Ch38 Chew

 

“Fortress City qualifies as a mega-city. It was built to harbor the population of the entire western seaboard at maximum capacity.

“It is nowhere near maximum capacity.

“It’s Odd Summer’s fault of course. Plenty of terrible things occur to curb population growth. I’m not just talking about bad triggers or plain old-fashioned murderers either. One might be quick to blame supers for the body count, but the reality is that new supers are also the hardest hit demographic. One in three new supers don’t live past their first week, let alone their first summer. Think about that if you happen to get ‘lucky’.”

-Mr. K

 

Hellion’s Henchmen

 

“It’s the containment facility next to the highschool,” said Socket.

“Are you serious? How the hell would they not have noticed that?” asked Viper.

“Haven’t been any bad triggers at the school lately,” answered Rattleback, “And the school’s closed now anyway. Probably unmanned for the summer.”

“You’d think they’d at least hire a security guard to sit his ass there.”

“Those facilities all have automatic security systems,” said Socket with a shrug. “Our rat musta found a hole in the security.”

“Assuming he’s actually using it and not just under it,” said Rattleback. “If he’s inside then this could get a whole lot more complicated.”

“Imp is talking with Hellion right now,” said Sandra, “he’ll let us know how she wants this handled.”

 

The group collectively turned to watch Imp talking on his phone. They were still in the cafeteria, gathered around the table Tofu’s friend had been sitting at. The Tinker Tot had been sent to bed, and now it was only employees of HH in the cafeteria. Imp was a bit off to the side, pacing back and forth as he talked to their boss on the phone, and around the group of lieutenants was a gathering crowd of minions at the tables. No one had called the gathering together, most of them weren’t even on the clock, but everyone could tell that something was about to happen. Imp wasn’t saying much, and he was holding his phone farther and farther from his ear as the voice on the other end rose in volume.

 

Which meant they’d probably have orders soon.

 

The lieutenants quietly watched Imp pace for a minute longer. Then when his arm was almost fully extended away from his face, Hellion’s voice was interrupted by a large bang and crackle of static, and the call cut off.

 

Imp took a deep breath and sighed, then teleported his phone away, and turned to the table with his fellow lieutenants.

 

“Well. Hellion’s pissed.”

“No shit,” said Viper.

“I’ll order a new desk tomorrow,” added Rattleback.

 

Imp approached the group and leaned over the table, glancing at the map of likely locations. Then he addressed the group.

 

“Two things. First is the kidnap victims. They’ll of course be priority. Do we have any idea where they are?”

“They should be around here,” answered Socket, pointing at the likely hideout. “Tofu’s little friend helped narrow it down. Smack dab under a holding facility, or maybe even inside it.”

“Huh, kinda clever. C’s wouldn’t think to look there.”

“We could tip the heroes off ourselves, let them handle it,” suggested Sandra.

“No, not this time. This rat bastard has been targeting mutants, in Hellion’s territory, not a week after the city watched us wipe the Espada off the map. That needs to be answered, so we’ll be handling this ourselves. Whoever this person is they don’t get to walk away. Hellion’s orders.”

 

No one had any problems with that.

 

They began hashing out possible plans of approach. There were essentially three main details that needed to be accounted for: the hostages, the security system that might still be active, and the army of zombie horrors.

 

Sneak the hostages out? No, they didn’t have time to case the joint, and accidently being discovered partway through the operation would result in a super brawl with civies in the mix.

 

Frontal assault? Not likely. They had enough boneheads to handle the zombies, but that big eel thing Imp had fought would be too much for them. Sandra wouldn’t authorize it unless they had someone with the right powerset.

 

Bribe Turbo into pulling the hostages out while letting the villain ‘disappear’? No, if he didn’t go for it then they’d have alerted the heroes for no reason.

 

Let Hellion burn the zombie army down?

“Nope.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Eff that.”

The lieutenants immediately discarded that suggestion. Way too much potential for collateral damage. Hellion was usually pretty good about controlling herself, but this issue had hit just a bit too close to home for their boss, so she was currently barricaded in her office until her temper cooled enough to be safe. Hellion had a lot of strengths, but subtlety and precision weren’t part of them.

 

Eventually they determined the plan with the highest chance of success would simply be to let Imp infiltrate and take the target out of the picture. The only potential downside was if the zombies didn’t fall over once their creator bit the dust. They needed one more infiltrator to go in with him and cover the hostages, preferably someone who wouldn’t risk tripping a sensor, and who could hold their own against the zombies until the boneheads arrived to even the odds.

 

Luckily, Imp knew just the minion.

 

---

 

The basement room was brightly lit. Extra lamps had been brought in and set up around the room to provide maximum visibility. Sturdy metal tables had also been dragged in to provide surfaces to work on, twelve total.

 

On each one was a corpse. Most of them mutant humans.

 

“Maybe add a few extra kidneys? Would that help the filtration?”

 

The voice came from a man sitting on a wheeled office chair next to one of the tables. A receding hairline, glasses, a striped button-up shirt and wrinkled slacks, not quite overweight, but definitely out of shape; the man was a picture of ordinary. In his hand was a book on biology, highschool level. He currently had it open to a page that detailed human organs.

 

The man turned away from the opened corpse in front of him and rolled his chair to the next table, where a fresh corpse with elongated arms and a scaled head waited. Then he had to wheel back briefly to grab the tool he forgot. The first incision went from stomach to sternum, cutting open the corpse with practiced movements (if somewhat imprecise). Then his phone rang, interrupting him. He sighed and wiped his hands on a towel before answering.

 

“Hey honey, what’s up?… Oh jeez it’s already so late, I didn’t notice… No no, nothing super important, just finishing up entering some final grades for the semester. The school closing early threw everything into chaos, you know how it is… Sure I can pick up milk on the way home, anything else while I’m at it?… Uh huh… sure… You made meatloaf? I’ll need to hurry this up then… Love you too, see you in, oh, an hour or so? Kiss kiss.”

 

The man hung up his phone, and quickly got back to cutting open the corpse, whistling as he did so. His good mood at learning about the meatloaf quickly faded though, quickly turning to frustration.

 

“Does this guy NOT have kidneys? What the hell. Goddamn mutants…” He grumbled as he searched for the elusive organs. Unfortunately he was interrupted again, this time by the sound of footsteps and scuffling.

 

There was only one door to the room, propped open with a stool, which allowed the approaching rat-hybrid to drag its catch into the room without fumbling with the latch. This particular specimen was mostly human-looking, except the head which had been borrowed from a rat, and hands which had been replaced with nessie tentacles. One of the resulting tentacle clusters was wrapped around the arm of a young human, about sixteen-seventeen, who had eyes with slit pupils, but was otherwise normal. The youth struggled to get himself free, but the rat-hybrid was stronger than it looked.

 

The rat-stitcher paused his work and sighed, “Like I’ve said over a dozen times now, don’t bring them to me, put them in the cells. I swear, even the eel is smarter than you damn rats.”

 

The creature began dragging away the boy, but not before he could ask, “Who are you? Do you control these things? Why are you doing this?”

 

“And this is why I want them brought to the cells…” muttered the rat-stitcher. “It’s nothing personal kid.”

 

“So it’s a job? You’re killing people for money?” The boy asked. He seemed somewhat out of it, asking questions in a deadpan voice that belied his situation. Understandable, considering what he had likely been through before arriving in the rat-stitcher’s lair.

 

“…Wait,” commanded the rat-stitcher. The rat-creature stopped, and the rat-stitcher turned to the boy with an exasperated sigh. “No, I’m not doing this for money. I wouldn’t kill this many people over something so frivolous as money. When I said it’s not personal, I meant it’s not personal between me and you.”

“Who is it between then?”

“My, you’re just full of questions. If only all my students had been the same.”

“You’re a teacher?”

 

The rat-stitcher ignored that question, and sat quietly before asking, “Which parent was the mutant?”

 

“What?”

“Your eyes. I’m just guessing of course, maybe you mutated yourself? If it were both parents I’d think you’d have something a bit more… dramatic.”

“…My father.”

“Mhm.” The rat-stitcher turned back to the corpse he had been digging through, gesturing at it with his hand. “Did you know mutavus inflicted mutations always become the dominant trait? It changes your very DNA you know. If a trait doesn’t get passed down it’s only because the other parent gave a better one. Peh, as if a virus knows what’s ‘better’ for a person. Someday it might only be mutants. Can’t let that happen.”

“That’s what this is about?”

 

The rat-stitcher gave the kid a sideways glance before looking away, seeming lost in thought. Finally, he spoke.

 

“…My daughter, she was a senior in highschool at the time. Her boyfriend was a mutant…. they weren’t careful enough, she got pregnant, there was a… complication. I’d never thought about the subject much, not until then…”

 

The rat-stitcher continued staring into the middle distance and waved them away, the rat-hybrid quickly dragging the boy off to the cells. After another minute he snapped out of whatever trance had gripped him, and looked around the room, taking in the mess.

 

“Better clean this up, I’m going to be late as it is.”

 

He started cleaning up his tools, sometimes grumbling about the missing kidneys. When the work was almost done though, a ringtone interrupted yet again.

 

“Now what? The meatloaf’s going to get cold at this rate,” he said, reaching for his phone. But then he became confused when he saw the screen was still off, and the ringtone went off again, coming from somewhere else.

The author’s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

 

“Sorry, it’s my phone,” I replied.

 

The rat-stitcher jumped in fright, not expecting the ‘corpse’ I had disguised myself as to speak. I took advantage of his confusion to reach out and clamp a hand over his mouth, wrapping my elongated fingers around his head to keep a tight grip on him. He tried to scream and struggled, but couldn’t dislodge my makeshift gag. I waited, watching the door for any stitch-rat minions that might be coming.

 

Nothing came. It seemed the rat-hybrid creations really were controlled by verbal commands. That meant I had time.

 

I reached inside my crudely opened chest cavity, and withdrew my phone from the fleshy pocket it was hidden in. Seems Tim was giving me a call. I answered it.

 

“Hello Tim.”

“Hey Tofu. Hope I’m not calling too late.”

“You’re not. I’m actually at work anyways, I’ve got the late shift at the warehouse.”

“Oh, well I can call back tomorrow if you’re working.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got a moment. What’s up?”

“I was going to go part hunting at Cedric’s Hardware tomorrow and I wanted to know if you’d be interested in tagging along.”

“Hmm, I would, but I’m helping a friend of mine move into her new place tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll have the time to –oof”

The rat-stitcher tried to pull himself free with a sudden burst of action, yanking so hard he pulled me halfway off the table. I anchored my feet to the floor, using traction claws to get a good grip. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“You alright?” asked Tim.

“Yeah, I just lost my grip on a box. Anyways I’m not sure if I’ll have time tomorrow, but we could do something Wednesday?”