper floors.

Because there had to be some. I sometimes heard soft shouting, moaning and screaming through the ventilation system in my small room. It reminded me of my previous home and was strangely comforting. I felt safe and guided - there were lots of people in white orderlies' uniforms, plenty of security staff for the important research and everything you needed to survive was in the building even if many areas were off limits to the newest staff. Only Fred Sykes, "recruited" the same day as me - (the doctor had stopped the car he'd driven me into town with by a cursing guy who'd been sitting on the curb with a bloody nose and a duffel of clothes, explained "the job" to him and just loaded him into the car) - was a challenge.

"People who live in the facility are not to leave the premises at night during this phase of the project," I regurgitated the security guard's instructions from the previous week and bent down again to gather my wayward food onto the tray.

"Man, you're a buzzkill," Sykes groaned above me again, accompanied by words of approval from his work friends. All pretty beefy guys, most of them security guards, who were constantly grinning like they knew so much more than me (which I didn't doubt) or making now noises that I now knew were imitations of ass-kissing.

"Only pansies and wimps stick to such stupid rules. The doc isn't even in the building and even if he is, he walls himself up in his lab and doesn't come into the staff areas or our living quarters. So are you going to continue being an antisocial ass-licker or are you going to loosen up?"

I gritted my teeth, looked down at the food at my feet and met my "colleague" with a look that had to be reproachful because it was meant to be. This guy didn't appreciate everything good that was offered to him here. He grumbled and ranted about everything, was just as "homeless" as me and not even grateful enough to follow the few totally justified rules. It couldn't have been more than three seconds that we stared at each other. Probably too long for the impatient man in front of me, who sighed theatrically and threw his hands up.

"Okay - Lord Stick up his ass. I'm off to drink away my woes about your silent treatment. Have fun not having a life. We won't bug you anymore."

With that, he attached himself to his buddies and loudly announced his plans for the night while everyone left. The silence in the cafeteria was sudden but very comforting. I liked to eat late just to avoid Sykes but today it didn't work out.

I sighed and gathered the last of the food onto my tray, neatly stacking the five pieces of the broken plate before taking the tray to the serving counter. Carla and Alejandra from the kitchen staff had been watching everything, but were smart enough to always stay out of sight and mind behind their counter and in their kitchen. None of the others bothered to remember their names, no one gave the older Mexicans a second glance and Sykes had just mumbled something about bad options when he saw them and ignored them ever since. Small mercies.

I just handed Alejandra the broken pieces where she was about to reach for the tray.

"I'll take this and make you something new, me Niño," she said in heavily broken Spanish. I bent to look at her through the pass-through, but smiled and pulled the tray back.

"Let me keep it-it's still good, you don't have to give me anything new."

The two women looked at each other uncomprehendingly.

"Klaus, you don't have to do this. Not anymore. There's enough here," Carla said gently and compassionately. They thought I had been homeless and starving for so long that my quirk with food was understandable. I didn't enlighten anyone. These were stories for therapists - not for anyone else.

"I know I don't have to do it, señora Carla. It would still be a waste," I said. The two women made faces that I didn't quite know how to interpret. Then they gave in. Alejandra, however, not without slipping me a chocolate pudding. Of which she had told Sykes earlier that there were none left. We chuckled about this and I took a seat on a chair, the counter with the women tidying up behind me accompanied by mexican chatter, clanking and rattling of the industrial dishwasher. Where I was alienated from Sykes and most of the other staff, I regarded these two almost as some kind of dear aunts. Yes - it wasn't so bad here.

.

.

August, 25th. 1995

The staff pushed the supposed laundry trolley out of the room. One of the wheels squeaked and continued to gnaw at the doctor's nerves. That had been his current batch. Wasted. Wasted time, wasted resources, wasted money. All that remained was the blood glistening in the glare of the overhead lights on the three silver operating tables with the buckles where his last three "volunteers" had been strapped down.

Sevarius took a deep breath before bringing his voice recorder to his mouth and restarting the recording where he had left off when the first of the candidates had shown signs of rejection and started convulsing. He cleared his throat, swallowed the bitter taste of defeat and steeled his voice so as not to sound like he was too upset.

"August 19th. 1995. Project Hybrid. The eighteenth test series of the mutagenic formula was a failure. However, the first hours before the rejection proved to be very revealing and purposeful. Test subject two of the forty-fourth serum series survived longer than all the previous ones. Merging of DNA from different taxa of Yinpterochiroptera and Electrophorus electricus is furthermore not the biggest problem. Only unbroken, the biology of the subjects seems to ... fight against the embedding of the Pantherinae DNA.

There is still a barrier present which seems inexplicable, even though it is more similar to the human genome than that of the other two species. The consequences are, after an initially good mutation rate, at the peak of the first strongest mutation wave in addition to the standard fever: massive seizures, verbal expressions of pain, increase in core body temperature to over 48 degrees, whereby a curious clarity of mind usually remains. Consequently, dissolution of the proteins in the blood, massive hemorrhaging both internally and externally via mucous membranes and pores and finally multi-organ failure, cell death and decomposition in fast motion, with the subjects getting stuck in the mutation phase during cardiac arrest, which certainly leads to ... spectacular sights. Even cooling down the bodies with ice baths or even liquid nitrogen did not change the outcome. But the fact that test subject 2 from the last batch survived for thirteen hours shows that we are on the right track. This is groundbreaking, unprecedented work - setbacks are a natural part of it. Nevertheless, gene splicing is the method of choice and preferable to the simpler primitive British approach of cloning adult somatic cells from - Ha! - sheep, even in view of the fact that I already managed to convert adult cells into stem cells in the Thailog project this year and thus mature the desired product to the desired age."

Anton Sevarius turned off the dictaphone. He had rambled on again at the end. He generally didn't like to hide his light under a bushel, but otherwise he remained more structured in his recordings. But okay - he was tired. Almost ... he wasn't enjoying this anymore if after so much failures it started to look like he didn't know what he was doing. He sat down on a chair, sighing in frustration.

It was atrocious to be so gifted and still to get nowhere. His approach with the homeless was good, there were thousands of them in Manhattan that nobody would miss, that the normal citizens would even be glad to have off their streets. But his people didn't recruit them just to let them all croak spectacularly. Dying was not the problem. Not even the disposal, since the facility had an incinerator in the basement. But he was stuck with his mutagen for weeks. Not a single subject survived the first violent wave of mutations. Was that how Mengele must have felt? Probably. In the end, only the successes made it into the history books, newspapers and specialist articles, giving the impression that every biology student with a B on their report card could play God.

But none of these small-minded idiots saw that it took hundreds, sometimes thousands of attempts over many years to break through. Not even Xanatos. He had the money and whoever had the money dictated the rules, but damn it, even a genius like Anton Sevarius needed more time than the six months Xanatos had given him.

"Absurd," Sevarius growled into the deserted lab. He looked at his watch. Three o'clock at night. He would wander around a bit to clear his head and then retire to his personal quarters to try to get at least six hours of sleep. At the door, he pressed the code to declare the lab accessible so that in the morning the supervisors could send the drudges in to do the cleanup and ... mop up the leftovers.

At a leisurely pace, but with his mind still racing, Sevarius wandered through his facility. Xanatos was generous with both money and the leeway he gave him on how to get to his goal. But this project was truly challenging like none before. It would be delightful if only he could make progress. Cloning, on the other hand, was a piece of cake. Thailog was a masterpiece - wonderfully devious and yes, Sevarius was proud of his "junior" for how wonderfully wicked he had turned out, but this project - this was really and truly God's work. HE was God here, but not really completely and he needed more than seven days, especially when he was missing THE breakthrough to keep the mutagen stable so that it didn't overwhelm the bodies of the probands and cause their original cell strands to burst with all the new fantastic patchwork DNA that wanted to be embedded in the human one.

"But why is the big cat DNA the problem?" he asked himself, pondering as he pulled a Coke from one of the vending machines in the deserted cafeteria. He rolled the can between his palms, appreciating the cool dampness.

"It's almost like..." he thought aloud. "-as if as soon as it comes to this DNA, it will be practically burned out of the subject. ... As if some god doesn't want me to cross that line," he huffed and laughed softly.

HE was GOD here. If there were others ... Anton Sevarius would find ways and means to break their resistance. One could only hope that Xanatos would remain patient. Nouveau riche were so fickle. Science - especially groundbreaking science - took time and money! He couldn't work under pressure - they wore out fifty bums per batch and ... Was that the problem? Were the homeless and cons just not ... clean enough for the formula? Too many drugs, too much stress at an early age, DNA already damaged? Or was something very specific missing from the formula itself?

Sevarius faltered when he heard a door slam and immediately afterward, hushed but approaching voices, moans and groans. Unwilling to let any kowtowing security personnel interrupt his flow of thought, he stepped back into the shadows of one of the offices. From where he watched as two other guys dragged a third in their midst through the corridor to the private quarters. Clearly plastered beyond belief, and either fallen or involved in a brawl as he was bleeding profusely from the nose.

"Damn, Sykes- your ass is heavy as shit! At least try to move your own fucking haunches," gasped one. Then they were gone. Sevarius grimaced in disgust. That's what you get for taking in ex-cons and street urchins. These guys were lucky that he was too busy to deal with their unworthy transgressions.

"Even as quickly disposed of test subjects, they would serve more of a purpose than -", he began, looking reproachfully at the drops of blood staining the floor of the otherwise cleanly sanitized corridor. But he didn't finish the sentence. He was tired. And overworked. And he suspected he would share the fate of many great and gifted men and once again spend his short night's rest tossing and turning in the sheets to find solutions to problems he couldn't even outline.

He groaned in annoyance, pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the poor damn devil's blood off the floor.

"If I can't sleep anyway", he grumbled and wandered off to his private lab with the blood sample.

.

.

I lifted the bulbous glass flask out of the cleaning solution and gently worked the inside with the bottle brush. This required concentration, especially as my hands were not only large but also covered in stubborn plastic gloves. The almost hot water also fogged up my safety goggles.

The alkaline solution with active chlorine was highly harmful to eyes and skin but good for removing cell culture residues. I liked a task like that. It was mechanical and always required similar movements. At the same time, however, you had to have good motor skills and use your head a little so that nothing broke. I could also do it at my own pace. If only there wasn't one thing-

"Urrrg, not so loud." moaned Sykes behind me, who had just dragged himself in the room, presumably because at a certain point you can't just sleep off your hangover but have to counteract it - or so I'd heard. Sykes cleared his throat in the most disgustingly slimy way that almost made me sick, then he unscrewed the plastic cap of the plastic bottle he'd brought with him, took a few sips and retched again as if he'd eaten an overflowing ashtray yesterday to accompany the alcohol. His nose was swollen, which probably proved that his last evening hadn't gone quite so perfectly.

"If you hadn't been out last night, you wouldn't have a hangover now. And I'm not loud at all," I huffed under my breath and smirked inwardly because he fully deserved his condition. Maybe I clinked a little louder with the next lab glasses as I put them in the basket of the lab dishwasher.

"Kiss my ass," Sykes grunted, lowering himself onto one of the swivel chairs, almost falling off and sitting down properly, cursing.

"Shit, I wonder if there's something in one of the doctor's witch's potions to cure my buzzing head?"

"Mh," I responded and waited for more rambling to come. I didn't even dare to dream that he would help me, do some of the work. And to be honest, in his condition, I didn't even want him to help. He would probably just make more work for me. He didn't say anything for so long that I turned around to see if he had either fallen asleep or left. Neither of which was the case, unfortunately. He had his head in the palm of his hand, his elbow on one of the tables, watching me.

I turned around again, trying to ignore his look, which I almost imagined I could feel in my neck.

"Don't you think," he said after a few moments and yeah, his rambling was better than when he was deadpan - it was kind of ominous.

"Don't you think it's totally weird and creepy here too?"

"Mhmm," I hummed, not wanting to mention that with my background, the bar for weird and creepy hung extremely high. Sykes interpreted my sound as a request to carry on.

"We work in a place where no one tells us what they do. I mean- have you ever been to the upper floors? And those screams in the night? What are they doing here? Do they skin the test subjects?"

"They're testing ... Medication. Some people react badly to it and make those noises," I mumbled absently, focused on my task. What wasn't lost on me, however, was that for the first time Sykes wasn't acting like a huge ass. Either because we were alone and he didn't have to prove anything to anyone or because his hangover mellowed him out. It was probably a combination of both.

"If they test stuff on people, why don't we ever see any of them? And in the basement we have to scrape together shit from animals that- man, I don't know, I rarely paid attention in school but you don't test drugs on fucking lions and tigers and bats and shit. I mean ... how many of these ass expensive critters are they killing here? We, or the other guys, scrub blood off every day like fuck. Why aren't there any bunnies or monkeys or whatnot?"

"I don't know anything about that. The doctor knows what he's doing." I said dismissively but then worked my lower lip between my teeth. I had already thought about these things. The fact that me and Sykes were on the same page with our insecurities was worrying. I had never experienced Fred so reflective before and I couldn't say that I liked it any better than his otherwise loud and cheeky manner. Because when someone like Fred Sykes became pensive ... wasn't something really seriously off? But I wasn't here to think. Thinking wasn't good for me - it never had been.

"Why won't they let us into certain areas? And when they fire up their incinerator - that smell."

"It's-it's chemical and biological waste. It just smells unpleasant."

"I guess you always parrot what the lab guys tell you, huh?"

"I know that ... the doctor can unsettle you - but we- we have it good here and -"

"Unsettling?" Fred snorted as if he couldn't believe how stupid I could be.

"Damn it, Klaus- mouse. You have no idea all the 'unsettling' guys I've seen. I worked with the mafia - for a while. THOSE guys are rattling - that's kind of their job description. My sister is fucking unsettling, our foster mother is also in that crazy auntie way. Sit between a dozen place mats and a zillion PityKitty pictures all staring at you while your foster mom's real cat glares at you like it's trying to melt your goddamn brain. But Sevarius ... he's one step away from batshit crazy and if even I can tell ... me and the other boys should take to our heels before Doctor Giggles is replayed here." He looked at me - probably waiting for a reaction to the reference that meant nothing to me, then rubbed his forehead.

"You should abseil too while you still can. I'll just wait for the next salary check and then I'll be off."

I shrugged my shoulders and had now moved on to the Petri dishes, which were too thin to be allowed in the dishwasher, and put them to one side after manual cleaning to dry them in a moment. I didn't want to think about all that. I was fine here. And even if I wasn't - where would I go? I had only just got used to life without wire mesh at the windows. I needed the doctor or others to tell me what to do. Despite his hangover, Sykes was clearly in a chatty mood.

"And I don't think anyone's going to be working here for long anyway. I mean- the Doc is a creeper from the beginning but the fuck in the last days- he locks himself up in his labs and when you see him he seems like... I don't know, like the shit is hitting the fan here. Even without him going slasher. I mean- if he and the other smarty-pants don't get anywhere here and they get their funding cut- they don't need us anymore. You don't notice because you don't hang out with us. But some guys who were hired shortly after us - they're gone - fired for whatever reason. Without any prior warning or notice period. Their rooms already occupied by new people or empty. We're disposable for them. Easy to replace. Or unnecessary. They're already decluttering - have a sweeping week ... Only with us. And you and I are back on the street. Better to kiss the bigwits goodbye before they throw us away."

I looked up again and now Sykes was standing next to me. He didn't know I was from the asylum - otherwise my surname would have prompted a lot more jokes to the point of overuse. He thought I had been homeless like him. He took a lint-free towel and began to dry the Petri dishes and tiny coverslips that were placed under the microscopes. Without protective goggles and without gloves. But I appreciated the gesture. Just like this honest insight into his thoughts, even if I didn't want to hear them. I ignored the intense smell of alcohol emanating from his pores. Maybe he was drinking because he wanted to enjoy his salary while he still had it. Maybe he wasn't doing his job properly because he thought he'd be the next to go anyway.

"Don't worry, you'll find new work. You're good with people," I gently tried to dispel his worries. He was unpleasant but he quickly settled in with the appropriate company (bad company). Unlike me. If I was kicked out of here because Sevarius' private backer lost patience with him, I'd have nothing and no one left. Fred didn't give a shit about that. When he was on the losing end, he didn't brood over anything, he just kept going. I had to admit that he outran me in that respect - even if he was 14 years younger than me. That was the one thing I envied about Frank. He was an ass, but he was constantly surrounded by people - either because they clung to him or because he clung to them. And he seized opportunities without his head getting in the way.

"Exactly! I'm a joy to be around!"he barked next to me with his usual unstoppable bravado.

He and I chuckled quietly, strangely in agreement, strangely ... almost friendly. Before a voice piped up behind us.

"I heard you were out with some coworkers yesterday, Frank. Again"

The person next to me flinched, gasping for air, so much that the coverslip he had just held between his fingers broke. He dropped it, cursing, bloody thin shards falling to the floor. Sykes turned awkwardly smiling - trying to keep his composure as if he hadn't been caught red-handed - to Sevarius, who was standing in the doorway with a grim face. Fred wrapped the towel around his cut fingers.

"Hey, yeah, sorry, doc. Had to let off a bit of steam. Work-life balance - you know it. Or- um, not at the moment. But as you can see, I'll be right back to my duties. Everything's cool."

"You repeatedly ignore safety protocols. Locked doors are there for a reason, gloves and protective clothing are worn for a reason. I can smell the alcohol all the way over here," Sevarius sighed, his cold, tired eyes grazing me, then lingering on Sykes. Assessing, evaluating ... making a judgment. But there was something else in those eyes ... a ... hunger that wasn't directed at food but at a person. Driven, manic - literally and figuratively seeking more. I knew a thing or two about hunger. Maybe that's why this subtext, extremely well covered up by the doctor, sent a shiver down my spine.

"Come with me, Mr. Sykes, I'll patch up your hand. And we should talk."

Fred looked at me wide-eyed, then ran after the doctor, his uncertain panicked laughter accompanied by assurances that the coverslip thing had been an accident worth ignoring, that everything was cool and that he'd stick to the rules - from now on. This whole new kind of rambling echoed long after the two of them were out of sight.

Now my own Rambling.

Crimson Claws-as you've noticed-begins with Claw's backstory. It's a quick rundown of how he and the others mutate- how he experiences things from his point of view. A lot of things are told in short episodes and you understand where he comes from. I don't really need this backstory because of him, but so that the storyline in 2009 makes sense at the end. Of course I'm changing some of the canon for that (but let's remember- the canon from Greg Weisman's Gargoyles is not mine because different universe and divergence- you know the drill). Still, I tried to stick to the existing canon for this backstory: See Gargoyles Timeline- you can google that- it's so enlightening:

April 1, 1995- Sevarius picks two homeless people off the street- I needed the fact that Claw wasn't really homeless but came from an institution to explain his naive, tag-along behavior later even though he'll be the oldest and strongest of the mutants. But ... to everyone else he was just homeless.

THEN in the timeline it says the events from Metamorphosis happened in September 1995. WHAT was Sevarius doing with Fred and Claw for so long? And no one tells me that Sevarius didn't wear out hundreds of other test subjects before he had his breakthrough with them (and Maggie)! That's just not how science works - it doesn't for you either, Sevarius! Claw and Fang couldn't have been mutated back in April/May/June because Derek was supposedly injected with the exact same serum and his main mutation only lasted a fucking day. So the Doctor's breakthrough could only have been a few days ago.

Unfortunately they forgot to write in the timeline when Maggie was recruited- the scene looks like it takes place in winter/a cold spring night because everyone is freezing and wearing coats but Maggie isn't as calm and adjusted as Fang and Claw with the situation- these are plot holes of the show that I really can't completely iron out.

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P.P.S: AHH! In case you're wondering why I'm posting so rarely right now- I've published my own book- in German- sorry- maybe there will be an English e-book version but what will it look like with so many comma errors and my bumpy English- well I don't know if I think it's appropriate to ask for money for it. If English- and punctuation-savvy beta readers want to edit it for me, I wouldn't resist ^^

AND I also have a lot of preparations to make for my AMERICA TRIP! (jazz hands!*)- Yes- this German Country Pumpkin is flying to New York for Comic Con ... I'm the one with the web-wing costume. Does it count as cosplay if you are not a character from the series but your own Gen-U-Tech hybrid?

Thanks for reading, Q.T.