"AAAAH! GOD! MAKE IT STOP!"
The woman on the table thrashed against leather straps that groaned under the strain. Her belly rippled violently as though a war was being fought beneath her skin.
Vanderznak did not share her agony. He leaned over her with a scalpel held high and his mismatched eyes burned with the manic joy of a child unwrapping a gift.
"Yes! Push! Or don't! It matters not!"
He lowered the blade to slice her open.
From his dark corner, Zareth watched the spectacle through half-lidded eyes. A wave of disgust rolled in his gut that had nothing to do with physical pain.
'This is a slaughterhouse.' Zareth tested the tension of his bonds. 'These chains are rigid. Cold iron. I can't break them with raw strength.'
He glanced down at his feet. Blood dripped steadily into the bucket below.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
'They've taken everything. My serum is gone. I've lost gallons of blood. My Gospel Rhythm is working overtime to replenish the loss but it's a losing battle. Without the serum, using Pons De Flamontz to blast free would age me to dust instantly. And how many goons do I have to take down?'
He scanned the cavernous room. Rows of pods stretched into the shadows.
'There must be over a hundred women here. This madman has substantial backing to gather this many victims. It looks like a long-running operation. How has the Convent not discovered this? Are they blind? Or have they turned a blind eye?'
RIIIP!
A wet, tearing sound snapped Zareth's attention back to the table.
"Magnificent!"
Vanderznak shrieked.
A sharp, grey fin burst through the woman's abdomen. It sliced through skin and muscle from the inside out.
Vanderznak looked at the scalpel in his hand and then tossed it aside.
"I don't need this after all! The specimen frees itself!"
The baby's head emerged into the stale air. Immediately, it began to cry.
WAAAAH!
Vanderznak reached in with bare hands and pulled the creature free. He held it aloft like a trophy.
It was a nightmare of biology. The head was round and human but a sharp, cartilaginous fin protruded from the centre of the skull. Its body was a patchwork of human pink and animalistic spots, and patches of rough scales glimmered under the harsh laboratory lights. A dorsal fin ran down its tiny spine.
"Behold!" Vanderznak exclaimed. "The chimeric integration is stable! Homo sapiens and Selachimorpha DNA coexisting in one flesh!"
He brought the child closer to his face.
"Respiration is normal. No immediate cytotoxic reaction. It's perfect."
He looked down at the mother. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and foam bubbled at the corners of her mouth.
"Rejoice, woman! You have given birth to the future of humanity!"
But the woman did not rejoice. Her head lolled to the side. She had fainted from the shock and the trauma.
Sniff. Sniff.
Vanderznak wrinkled his nose. "Ugh. She voided her bowels during the birth. The place stinks."
He waved his hand dismissively. "Cleaners! Remove this trash!"
Two men in white overalls hurried forward with a large metal cart. They unstrapped the unconscious woman and heaved her limp body into the bin.
Thud.
Zareth watched them wheel the cart toward a set of heavy double doors at the far end of the room. He tracked their movement carefully.
Sniff.
He caught a whiff of something acrid beneath the smell of blood and antiseptic. Burning flesh.
Zareth deduced, 'So that is where they dispose of the bodies. The incinerator. There must be a vent that leads the smoke to the outside. If I could just get these chains free…'
He tugged on the iron links again.
Clank.
Suddenly, Vanderznak let out a howl of rage.
"NO! What is this?!"
The scientist stared at the baby in his arms. The crying had stopped. The creature's skin began to liquefy. Patches of scales sloughed off and revealed raw, dissolving meat underneath.
"Cellular rejection!" Vanderznak cursed. "The incompatible nucleotides are unravelling! The Tumor cells used as a binding agent are consuming the shark DNA instead of fusing with it!"
The baby disintegrated into a wet mess of biological sludge in his hands.
Vanderznak threw the remains onto a tray and began to pace frantically. He chewed on his fingernails until they bled.
"What went wrong? Was it the sedative? Did it accelerate the mitosis too fast? Or was the breeding vessel insufficient?"
He spun around and glared at the rows of pregnant women.
"Failures! All of you! How many more of you must I waste before I achieve perfection?"
Zareth had heard enough. The madman's ramblings were grating on his nerves.
"Hey, shorty," Zareth called out. "I need another smoke. This one is down to the butt."
Vanderznak froze. He turned slowly and his face was a mask of pure fury.
"You…"
He stormed over to Zareth.
Slash! Slash!
He drove the scalpel into Zareth's abdomen.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
Zareth grunted but he didn't flinch. Fresh blood poured from the new wounds.
Vanderznak stopped and panted heavily. He noticed the blood pooling on the floor.
"Looks like I need another bucket for you."
He kicked an empty bucket under Zareth's feet to catch the new flow.
Zareth looked down at the bucket and then threw his head back and laughed.
"Is that all?" Zareth taunted. "You insane bastard! Put your back into it next time! Oh, I forgot… that lump on your back is weighing you down. It must be dampening your intelligence too."
Vanderznak's face turned purple.
"What?!" he screeched. "How dare a cockroach like you insult my intelligence? For your transgressions, you will taste my genius today!"
Vanderznak madly dashed to a locked drawer. He rummaged through it and pulled out a syringe filled with a bubbling, neon-green liquid.
As he marched back to Zareth he said, "This is an earlier batch of mutagen. It produced nothing but grotesque failures. Agony. Irreversible abomination."
He held the needle up to the light.
"I wonder what crazy monstrosity you will turn into? This unpredictable mixture of genes is not to be trifled with. It is the foundation on which my later formulas evolved. The Mellontikos Juice, Batch 007."
Zareth looked at the needle and then grinned.
"Do your worst, you dumb midget. I'm not afraid of death."
"Then you shall have a fate worse than death!"
THUMP!
Vanderznak stabbed the syringe fiercely into Zareth's chest. He drove the needle straight into the heart.
HISS!
He depressed the plunger and emptied the entire vial into Zareth's bloodstream.
"Enjoy the evolution!" Vanderznak laughed.
Zareth's eyes widened. Fire coursed through his veins. It wasn't the clean burn of his Gospel; it was a dirty, corrupting heat.
Thump-thump. THUMP-THUMP.
His heart hammered against his ribs. The veins in his neck turned black and bulged against his skin like trapped snakes.
"GAAAH!" Zareth roared.
Vanderznak stepped back and relished the suffering. "Yes! Twist! Mutate! Become my monster!"
BANG!
The laboratory doors flew open.
Beltrom limped into the room. He looked frantic.
"Lord Vanderznak! It's horrible! We have a problem!"