The Sea Hag -Chapter 17-

 

Sirena

The mercenaries dragged me to a white plastic enclosure near the center of the large lab. I could see four similar-looking structures at one end of the hold where Michael and Gabriel were being taken. My heart twisted with anguished guilt over what I had gotten them into. I felt my mouth set in a teeth-baring grimace when a needle pierced the skin of my neck and a burning heaviness suffused my limbs.

I tried to struggle when I felt the zip-tie restraints loosen but my movements were slow and spasmodic and easily countered. They hoisted me onto a vertical examination table and secured me to it with locking restraints at ankles, wrists and head.

“Lemme go,” I slurred with a groan, my tongue thick, “assholes…”

“Unlikely,” Kusanagi stepped through the doorway, a small smirk on her thin lips and a glint in her hard black eyes. “We have only just retrieved you.” She moved closer, her eyes moving up and down my body, coldly assessing. “You are truly a wonder of genetic engineering,” she reached out a dry, blunt-nailed hand as if to touch me. “I had seen pictures, of course, but now that you have reached full maturity, the magnificence of your design is apparent.”

My skin rippled, turning black with rage as her hand neared my stomach. It flexed, becoming sharp spikes that ached to pierce her, but she pulled back with a small gasp, cold eyes wide and exhilarated.

Her eyes met mine, intense and pitiless as a shark’s. “Truly remarkable.” She moved to a molded plastic counter built into one side of the octagonal enclosure, snapping on gloves and pulling out a rolling tray full of shining metal tools. She pressed a button and the table I was strapped to tilted horizontal. I squinted up into a bright circular light.

Moments from my childhood flashed through my mind, of needles and swabs, endless tests and examinations. But those I had willingly participated in, or rather, I had not even known that resistance was an option. This time I was drugged, restrained, helpless to prevent them from violating me.

And violate me they would, I realized as the table beneath my legs split apart spreading my legs wide. I twisted and pulled at the restraints as the table tilted even further back so that I was virtually hanging from them. Kusanagi appeared between my spread legs, a light and magnifying glass strapped to her head.

My skin rippled with black spikes. She used the machine to spread my legs wider until it felt like something would tear. I hissed and cried out in pain. She smirked and let go of the button, holding it up so I could see.

“I would rather not damage you in order to perform such a routine procedure,” she said matter-of-factly. “But I will.”

“I’m going to tear your throat out,” I promised her, “with my teeth.” I stared into her dead, black eyes and my rage began to cool. Not lessen, but condense and crystalize into something patient, and deadly. 

She must have seen or sensed the change in me because her shark-eyes widened ever so slightly and she swallowed before her face resumed its dispassionate mask. All that had changed was that now her mouth held a small, cruel smile when she shoved a speculum inside me as hard as she could.

I flinched but refused to cry out, letting my head fall back on the table while she performed whatever procedures she was going to perform. I turned my head to the side and blinked at the human male standing outside the plexiglass window with an expression that could only be called “leering”. It was the brown-haired, unremarkable-looking mercenary who had brought me to this lab. He was licking his lips as he stared hard at my prostrate form in a way that made me want to cover myself for the first time I could remember. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself floating, weightless in the water. I had been so long out of it that I was beginning to dry out, my skin shriveling and puckering a bit.

Kusanagi yanked the speculum free none-too-gently, saying, “You are nearly ready. This is good. In two days I will implant your own eggs, fertilized by your late brother’s sperm, into your uterus.” 

I blinked at that and strained to look up at her. She tilted the table to vertical and let my legs close. “My brother?” I whispered.

Kusanagi smiled, sharp and brittle. “Yes, though he is quite dead, the most important part of him yet lives. Your most important parts unfortunately require a living body attached to them in order to function.”

I felt my lip curl and I swallowed disgust. “Unfortunate…” I echoed dryly.

“Yes,” Kusanagi continued cheerily, either unaware or uncaring how she sounded, “I suggested lobotomizing you to make you less problematic, but Altus-Sama did not want to compromise the intelligence that he feels you get from him.”

“What?” I said, straining against my metal bonds, praying I had misheard her.

Kusanagi cocked her head, and her dead black eyes regarded me with opaque curiosity. “Did he never tell you? Strange. I would think that, given his pride, he should like nothing more than to gloat about how he personally sired the next evolution of humankind.”

My hands clenched so hard I felt my claws sink into my own skin. The pain centered me, focused my rage. “Altus Venter. Is not. My father,” I said through clenched teeth.

Her laugh was dry and pitiless as a desert, “Not technically, no. But his genetic material was the template upon which you were created. He is the closest thing you will ever have to a parent.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back to the metal table with a thud. “Great,” I muttered, “guess I’ll add patricide to my to-do list, then.”

Kusanagi tittered as she motioned for the leering man to come in and wheel me away. “I see you share his sense of humor. Almost makes me glad I didn’t turn you into a mindless womb on legs.” Her smirk was terrifying in it’s cruelty as she added, “Almost.”

Leering Man licked his lips, looking me up and down before moving behind me to wheel me out of the lab. It appeared that, following the incident with Dr. Morgan, Venter had decided to go with an all-psychopath crew this time. There really was no hope of escape if none of my captors had any humanity to appeal to.

I was wheeled in front of a large tank at the far end of the ship’s hold, a twenty-foot aquarium cube filled with sea water and housing a few fish and other marine life. It was lit from within by eerie, color-changing lights.

Leering Man took us to a platform designed specifically to bring things to the top of the aquarium, which I could see now was covered by thick plexiglass with half a dozen round, fist-sized holes cut out of the center. This cover slid back by some electronic mechanism about half way, then the table I was strapped to tilted forward at the same time my restraints released and I went tumbling into the water with a startled yelp. By the time I came back up, the cover was back in place and it was all I could do to gulp air from one of the holes before submerging again.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the refractions of light through water, even as things outside of the tank took on a blurred and warped quality. I watched through the glass as Leering Man strode  away, turning one last time to grab his crotch and thrust it in my direction. The webs between my fingers make flipping someone the bird difficult, but I gave it my best approximation along with a baring of teeth to drive the point home. It was hard to tell, but he might have laughed.

I turned my attention to my new cage. A few species of fish, seemingly selected at random, kept a wary distance from my intrusion. Wise, considering that I was beyond ravenous and two or three of them would make a fine meal. There were some sea snails, a couple of crabs , clams and mussels, and some shrimp feasting on bottom detritus created by those above. And, in a far corner, looking like an odd formation of coral, was a medium sized octopus. It eyed me warily, two predators trapped in a tank together. 

A fish swam by, daringly close, and my hand flashed out, claws impaling the wriggling form. I tore the head off, my eyes never leaving the octopus. I allowed my skin to ripple, strobing black and white in an eye-catching display of dominance and solidarity. I ripped the head off the fish and swam closer, tossing the offering at the octopus.

Its large eye flicked down as the head drifted closer, then back to me. I took a great bite of the fish, guts and all, gulping it down without bothering to chew. Slowly, a tentacle unfolded, then snapped up the fish head with blinding speed. 

  The crunching of bones is always loud in the water. I smiled and took another bite, tossing the remaining tail part at my new friend. They accepted with less hesitancy this time and began to uncurl, skin shifting to a smooth brick red of calmness. I shifted my own skin to match.    

  This was not the first octopus I had tried to befriend, but it was the first that couldn’t just swim away from me. I knew how intelligent these creatures were and it was always good to befriend one’s cellmate. The octopus moved closer, over the sandy bottom of the tank and paused, crunching loudly on something. Then it swam up to me and launched a cracked-open clam in my direction while loudly munching on it’s own.

I happily sucked out the meaty portion and tossed the shell back, since sometimes they liked to keep them and I could see several discarded shells arranged just so in it’s little corner.

We shared a few more fish and shellfish before the need to breathe had me looking around for some source of atmospheric oxygen. A small tube spewed a constant stream of bubbles from about halfway up one tank wall. As I swam closer, I could taste the fresh Pacific seawater that poured forth from a metal grate. I wrapped my hand around the tube and then my lips, taking an experimental breath. It was air. Clean and salty. I took several deep breaths, letting the oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle through my system until I felt ready to submerge for a nap.

I worried for Michael, for Gabriel. Worried what Kusanagi’s experiments would do to them. Guilt was a constant weight in my gut, but there was nothing I could do at present. I could barely see ten feet beyond my tank and a few experimental prods at the weakest points yielded nothing helpful in terms of escape. I would have to wait until they came for me again; it was my only chance. 

I drifted near the top, eyes closed, willing myself to sleep. It did not come swiftly or peacefully