Everything could have been different, right?
I lay there, knowing that in a few days it would be the end for me, unable to distract myself with anything except my own meaningless visions of what my second life could have been. If I hadn't ended up in a car crushed by concrete slabs, if I hadn't been secretly transported to some incomprehensible "research complex," if inevitable death on the operating table wasn't waiting for me, then... everything could have turned out completely differently. At least, I really wanted to believe that.
Who would I have become? What profession would I have chosen, knowing that the bloody trail of my past life wasn't dragging behind me?
Probably, I would have gotten a job in a bakery, where a senior employee would teach me to heat up semi-edible frozen berry pies, brew coffee with a few buttons on the coffee machine, and put on a fake but welcoming smile every time the door opened and another hipster walked in, holding a dead laptop and its charger. If I'm lucky, he'd at least buy an éclair for decency's sake, but more likely, that idiot would choose a table by the wall, plug into one of the outlets, stick earbuds in his ears, and pretend not to notice everyone's contempt.
Okay, I overdid it with the contempt, I admit, but at least obvious disapproval is guaranteed!
Or I could have become something like an electrician. I'd worked with electrical devices before, but mostly it involved installing bugs, hacking simple security systems, or... activating remote detonators, but that's almost the same thing, right? Wait, that's an idea!
I could work as a demolitions expert, dealing with building demolitions, digging underground tunnels and shafts... First, it's much more interesting than apple pies and light bulbs, and second, I have a peculiar but still relevant experience that would surely help with employment.
I wonder if mentioning on a job interview that once Mike and I blew up a barge so that its debris, scattered across the Pacific Ocean floor, was only found after six months of active searching would count? If I were the employer, I'd definitely consider that filigree operation an outstanding example of controlled, precise, multiple detonations using modern technology. Probably, I'd be a pretty competitive worker if I had at least some certificate in my pocket.
Smirking, I quietly laughed, feeling how my body, still not recovered after several stages of testing, responded to my laughter with a light, incomparable, and extremely painful vibration. Damn it, how did I end up like this? Only now did I start seriously thinking about how exactly I met my death in my previous life, and I suddenly realized that my initial resignation was turning into something between resentment and anger. I was angry and resentful at myself, because I surely had a chance to shoot him before he took me out. I could have come out the winner in our last confrontation, and none of this would have happened.
I wonder if he himself survived the meeting with the CIA guys? Did he get the millions promised to him? In my heart, I'd like to tell him to fuck off, but... first come, first served.
And that thought suddenly pushed me toward an unexpected but extremely sad realization of what my place in this world would have been if I weren't on this bed. I would have become a mercenary again.
Probably, that's inevitable, despite all those strange hints from Death. Surely her odd attempt to turn me into a nihilist is connected to the fact that Death can see different variants of one person's life path but can't understand that a person isn't always responsible for where they end up after several difficult stages.
I would surely become again what I had been for the last twelve years. From the moment Mike and I escaped the orphanage, leaving behind the dull life within the gray walls of that wonderful institution, I was what could be called a mercenary. First, pickpocketing and kicking back a percentage to the "roof" of our neighborhood, then slightly louder and larger-scale robberies, kidnappings, blackmail, digital forgery, shadow corporate espionage, murders...
Damn, my service record is a real eye-catcher. No wonder Death was so displeased with the fact that I, out of the blue, got a second chance. I wouldn't have issued myself a ticket for reincarnation, but Death twisted it, providing me with a shitty second life, a prolonged wait for the second finale.
Of course, the idea of becoming a mercenary in a universe where mutants, superheroes, and apparently aliens exist—if we recall the Guardians of the Galaxy—is a remarkably lackluster endeavor in terms of scale. First, heroes always win. That's the point of comics, right? No matter what obstacles the heroes face, their destiny is to inspire people, so they get up, grit their teeth, and keep going forward despite the pain and hardships.
Unfortunately, they are opposed only by villains and idiots, and I was right in the middle between those categories, so such reflections didn't lead to positivity. Probably, it would be much more fun to become a space pirate and join the team of that blue guy from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now that's where real fun life is, and the percentage of superheroes in space is surely much lower than on planet Earth alone. Wait, their medicine is way more advanced than here! Unfortunately, the news didn't mention anything about space threats, so I didn't have full confidence that all of that exists here either.
Okay, let's distract from all this nonsense that had been circulating in my head for the last few days. Probably, I should tell about what happened to me since the moment Powell used the last preliminary version of some "serum," which led to stunning (in a good way) results.
First, they left me alone. Yes, everything went back to normal: the round-the-clock monitoring, constantly working devices, and dozens of sensors installed in the ward didn't go anywhere, but at least sleep, four meals a day, and the absence of those very "side effects" whose memories made me shudder returned to me.
I never thought that torture could be so simple and sophisticated. Just a headache, but what a one... If they invented a pill that caused something like that, any person would crack after an hour of such intensive therapy. Damn, that's a good idea—a pill for headache.
So, that's all clear, right? Food, water, some household appliances—you understand the conditions. People still visited me constantly, and Dr. Powell came by almost every two hours, but all his visits boiled down to him checking some readings, frowning, rejoicing, then asking me about changes that weren't there, shaking his head, and leaving. And this repeated day after day until on the fifth day, changes really did occur.
This morning, I woke up, opened my eyes, yawned a couple of times to follow tradition, and then slowly sat up on the bed and stretched, enjoying the relaxed back muscles.
You already get it, right? But I realized the changes with at least a minute's delay. As soon as I understood that my back no longer hurt and only my legs remained fixed, my heart sank into my heels for a moment. They repaired my back, and they did it in just one... night. I wasn't sure about the last part, because it suddenly became clear to me that they had transported me somewhere and changed the restraining bandages on my legs, which could mean only one thing: something was indeed added to dinner. No wonder the strawberry jam seemed to have some strange minty aftertaste!
"Good morning, Chris," Powell opened the ward door without knocking and entered. "I ran as fast as I could as soon as the sensors transmitted that you woke up."
I glanced at the devices standing next to the bed but decided not to interrupt the nutcase. After all, he really is smarter than me, so by the laws of universal justice, I should shut up and listen. In the end, I still didn't have the opportunity to jump off the bed and kill him; my legs were still fixed in special braces.
"As you've already understood, the series of extremely weak compositions led to the effect manifesting a bit later than we expected. Well, doesn't it seem like nonsense anymore? Admit it, or I won't continue," he added with a slight smile at the end. Powell was great at pretending not to notice how much I wanted to hang him. I could use such composure; I'm envious.
"Okay, I admit it," I nodded, reaching my hand behind my back and running my fingertips over the protruding vertebrae. "I'm definitely not a mutant?"
"Definitely not a mutant," Powell rolled his eyes and wearily repeated the answer to the question I asked him three or four times a day, "but your body's readings are already incomparable to human ones, can you imagine? We didn't even get to the main part, and you're already surpassing any of our cautious expectations, though we dragged out the result a bit. We shouldn't have pitied you by reducing the dosage of active substances."
"Uh, tha...nks?" I drawled uncertainly.
"Actually," Powell twitched, glancing toward the camera fixed in the corner of the ward, "you should thank not only me for this but also Dr. Connors."
"Who?" I asked, trying to recall to whom that surname belonged. I'd swear I'd heard it somewhere, definitely heard it.
"He doesn't know that we've long synchronized with his research and started human trials," ignoring my question, Powell continued, "but it's thanks to us that the fruits of his many years of diligent work won't be lost. Especially when he finally completes it using the data we've obtained."
I hesitated.
"You took someone else's unfinished research and started conducting human trials without notifying... the author?" I asked, feeling everything inside me go cold. I'm some kind of subject squared, if not cubed.
"He works for Oscorp; he just doesn't know it," Pau shrugged. "You should understand, Chris, that a lot can be hidden in this world. He thinks the university is willing to fund his fruitless research for fifteen years, while Oscorp uses it to make the world better."
"That sounds really bad," I shook my head, "it reeks of life imprisonment with confiscation and no parole."
"Do you think there are no people in the government interested in our success? Do you suppose among them there are no ones who would like to cure cancer? Slow down aging? Protect themselves forever from any diseases and deal with old injuries? Chris..." Powell shook his head, "you can't change the world without political support."
"Wherever you spit, you'll find some government," I sighed.
"I don't want to voice a subjective assessment, but... yes," Powell agreed. "Do you understand what we've achieved? Given your current readings, after injecting the final version of the serum, you'll become our most valuable asset. Perhaps we're talking now for the last time, so I just want to... thank you."
Definitely, this jerk has some issues with his head. Not that I'm against undeserved gratitude—any will do—but they kidnapped me and are going to kill me. It's weird to thank a lab rat for not resisting.
"And what happened to me?" I suddenly decided to ask, recalling one of the unasked questions. "You couldn't just snatch me from the hospital in broad daylight, right?"
"Right," Powell nodded, "you were taken to the morgue and processed according to all accepted rules. Chris Russell is dead, perished from injuries sustained in the clash between Hulk and Emil Blonsky in the middle of Harlem."
"And my parents' house..." I began pulling fragments of memories from the former owner of this body.
"As far as I know, your distant relatives have already started the procedure to re-register the property," a sympathetic smile flashed on Powell's face, "and they'll surely win in court, forcing our state to pay them compensation for the death not only of your parents but also of you."
"Fu-ck-ing great," I said loudly and syllable by syllable, falling back onto the bed. Just perfect, damn it! I arrived in the world, lay on a bed without moving for several weeks, and the main beneficiaries will be relatives I've never seen, and big government bigwigs who'll get access to a super-modern cure for all diseases.
"Don't dwell on that, Chris," all this time Powell had been standing a few steps away from me, clearly fearing I'd try to grab him by the collar and bite off his ear, but here he decided to halve the distance, "the very fact of your existence already elevates you above these petty problems."
"Never console anyone again, Dr. Powell," I said calmly, hiding my face in my palms. Sharp annoyance cut through my soul like a knife, and the impending death added a pinch of sharp regrets.
"I'm sorry you didn't live a long and happy life as you surely wanted," Powell stepped back from the bed again, "but I'm glad things turned out the way they did. We'll put you into a deep sleep as soon as we make sure the serum worked. Maybe there are some... wishes?"
"I'd wish for you to burn in hell," I snorted, "but I'm afraid my wishes never worked properly," removing my hands from my face, I smirked crookedly and looked at Powell. "Ah, fuck it, I wish your whole schizoid outfit all the worst."
Powell darkened. Pressing his lips together, he turned and silently walked to the door leading to the corridor.
"Right, get the fuck out of here, you sick freak," I hissed, but the volume was clearly enough for him to hear.
As soon as the door closed behind Powell, I collapsed onto the bed and was about to return to the barely budding thoughts about how I could get rid of the restraining bandages on my legs when I suddenly started feeling sleepy. The effect was so strong and rapid that resistance was out of the question, and I, blinking a couple of times for the last time, raced into the world of dreams at the speed of a racing car.
***
Forty minutes later
Oscorp Research Complex
Suburb of Bridgeport (40 miles north of New York)
"My God, what happened here?" whispered the commander of the special forces unit, whose patch featured the Oscorp logo. Gripping his assault rifle tighter, he nodded toward the side, signaling the fighters behind him. Spreading out along the corridor walls, they waited a few seconds before starting to move forward.
The commander tried to walk without paying attention to the bloody pulp under his feet. Severed heads, arms, and legs lying mixed with more or less intact bodies, chunks of knocked-out and torn-to-shreds office doors... Everything looked as if a living meat grinder had passed through the Oscorp research complex, grinding everyone from the minus third to the first floor in a matter of minutes.
"Stop!" Detaching his hand from the foregrip, the commander clenched it into a fist and raised it up, signaling the others. The fighters froze instantly, tensely watching as their leader stepped over a body torn to pieces and touched the metal wall where the one who caused all this bloody slaughter had left a mark. Apparently, during the massacre, the monster stumbled, grazing the steel wall with its claws and leaving huge ragged marks on it.
The commander winced, noticing the head lying on the floor that belonged to Richard Powell, one of the complex's leaders. Not that they were buddies, but he always behaved very politely and amicably when dealing with Oscorp's security structures.
"It seems we had no chance from the start," the deputy approached the commander, carefully examining the crumpled elevator doors at the end of the corridor. "If he were still in the building, we'd know about it. Our guys have taken control of the surveillance systems. Apparently, the monster reached the first floor and left the complex."
"Were there any trackers in him or..."
"No, sir," the deputy shook his head. "As far as I understand, this is an escaped subject who spent a certain amount of time here."
The commander closed his eyes, trying to process what he heard and make several emergency decisions at once.
"Contact management," he ordered, glancing once more at Powell's head, "and find out everything necessary. If this... subject reaches a crowd of people, there'll be a lot of blood, a lot. We need to intercept him on the way without publicity. Call everyone; this is red code."