Squelch. Snap.
The sound of wet rope stretching to its breaking point echoed from the corner of the laboratory. It did not come from a rope, however, but from the sinews in Zareth's left leg.
"Guh… aaaagh!"
Zareth arched his back against the cold floor. His leg was twisting, rotating slowly inward with a grinding crackle that resembled a wet rag being wrung out by an invisible giant. Black veins bulged against his pale skin and throbbed in time with his frantic heartbeat.
The corruption didn't stop there. Dark spots bloomed on his left hand like mold on bread. They rapidly hardened and coalesced into jagged, obsidian scales.
Pop. Pop. CRACK!
His left forearm swelled grotesquely. Muscle fibers expanded and tore through the skin before knitting back together in a thick, armoured hide. The sudden expansion applied immense pressure to the iron manacle around his wrist.
PING!
The metal failed. The chain burst apart and sent shrapnel skittering across the tiles. Zareth's arm, now heavy and misshapen, flopped to the ground. The momentum threw him off balance, and he crashed into the bucket beneath his feet.
CLANG! SPLASH!
Gallons of his own harvested blood washed over him. He writhed in the crimson pool while the Mellontikos Juice rewrote his biology with agonizing slowness.
"Do keep it down," Vanderznak muttered without looking back. "Genius requires silence."
The scientist stood before the main operating table where the boy lay strapped and gagged. He held a scalpel up to the light and hummed a discordant tune.
Near the entrance, Beltrom, Hunter, and the Dog-Man watched the transformation with morbid fascination.
"Look at him."
Beltrom whispered. He rubbed his own arm where the mantis limb usually emerged. "That isn't normal mutation. Even with the new batch, the pain felt like fire… but his body is fighting it. It's tearing him apart."
Hunter ran a gloved hand over the melted ruin of his face. He glanced down at the Dog-Man, who whined and scratched at the floor.
"It's a roll of the dice. You get lucky and get claws. You get unlucky… and you lose your mind. Or your face. My brother here… he just wanted to be strong. Now look at him."
"Whatever that old man becomes," Beltrom grimaced, "it's going to be an abomination. Look at that arm. It's thick as a tree trunk."
"Silence!" Vanderznak spun around and waved his scalpel at them. "Your whispering is like rats scratching in the walls! Get out! Guard the corridor!"
The three men stiffened. They glared at the little hunchback but nodded.
"Let's go," Hunter grunted. He yanked the Dog-Man's leash.
Thud. Click.
The heavy doors closed, leaving Zareth alone with the madman.
Zareth lay panting in the blood. His vision blurred, swimming in shades of red and black.
'This pain… good grief. It's worse than the Gospel backlash.'
He looked at his left arm. It was no longer human. It was a monolith of black muscle and scales that ended in claws like serrated knives.
'My tissues are shifting. Bones are rearranging. If I hadn't rerouted my Gospel Rhythm to suppress this mutagen, I would be a mindless beast by now. Or dead.'
He tried to lift the arm. It responded sluggishly, heavy and numb.
'Damn it. I can barely move it. It's dead weight.'
His eyes drifted to his right arm. It was still human, still shackled.
'But the chain… it's weakened. If I can just snap that one…'
At the table, Vanderznak forced the boy's mouth open. He inserted a metal device equipped with sensors between the child's jaws.
"Bite down, subject!"
CRUNCH!
The metal groaned. The display on the handheld device flickered wildly.
"Astonishing!" Vanderznak gasped. "8,500 Newtons! That is far beyond human limits. It rivals the bite force of a tiger or a hyena. And you are but a whelp!"
He removed the device and picked up a pair of tweezers.
Snip.
He cut a small incision on the boy's forearm. Before he could even dab the blood away, the wound knitted itself shut.
"Regeneration rate: near instantaneous."
Vanderznak scribbled furiously on his clipboard.
"Tissue density on the tail suggests armoured utility. And these eyes…"
He leaned in close to the boy's glaring red eyes.
"...contain a reflective tapetum lucidum unseen in primates. You are a predator born, aren't you?"
Vanderznak grabbed a large syringe. He plunged it into the boy's spine.
The boy's eyes widened, and he thrashed against the straps, but the gag muffled his screams.
Slurp.
Vanderznak extracted a vial of clear spinal fluid. He rushed over to a centrifuge and a complex array of microscopes. He poured the sample into a analyzer that hummed with energy.
Whirrrrrr… Beep.
Vanderznak stared at the screen. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes and stared again.
"What is this?"
The breakdown showed the standard nucleotides, but woven between them was a dark, shimmering helix he had never seen before.
"An unknown biological agent. It defies the standard genetic codex. It… it adapts. It consumes the instability."
He grabbed a vial of his volatile Mellontikos Juice and added a drop of the boy's spinal fluid to it.
FZZT!
The neon green liquid hissed. It bubbled violently, then settled into a calm, milky grey-white colour. The molecular structure on the screen stabilized instantly. The chaotic mutations aligned into a perfect, symmetrical lattice.
"Eureka!"
Vanderznak held the vial aloft. His hand trembled so hard the liquid danced.
"I've done it! I've cracked the code! This unknown substance… it is the binding agent I have been searching for! It creates a perfect bond!"
He laughed, a high, manic cackle that bounced off the walls.
"Who to test it on? Who deserves this honour?"
He spun toward the rows of pregnant women in the pods.
"You? No, too weak. You? No, too far along."
He loaded the grey liquid into a fresh syringe. He was vibrating with excitement.
"This formula ensures stability! No more mindless beasts! This will create a god!"
While Vanderznak drowned in his own ecstasy, a shadow moved across the floor.
Zareth had not been idle. He had gathered every ounce of strength in his right side and jerked the chain. The metal, fatigued by hours of struggle, had snapped silently.
He dragged himself forward. He used the blood slick to slide his ruined body across the tiles.
Vanderznak turned, syringe in hand, a grin plastered on his face. "I think I shall choose—"
SLASH!
The air whistled.
Vanderznak didn't even see the claw. He only felt the impact.
Zareth's mutated left arm swung like a wrecking ball. The claws caught the scientist across the face and tore diagonally down to his chest.
SPLAT!
Vanderznak's right eye—the blue one—popped from its socket and dangled by a thread. His chest cavity was laid open, ribs severed like twigs. Blood geysered onto the pristine floor.
"Guh… ck…"
Vanderznak collapsed. He couldn't scream. His vocal cords were severed.
Zareth groaned and dragged himself closer. He placed his heavy, scaled hand over Vanderznak's fallen eyeball and pressed down.
Squish.
"That's for the headache."
Zareth couldn't stand; his legs were useless twisted wreckage. He hooked his human arm onto the edge of the operating table and hauled himself up.
"Hold on, brat."
He undid the straps. The boy sat up and spat out the gag. He looked at Zareth's monstrous arm and then at his face. He didn't recoil.
"Papa?"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's get out of here."
Zareth scooped the boy up with his right arm. He dropped back to the floor. He moved like a crippled ape, using his massive mutant arm as a crutch to swing his body forward.
Thud-drag. Thud-drag.
He made for the double doors at the back.
BAM!
Zareth smashed through the doors into the incinerator room.
Two men in white overalls were busy shoving a pile of severed limbs into the furnace. They spun around at the noise.
"What the hell? It's the prisoner!"
"Get the prod!"
They reached for their weapons.
Zareth didn't break stride. He swung his left arm in a wide, vicious arc.
SWISH!
The claws extended. Both men froze as a thin red line appeared on their waists.
Thud. Thud.
Their top halves slid off their bottom halves. They hit the floor in four distinct pieces.
Zareth paused and looked at his black arm. Steam rose from the scales.
"Maybe this curse isn't such a burden after all."
He scanned the room. The incinerator vent was high up on the wall.
Zareth told the boy, "I planned to shimmy up that duct. But with this arm… I won't fit."
He looked at the boy. "See any other way?"
The boy sniffed the air and shook his head.
"Right. We can't go back. That madman's henchmen are in the hall."
Zareth turned to the solid concrete wall that bordered the exterior of the lab.
"If there is no door," Zareth gritted his teeth and pulled his mutant arm back, "I'll make one."
He channelled his Gospel. Fire ignited under the scales of his left hand.
"Go!"
BOOOOOOM!
The wall exploded. Dust and debris blasted outward. Zareth limped through the jagged hole into the dark corridor.
Inside the lab, the sound of the explosion brought Hunter and Beltrom running.
"What was that?" Hunter shouted.
They skidded into the room and stopped dead.
Vanderznak lay in a pool of expanding red. He was gasping, clutching the ruin of his chest.
"Lord Vanderznak!" Beltrom yelled.
They rushed to his side.
"He's gutted." Hunter was assessing the wound.
Vanderznak's remaining yellow eye rolled wildly. He lifted a trembling, blood-soaked hand and pointed to the floor. The syringe of grey liquid lay there, miraculously unbroken.
"In… ject…" he gurgled.
"Sir?" Hunter hesitated. "That was for the experiment."
"Do… it!" Vanderznak wheezed. Blood bubbled past his lips. "Only… way…"
Hunter looked at Beltrom.
Beltrom shrugged.
"He's dead anyway. Let him gamble."
Hunter grabbed the syringe. He didn't bother to be gentle. He stabbed it into Vanderznak's open chest wound, directly into the heart.
HISS.
He pushed the plunger.
Vanderznak convulsed. His back arched off the floor. The fatal wounds began to smoke and bubble.
"Get… them…" Vanderznak rasped, his voice changing, deepening into something guttural.
"Understood." Beltrom stood up and looked toward the incinerator room.
"Let's go, mutt!"
Beltrom whistled. The Dog-Man bounded forward.
They sprinted into the back room. They saw the bisected cleaners and the gaping hole in the wall.
"Tough old bastard," Beltrom spat. "I can't believe he survived that mutation and still had the strength to smash concrete."
He leaped through the hole and followed.
"Hunt him down! Before he disappears into the woods!"