Burn away the chaff, rip away the superficial layers of humanity and unleash the savage, unreasoning animal that lurks behind the civilized facade of every human being.
Then I will mold that animal into Weapon X—the deadliest implement of war ever forged.
But unlike the Supreme Being who gave humanity life, I will not make the mistake of bestowing free will on my creation. Weapon X will be nothing more than a tool to do my bidding. An extension of will, yes. My own.
3
The Wrangler
The man pulled the leather parka snug around his neck as a chilly blast whistled through the pines. With every step, the autumn snow crunched under his boots. Rabbit tracks crisscrossed the trail, and overhead a raptor cawed as it drifted in lazy circles on the thin mountain air.
The trail he followed ended abruptly, with a five-hundred-foot drop. In the river valley below, the rushing waters churned blue-green foam and the skeletal brown trees wore an uneven dusting of white. From a distance, the snowcapped peaks of the Canadian Rockies shimmered orange and yellow in the hastening dawn.
For a long time, the man stood on the precipice and gazed at the breathtaking vista. His blue eyes shone in the morning sun, face ruddy from the cold. Sandy hair ruffled under a wool cap, obscuring a gauze bandage that covered a two-inch gash across his forehead.
Too soon, the peace of morning was shattered by an electronic chirp. The man grabbed the communicator tucked next to a holstered Colt in his belt.
“Cutler here…”
“Playtime’s over, Cut. You have to come home now.”
Cutler ignored the jibe. “What’s up?”
“Deavers wants you in his office ASAP.”
“Roger that.”
“Looks like the major’s got a job for you—”
Cutler cut him off and pocketed the communicator. He turned his back on the dawn and without a second glance, retraced his own footprints along the trail. Through tangled brush and dense pines, he noticed barbed wire and electrified fencing—the first indicator of civilization. Soon he was close enough to read the bright yellow signs posted every few yards:
NO TRESPASSING
DANGER!
The signs were printed in English and French. A few were even printed in Blackfoot Sioux, the dominant language of the Native American population in the region. No one was permitted to approach this complex. Few even knew it existed.
Cutler followed the fence until he reached a security gate, where he slipped his identity card through the magstripe reader and entered his code on the keypad. Above his head, face-recognition technology confirmed his identity while a retinal scanner photographed his right eye. Two seconds, three, and Cutler heard the beep. The gate opened.
Inside the compound, no guards were in view—only more security cameras, X-ray sensors, and magnetic scanners. As Cutler crossed a barren stretch of frozen ground, an animal stench floated down from the pens. He heard snorts and grunts, too. Mercifully, the wolves had stopped howling soon after the sun showed itself.
Hiking beyond the concrete kennels and steel cages, Cutler headed toward a modem glass-and-steel structure that dominated a low rise. The four-story building was topped by conical microwave towers and spidery satellite arrays. Beneath were five levels of steel-lined tunnels, laboratories, workrooms, and storage chambers—including a moderately sized adamantium smelting facility on the deepest level. The underground maze had been bored out of solid granite, expanding beyond the limits of the deceptively modest surface structures. So extensive was the complex that an on-site fission reactor had been installed to provide for its energy needs.
Pushing through the glass double doors, Cutler found himself flanked by an armed security team—the same men he saw every day. Per established security protocol, they checked his ID and scanned his fingerprints.
“Out for your morning constitutional?” a guard asked.
Cutler nodded.
“I think nature boy was writing poetry. Sunrise, purple mountain’s majesty; and all that crap,” said another, his tone less friendly. “Makes me wonder how the hell a guy like Cutler gets Class A security clearance in the first place.”
“Same way you did, Gulford. I won a contest.”
A few moments later, Cutler entered Major Deavers’s sparse office. The major’s back was to him. He swiveled from his computer terminal and brusquely waved toward a cushioned chair. He wore a tense look on his face.
“I’ll stand,” said Cutler.
Despite their differences in rank, neither man saluted. Technically, they were no longer in the Canadian Defense Forces, so the acknowledgement of rank was not required.
“You’re the security chief as of this morning,” Deavers told him. “At 0830, Subject X is to be moved from the holding cell on Level Three to the main laboratory.”
Cutler silently cursed.
“The subject is sedated and ready to go,” the major continued. “Anticontamination protocols are in place, so please wear your environmental hazard suit. Don’t bother with a weapon, though—Subject X is down for the count, and guns make the docs nervous.”
Deavers rose. The man was ten years older than Cutler, and a head taller, too. Salt-and-pepper hair, always cropped short. Jawline smooth as a baby’s ass. Even his khaki green coveralls, standard issue around the compound, appeared crisply pressed.
“And clean up your act, will ya, Cutler? Shave, comb your hair, take a shower. The Professor is going to be in the lab today and he likes his staff to look sharp”
Cutler turned to go.
“One more thing,” said Deavers. “Take Agent Franks with you—”
Cutler stared for a moment. “Why do I have to break in the new guy? I’m no tour guide.”
“Because there’s no one else available,” Deavers replied. “Most of the staff is tied up with this morning’s experiment. The Professor’s ordered double security for the rest of the day, and Erdman’s still in the infirmary from that altercation in the parking lot the other night—”
“Couldn’t be helped, sir.”
“—and Hill was medivaced out of here last night. Gutted by a cougar that escaped from its cage. Docs give him a fifty-fifty chance to pull through. Either way, he won’t be back anytime soon.”
Cutler blinked. “I didn’t know.”
“Look,” Deavers said. “Agent Franks is a real bright kid. You’ll like him. He’s friendly and eager and a born volunteer. Rice just briefed him on data retrieval and security protocols, and Franks got high marks. Show him the ropes and he’ll lighten your load.”
“Is that all, sir?”
“No. Keep the new kid away from me. I can’t stomach Boy Scout types. Got too much on my plate to babysit a newb.”
“Yes, sir. That’s my job.”
Deavers turned his back on Cutler, his gaze returning to the computer screen. “Get out of here!” he barked, not looking again in Cutler’s direction.
Dismissed, Cutler showered, shaved, and hooked up with Agent Franks in the ready room. The fellow had a boyish face and wide brown eyes. He wasn’t too obvious as he checked out the cuts and bruises on Cutler’s face.
As they suited up, Franks peppered Cutler with questions.
“Is it true the guy I’m replacing was mauled by a grizzly bear?”
“Don’t worry,” Cutler replied with a slight smile. “That was a few weeks ago, before we worked all the bugs out of our animal control procedures. Now we’ve got professional animal handlers on staff, so we don’t have to deal with bears anymore—”
“Thank God.”
“—just the big cats.”
“Cats?”
Cutler’s smile widened greatly. “You know about them … lions. Tigers. Leopards… cats.”
“Cats? Bears? Who needs all these wild animals, and why?”
Cutler’s grin disappeared. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Many minutes passed in silence as the men donned their complicated environmental hazard suits.
“Big turnover rate around here?” Franks asked at last, lifting his helmet and testing the communicator.
“They come and go,” Cutler replied. “This place has only been up and running a year, and the research they do … well, let’s just say it keeps changing direction. And like I said before, there are a lot of bugs to be worked out.”
Franks pointed to Cutler’s bruises. “So what kind of ‘bug’ ripped into you?”
From the very moment Cutler and his group brought Logan in, the medical team complained about “the subject’s” condition. Nobody seemed worried about Erdman, though. He was only coughing up blood from a broken rib that had pierced his lung.
Cutler and Hill had barely placed the unconscious Logan in the tank before technicians swarmed all over him. A man in a doctor’s smock shaved the subject while a vile-smelling, antibacterial immersion fluid was pumped into the decontamination tank. Then the doctors began their preliminary examination.
The chief physician appeared the most displeased. “Looks like your boys got a little enthusiastic,” said Dr. Hendry frowning as he indicated the subject’s swollen jaw and bruised throat. He gritted his teeth in annoyance.
Major Deavers nodded. “He put up some resistance when my men brought him in last night.”
“And your thugs saw fit to rough him up, eh, Major?”
Cutler, fresh from the infirmary where his forehead had been sewn shut, worked his jaw, teeth grinding up his obscene reply.
“They had to jostle him a bit,” said Deavers, not even glancing in Cutler’s direction.
Cutler turned and left the lab. It was bad enough Hendry and Deavers saw fit to talk about him as if he hadn’t been standing right there, as if he were one of their research animals, incapable of comprehending human conversation—though he should have been used to that kind of treatment by now, especially from the academic types crawling all over the compound. But he’d be damned if he was going to stand there and listen to Hendry call him a thug.
What I am is a professional, as much of a pro as anyone else in this damn facility.
For more than a decade he’d trained to become a soldier, one of a very few highly-skilled professional warriors who possessed both a background in special operations and field experience in both spy craft and unconventional warfare. As a former member of Canada’s Joint Task Force Two, Cutler’s military and counterterrorism training had lasted longer, and been far more comprehensive, than the commonplace schooling of these degree-heavy eggheads that cluttered up Department K’s labs, cafeterias, and dormitories. And Cutler was willing to bet that his expertise was far more valuable, too. Especially these days.
Hendry and his fellow quacks wouldn’t even have their prize “Subject X” if Erdman, Hill, and I hadn’t risked our necks bringing him in. And I’d sure love to see Dr. Hendry try to take down a mark as tough as Logan without messing up a hair on the precious subject’s head.
To be fair, Erdman and Hill did more than mess up Logan’s hair. They’d almost killed him. Cutler touched the bandage on his forehead and wondered how such a routine assignment could have gone so wrong….
* * * * *
A simple shoot-and-snatch. “Spy school stuff,” the Major had called it. Three agents on a lone mark. “Pop him, pack him, bring him in—and don’t let any damned civilians see you do it,” he said.
They’d caught up with Logan the night before, outside a church-run dive on the edge of town. They followed him to a local gin mill and waited in the bar while their man consumed at least a fifth of whiskey in under an hour.
A lesser man would’ve been intoxicated—if not falling-down drunk. Cutler had been impressed when Logan walked a straight line across the icy parking lot without a single stumble.
As Logan climbed into his car, they made their move. Hill was handling the tranquilizer gun. Erdman and Cutler were responsible for the snatch. It was Hill who’d pulled a Murphy when he alerted the target to their presence by uttering his name.
“Mr. Logan…”
Hill said later, in the debriefing with Major Deavers, that he’d wanted a clear shot.
You were standing, like five feet away, Cutler thought in disgust. How much of a clear shot did you need?
From behind the wheel of his convertible, Logan looked up just as Hill pulled the trigger. The dart struck him in the shoulder as he attempted to rise. A moment later, Logan’s legs gave and he toppled out of the seat.
Erdman caught Logan before he hit the pavement, then grunted under the man’s weight. “Help me with him. He’s real heavy for a little guy.”
Suddenly, Logan’s eyes opened and he lashed out. The blow sent Erdman reeling back with two broken ribs. When he landed, his head cracked against the ground.
With a roar, Logan tossed Hill out of the way, then leaped onto Erdman’s chest. As he pummeled the helpless man, Erdman curled into a defensive ball.
“Get him off of me!” he howled between pain-wracked coughs.
Cutler grabbed Logan’s hair and yanked his head back to expose his throat. A blow to the jaw, followed by another to the solar plexus, knocked some of the fight out of their mark. As Logan folded, Cutler loomed over him, fists raised, waiting for an opening, or for the sedative to take effect.
He thought he was alert, but Cutler never saw the blow that got him—only an explosion inside his head, and his own blood staining the snow.
As Cutler went down, Erdman rose, cursing and spitting. He leaped onto Logan’s back and wrapped his powerful arms around the man’s throat. Gritting his teeth, Erdman squeezed.
“Didn’t you get him with that stupid stun gun?” he growled at Hill through blood-flecked lips.
“Of course I did!” Hill cried. “Point-blank.”
Cutler stumbled to his feet. Through a bloody haze he saw that Logan was weakening—either from the sedative or from Erdman’s choke hold. Though Logan purpled from lack of oxygen, he fought on relentlessly.
Hill hefted the stun gun. But instead of reloading, he turned the weapon around and used the handle to pistol—whip the struggling man to the ground.
“Wait!” Cutler shouted. “If you kill him, he’s useless.”
But Hill was full of adrenaline—too pumped to stop now. He hit Logan again and the man’s head lolled.
“Major’s not going to like this,” Erdman wheezed. “He said no body damage.”
“Sure,” said Hill. “But the major didn’t say what a tough son of a bitch this guy was gonna be!”
Hill raised his fist high, but Cutler blocked it. “Enough, Hill. He’s out cold.”
Logan slid to the icy ground. He didn’t move again.
Cutler pocketed the gore-soaked stun gun and shook the blood from his eyes. He checked out his partners. Erdman, ghostly pale, was doubled over and clutching his side, his breath a gurgling wheeze. Hill was still twitching from the fight, a ball of raw energy Cutler tried to calm him.
“Let’s get Logan into the van before someone sees us and calls this in.”
He and Hill carried the listless body to the waiting van. Erdman limped at their side, pausing to spit a wad of blood and saliva.
Then Erdman spoke, his weak voice a wet wheeze.
“This one here … watch him, Cut… he’s trouble… and a whole lot tougher than he looks. He’s one vicious son of a bitch.”
* * * * *
“Let’s pressurize the suits,” said Cutler, tapping the control pad at his wrist. “You first, Franks.”
Cutler’s voice boomed inside the other man’s helmet, and Franks adjusted the volume. Then he tapped the keypad on his own wrist until tiny red digits appeared, counting down from ten.
At zero, Franks heard a sharp hiss and his ears popped. The environmental hazard suit seemed to tighten around his waist, armpits, and shoulders as the joints vacuum-sealed. The surge of claustrophobic, suffocating panic passed quickly as the rebreathing system kicked in and cool air filled his helmet. Before proceeding, Franks waited patiently for a se
cond digital readout to verify the suit’s integrity:
“Sealed,” he declared when the light flashed green.
Cutler sealed his own suit, then both men stepped through a Mylar quarantine barrier into an adamantium lined holding cell. Once inside, Cutler introduced Franks to Subject X.
Logan—scalp freshly shorn, unrecognizable—drifted in a swamp-green chemical solution behind the translucent walls of the holding tank. An oxygen mask covered his face, intravenous tubes snaked into both arms. His head wasn’t the only part shaved—not a hair remained on his entire body. Follicles had been replaced by hundreds of probes that projected like porcupine needles from Logan’s arms, legs, torso, throat, and groin.
Long copper needles penetrated the corners of his eyes, which were taped shut. Many more spikes pierced his ears, nose, and even his brain through holes drilled into the temple and at the base of the skull.
“Cripes, he looks like a goddamn pincushion,” Franks said as he circled the tank. “Who the hell is he?”
Cutler paused. “A volunteer,” he said.
Franks studied the silhouette bobbing in the tank, then shook his head. “There isn’t enough money in the whole wide world to get me to volunteer for this shit.”
“Maybe he didn’t do it for the money.”
“You’re right,” said Franks. “This guy’s probably a soldier, just like us. Maybe he’s a hero or something—an astronaut, maybe. He looks like a bodybuilder to me. Check out those arms and that chest. He’s one tough—looking guy. A freaking gorilla on steroids…”
To Cutler, Subject X seemed smaller now than last night in the parking lot. A lot less formidable, too.
As Franks paced the length of the holding cell, he noticed a team of technicians in lab coats observing their actions through a Plexiglas window overhead.
“We’re supposed to move this guy, right?” said Franks, trying to ignore the audience. “So how are we going to get him out of that stupid tank?”
“We don’t, Franks. We load the whole tank—subject and all—onto a flatcar.”
Wolverine: Weapon X Page 4