Death Is Legion - The Bargain

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Arriving at their destination, Kyle discovers just what he's needed for.



The trip could have taken hours for all that Kyle could tell. Bound securely in the trunk of the same limousine that he'd been driven home in just that morning, time stretched out into an indeterminate period, punctuated only by the odd bump in the road or metal bridge panel underneath. He could easily hear the whimpers of his parents, secured in the back seat, and smell the strange chemical scent of Omega Red, mixed with his doctor's cheap aftershave. Arkady hadn't bothered to worry about Kyle's claws, simply ripping them out by the root and smashing his fingers until both hands were broken. His healing factor was working on them, but they were still useless, and the metal manacles were more than enough to keep him captive.

Finally, the car stopped, and the sudden glare from the sun blinded him momentarily as the trunk was opened.

"Let's go."

"Yeah, you broke my fucking hands, give me a second." The broken-fucking-hands thing had been seriously unnecessary. He wasn't going to do shit while they had his parents, what kind of idiot did they think he was? Not that he wanted them to answer that. But he was pretty sure falling all over himself to get out of the trunk faster wasn't going to do shit, and Tyler's grunt told Kyle he'd done what he really wanted - let his folks know he was okay enough to give people shit. He was -great- at giving people shit.

He swung both legs out the trunk, felt for the ground with one, and very briefly gave thought to the idea that maybe if he was fast enough kicking someone in the junk, that he could get free - and then the freak with the tentacles would probably strangle his parents, and if he'd wanted that, he'd have started fighting back before his hands were smashed and he was thrown into the trunk.

"Get him moving." Arkady grunted, and the ginger-haired doctor helped pull him to his feet. Arkady reached down and pulled Midge from the back of the car. "We'll take the woman with us. In case this whelp feels like delaying things."

"I wouldn't suggest trying anything." The other man said, as they started to walk towards an outbuilding.

"I'd ask if you think I'm that stupid..." Kyle muttered, both feet on the ground and more or less upright, eyes darting between his parents and their kidnappers, and his feet and the ground. "So, what the fuck, I mean, do I get an explanation? Because hey, you kidnap a guy's parents, trick him into flying all the way the fuck out here... did I fight somebody you dudes hate, is this a "you're one of those X-Men" things?"

"Are you honestly this stupid, young man? Arkady will kill your mother for far less reason than you irritating him. After all, you currently have an extra parent if he needs it." The man didn't look comfortable with the idea of casual murder, but on the other hand, he was with Omega Red willingly. "I'd suggest keeping your mouth shut until he decides to tell you want he wants."

"If he thinks I'm not gonna ask questions, he kidnapped the wrong guy." Kyle said. "So yeah, honestly that stupid." He gave a entirely false grin, met his mother's eyes and then made the gesture of a zipper over his mouth. "I get the point though, man, I'll shut it."

"It's your decision whether or not you relish the idea of being an orphan." He said, prodding him along with the barrel of the gun. They slowly advanced until finally reaching the small building they'd been directed towards. It was small and squat, one story and not in good repair. It looked like a cheap guard station more than anything else. Arkady opened the door and as they stepped in, Kyle could see another man in the gloom. He was older and balding, holding his left wrist tightly with his right hand. His left hand was a mess; crooked and twisted like it had been beaten with a hammer.

"Doctor Huxley. I see you listened closely to my threat and did not try to escape. Good. You may survive this if you continue to follow the rules." Huxley said nothing, giving Omega Red a grimace as he shifted his seating position. Kyle was nudged forward towards a chair beside him.

Kyle dropped into the chair, sprawling a bit, and eyeing the room for exits, or any kind of advantage, and finding very little. Arkady - and god, he was so incredibly -fucked- if he tried to fight Omega Red was between him and the door, and despite his claim, he was definitely not. that. stupid. Despite this, he rolled his thumbs and fingers, cracking the knuckles to get the broken joints back in place while he sat.

Kyle's mother was roughly pushed into another chair, and Dr. Cornelius took another, making the scene look vaguely like a committee meeting. Arkady jerked a thumb towards the concrete structure that the small structure sat in front of.

"You will go into that lab, find the computer on the lower level, and plug in this into the USB port." He tossed over a device that looked like a bulky cell phone with a long cord. "If you succeed, you can leave with your parents. If not, I will kill them both slowly."

"Right..." Kyle said, slowly - quietly. "Any chance you'll tell me what I'm going to deal with in there, or why I'm the Chosen One here, because you know, my odds of doing whatever it is you want go up if I'm not going in surprised." He looked over at his mother, and gave her a sheepish look, as if to say he was sorry he was just going to do whatever the crazy man with the tentacles wanted. She nodded at him, and gave the same thin-lipped frown that she had a decade before, when a judge had sentenced him to nine months in juvenile detention, and the same white, wide, scared eyes the next year, when her little boy had come out of a Mistra facility a foot taller with a mouthful of sharp teeth.

Arkady gave Cornelius a look, and the bearded man sighed. "This lab is a former WEAPON biological research facility. Doctor Horatio Huxley once worked there, on a similar project to the one that created your friend Logan. The computer contains electronic genetic data of their research, which is of great personal and financial interest to Arkady. Doctor Huxley, would you care to elaborate?"

The older man winced, his broken hand obviously paining him, but nodded. "The lab housed a project focusing on manipulating a unique airbourne pathogen which had been acquired by US military intelligence from the Russians. It was very exciting; a mutant virus which not only had immensely debilitating effects to the host, but also contained a psionic congruence resonance. That means that the virii had a psionic signature twinned with another entity. Imagine a virus that is painful and lethal, has no known cure or immunization, and could literally be told when to switch from dormant to active and vice versa? The military applications would be endless."

Kyle listened, understanding not nearly enough of that to comment and just enough to know he was seriously fucked. "Okay, before I go and you know, do something cray because I love my mom, two questions. One, you dudes know Logan isn't my dad, right? Or that Sabertooth guy? Because I had that shit checked. Two.." He turned to face his mother and pointed at Omega Red. "Mom, I swear to god if this dude is my bio-dad.."

Midge Gibney silently shook her head.

"Okay. Because seriously. This is getting fucking old with the not knowing."

"Mister Gibney, you're here because of your healing factor, and your mother's unfortunate employment with WEAPONX during the 80s. Arkady has spent a great deal of time and money researching your X-Men. Knowing his enemies, so to speak. We've been able to put a number of names to faces, although it would seem that going deeper has an odd coincidence of attracting random computer virus attacks or normally reliable intelligence gathering assets to suddenly become forgetful." While most of the X-Men knew that Wisdom's group was involved actively and aggressively in intelligence gathering, few realized just how talented the Englishman was at counter-intelligence. Especially when you have the world's most powerful telepath to collaborate with in setting up defenses. "So imagine our surprise when a former and seemingly minor employee of the program that funded this lab happened to have a son living under the same roof as Logan? A son who our sources tell us has a healing factor?"

Doctor Huxley sighed. "It's true. Margaret was a lab assistant, I believe. Transferred very rapidly one day."

Kyle sat silently, weighing his options. Tell the crazy tentacle man he was totally nuts and that his mom was a nurse and had gone to school in Detroit, make a snappy comment about how he definitely was going to punch someone in the face just as soon as he got home, probably Logan, or just shut the fuck up and listen and sort out the crazy once this was over. Because this was totally nuts. "Sure. I'll go with 'healing factor' and 'I know Logan.". He turned to his mother, who had remained silent and gave her a sharp look that didn't do anything to keep his hands from shaking just a little, even though he'd pressed them flat against his thighs. "Seriously this shit turns out to be true, we're having a really fucking long talk, because this shit is -real- fucking old, Mom."

"She wouldn't have any idea. Security protocols involved selective memory adjustment - no doubt she believes she worked in some hospital or was in school during that time." Huxley said. "The outbreak of the Thetagen-24 virus in the lab will kill any normal person. It is powerful enough that even normal bio-safety protocols are not to be trusted. Only a mutant with a significant healing factor can survive long enough to start the data uplink and survive. Your healing factor will contain the virus once you're out of the infected regions."

"Yeah, well, this mutant with a significant healing factor got a C minus in biology and took rocks for jocks in college. I'm a fucking English teacher, not a scientist." Kyle said. "So lemee repeat that in small words. There's a nasty virus that'd kill anyone but people like me, my mom worked for Weapon X and you assholes erased her memories, and whatever this virus is, it'll go through even those crazy spacesuits like they had in Outbreak."

"Obviously a feral, Arkady. I doubt he possesses the mental acumen for this." Cornelius said, and Arkady grunted.

"Agreed. Go kill the one in the car. I'll take care of these two." A coil curled around Kyle's mother's throat.

"You kidnapped my parents, I'm allowed to call you an asshole." Kyle got out. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it. It's my -mom-, you dick. You think I'm not gonna cooperate? They're my -parents-. Look, you tell me what you want, okay? You want me to say woof woof, I'm a good puppy, I'll do it but jesus, they're my parents. They've dealt with enough of my crap, they don't need to deal with this. You want me to shut up, I'll shut up, but.." His voice cracked, and Kyle's vision went blurry for a split second. "Just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it, okay?"

There was a chilling look in Arkady's eyes, underlining the fact that he would 'punish' Kyle by hurting and crippling his parents without a second thought. He didn't even need a good reason for it. The tip of the carbonium tentacle hovered in front of his mother's eyes, ready to tear them out and leave her blind for the rest of her life.

"Get into the lab. Get me files. Go quick, and I might not make you chose which parent gets to live when you return."

Kyle nodded, feeling like he was moving in slow motion. "I can do that. What else do I need to know?"

Huxley spoke up. "You will need to move quickly. The longer you are exposed to the Thetagen-24 virus, the faster it will adapt itself around your healing factor. If you spend too long down there, it will kill you."

"Get in and get out fast. I can do fast." Kyle said. He hoped he could do fast enough. "Anything else?" He asked, tentatively - carefully. He wasn't so much eager to get started as eager to give Omega Red one less reason to snap and decide he didn't need Kyle after all and take it out on the Gibneys.

"Pray on the way down." Huxley said quietly. "You'll need it."