Weekly Drabble #201: Rejecting the Null Hypothesis (Patreon)

This week's themes are 'outraged mad scientist' from William M, 'angry scientist' from Henri Black and 'SCIENCE!' from Goggy123. For this tale, we return to the Seeded universe and our second point of view character. Rattler, a determined and energetic mercenary whose skills are always in demand. Currently, she's attending to a bit of business, though this one may be a little more personal in nature than most of her jobs...

Enjoy!

~

Rejecting the Null Hypothesis:

You know what the worst part about being a mad scientist is? Tasha Sabeer, nom de guerre Rattler, thought to herself as she picked her way through von Diem’s laboratory racks, the mercenary’s slit-pupiled eyes flitting between specimen jars, each holding one or more body parts. Some she couldn’t even identify. These were older specimens; the truly important items were kept in temperature-controlled containers in a temperature-controlled vault within Diem’s Dayside Laboratories.

Ostensibly a reputable and highly-respected scientist with double doctorates in physiology and genetics, Patrick von Diem was one of the leading experts on human meta-evolution in the wake of the Seeding. His work was groundbreaking, illuminating, vital... and completely without scruples, though that bit of information never quite made it into the press. Patrick’s experiments on ordinary humans and the Seeded alike were, to put it mildly, highly unethical. Outside of the public eye, he got to indulge in sadistic, horrific work that might make even serial killers vomit at the sheer cold-blooded inhumanity of it. And given that Rattler was a former herpetologist now partly snake, she knew a thing or two about being cold-blooded.

Patrick had once offered Rattler a considerable sum to join an experiment he was running: determining to what extent limb regeneration was affected by drugs and hormones. What factors can stimulate or impede regrowth of extremities in regeneration-specialist Seeded?He’d tried to explain. Does the pain of an injury spur increased healing or does the shock of it decrease this response? If the subject is numb to the pain, what effect does that have? Does a combat situation have any effect versus a simple in situ amputation? These questions are important to understanding how Seeded physiology responds to trauma.Rattler had passed on that opportunity, but von Diem continued his research in that area, mostly with unwilling subjects he either acquired himself, or experimenting on captives other Seeded had taken.

Rattler would have compared him to Josef Mengele, but Mengele was a shitty scientist. Patrick was a genius, with meticulous attention to detail in all of his work and his sadistic proclivities took a distant second place to his research and need to understand all aspects of what Seeded were and how they functioned.

His brother Brian on the other hand...

“Sucking at it,” the woman answered her own question as she approached an armoured door. A pair of bulked-up Rejects stood at attention there, injector racks sticking out of their distended, bulging flesh. At whim, they could dispense massive boosts of painkillers, ‘performance enhancers’ – combat drugs – and various other compounds, turning the already physically imposing brutes into rampaging killing machines capable of standing up to entire infantry platoons or the most powerful of the Seeded. At least temporarily.

Of course, each dose shortened their life expectancy considerably and a full cocktail injection would kill them when the effects wore off. The Brian von Diem special. If it works at all, it’s never what you’re sold on.Rattler doubted that these two even knew about the downsides of their stimm boosts, but there were always more Rejects, right?

Maybe she wasn’t in the position to judge. She’d killed people – that came with her job description – but the attitude some of her peers in this side of the Seeded community had often unsettled even her. Whoever these Rejects were, they knew what Brian was and if they didn’t – that was on them. Always research your employers. The few times she’d broken that rule, she’d always regretted it. She’d done odd jobs for the brothers now and then. Usually Patrick, who was always eager for blood samples from Seeded individuals. That was a perfect job for a kine-breaker, but even if Longshot wasn’t currently convalescing after that terrible accident where both his hands had been broken, his power didn’t work well for bloodletting. And Scythe, well... if you wanted a body count to go with your job, hiring that psycho made perfect sense.

“I’m here to see Brian,” she announced.

“No entry,” the twisted mass of muscle and disfigured features closest to Rattler grunted as she approached. “Boss is busy in the lab. Said no visitors.”

Rattler’s tail twitched. “I’m not a visitor,” she corrected. “I’m a business partner.” She held up the briefcase she was carrying. “Your boss put out a call for eyes that see outside the visual spectrum. I’m here to deliver.”

“He’ll see you when he’s done,” the second brute informed the woman.

“Maybe you want to tell Brian that I’m here,” Rattler suggested.  “I had to pop them out of some dipshit’s head and I don’t exactly have these on ice. You both work for a surgeon,” she didn’t laugh at that. Brian was a surgeon in the same way she was a superheroine.Less, actually. She didn’t have any illusions about the amorality of her job, but Brian von Diem fancied himself the equal to his sibling, held back only by the envy of his supposed peers and public acknowledgement of his genius. “You know how that works. There’s a time limit here, boys.”

The two guards looked at each other. One of them took out a phone. “Sorry to disturb you, doctor.” Rattler avoided rolling her eyes. Patrick had the doctorate. Brian hadn’t even managed to graduate medical school. Naturally, the teachers had had it out for him and the other students had been jealous and threatened by him.“We’ve got someone here to see y- I know. I told her that. Yes, I told her that. It’s Rattler, sir. Yes. She says she has some of the components you’ve been looking for. Yes. Okay.” He put the phone back. “He’ll see you, but it has to be quick. He’s in the middle of some important work.”

“I’m sure he is,” Rattler said with a smile as the Reject entered a code and unlocked the door for her.

She was met inside by von Diem’s newest assistant. A young woman in a nurse’s ‘uniform’ a size too small for her with bright blue eyes that certainly weren’t the ones she’d been born with and sizable breasts that had been likewise adjusted to suit Brian’s taste. There weren’t any signs of inflammation or tissue incompatibility, at least. Brian had learned something about cosmetic surgery through trial and error – mostly the latter.

He still went through personnel quickly. The lucky ones ended up dead, often by their own hand. The unlucky ones ended up on his operating table, usuallyafter he got bored with them. Barely any escaped. Say what you wanted to about Patrick, but at least the older von Diem sibling managed to keep a staff of like-minded colleagues and underlings around.

“I’ll take you to see the doctor,” the woman announced. She stunk of fear. Rattler knew she could have that effect on people, but she doubted that the assistant’s terror had much to do with her. “He’s been very busy with his... his most recent project.”

“I’ll bet,” Rattler agreed, keeping her voice even and somehow even managing to prevent her tail from shaking. It was handy to have, but it also broadcast what she was feeling at inopportune times. She followed the other woman deeper into the repurposed warehouse. She could hear screams and moans coming from hallways and locked rooms. von Diem’s ‘volunteers’ and subjects. He promised a lot. His biggest money-maker was stimulating powers in ordinary men and women – or at least, claiming to be able to. The only reliable – such as it was, the woman who’d become part reptile thought sardonically – way to get powers was to be Seeded or their offspring. That didn’t stop people from trying, though.

Genetic alterations, exposure to mutagens, blood, tissue and organ transplants from Seeded... governments, scientists and researchers the world over had been trying all that for decades. All any of them had to show for it was a pile of Rejects and a mountain of bodies. Supposedly, there were a few successes. The US liked to claim Golden Eagle. China said White Lotus and Dragonfly were theirs. Rattler was skeptical about anyone’s claims on that front. It was more likely that the ‘success stories’ were heretofore unknown Seeded presented as artificially-created metahumans. Certainly if anyone had the ability to reliably create Pure Seeded, they would be producing them in job lots.

The world’s most powerful governments and researchers couldn’t do it with billions of dollars in funding and top of the line equipment. Not even Patrick was arrogant enough to attempt to create new metahumans, though his research was used extensively by those that did.

But apparently Brian can do it in his pop-up back-alley clinics, right?

Sadly, an unending string of failures and hundreds of dead, crippled and maimed attempts didn’t stop the desperate, the deluded or the just plain insane from throwing their money and their lives away by bargaining with Brian von Diem. As the women passed through a row of cells, the occupants moaned. Some threw themselves against reinforced doors. Others begged to be set free. Some pleaded to die. Beseeching limbs reached out through the barred cell windows. Arms, claws, flippers and tentacles. Rattler didn’t look at any of them. She put a hand over her nose and scent pits to block the stench filling the hall.

Another pair of hulking Rejects stood at the end of the cell block. Guards keeping the prisoners here in check. They looked to von Diem’s assistant and then to Rattler. She stared back, her red eyes meeting theirs. They opened the door, letting the women into the surgical wing. The place stunk of antiseptics and disinfectants, almost overpowering the reek of blood and terror that had soaked into the walls from months of butchery masquerading as science.

“This way, please,” the assistant said, gesturing down a side hallway. The floor was worn and scuffed, but the rooms were kept clean, with only faint stains here and there.

Finally, they arrived at their destination. The main surgical theater. Rattler stepped through the double doors. Brian von Diem was waiting for her, seated at a small stainless steel desk. He was still dressed in a surgical smock. In the center of the room upon a surgical table was a naked young woman. She was strapped down, her wrists and ankles secured with metal braces. Across her neck was a large metal clamp, electric cables running from it and off into the shadows. A power inhibitor. A pump rasped and whirred as it drew the woman’s blood out of her body. Several blood packs already lay on ice, with another one filling up as Rattler watched.

He’s bleeding her dry.

The captive woman was a half dozen years younger than Rattler herself, with was sandy blonde hair and very light freckles on her face, arms and thighs. There was a bit in her mouth, her teeth clenched around it, with drool running down her cheeks. Her eyes were as red as Rattler’s own and they turned towards her, widening as the woman caught sight of her. The mercenary barely glanced at her. “So it’s true,” she said nonchalantly. “You caught a member of the Liberty League.”

“Provisional member,” the ‘doctor’ corrected, though his smug tones betrayed how pleased he was. “I didn’t do the acquisition myself, though. That was Ace of Hearts’s doing. Cost me a pretty penny to get my hands on her and she’s a fighter; our little Starlight here almost broke out of containment. I had to use up a pair of my security personnel just to get her back under control, but,” he chuckled darkly,“she’s a lot less quarrelsome now that she’s about half empty.”

Rattler’s tail shook. Tka-tka-tka. “You want to be careful. Too much more of that and she’ll be dead.”

“Oh, that’s not a worry. I don’t plan on keeping her around.Once I’ve gotten all the blood I can out of her, it’s on to the organs. Lot less trouble that way. Even if I couldn’t use those pieces for my work, you know what people will pay for Pure Seeded tissues? This young lady will keep me solvent for the next five years and once I’ve gotten all of her into storage, there’ll be no trace for the League to find. But speaking of organs, I hear you’ve got something for me.” He nodded at the briefcase.

“Well, yes and no,” Rattler admitted. “I have to confess that I told a bit of a fib to get in here. I’d heard you’d gotten your hands on Starlight and wanted to see for myself.”

“I see. So you don’t have any eyes for me?”

“No, I do but before we get into that, I have a proposition for you.” Rattler pointed one finger at the bound superheroine. “I’d like to buy her.”

Von Diem blinked. “Buy her?”

“Yes. I need her intact, though. You can keep what you already took, but the rest of her insides stay inside.”

The man probed his cheek with his tongue. “Why do you want her? I don’t recall you ever having any major dust-ups with this one.”

“I represent someone who has a particular and personal interest in Starlight and would quite like to get their hands on her. That’s all I can say.”

“And who’s that?”

Rattler flashed her teeth at the butcher. “Really, Brian. You know how this works. I don’t ask you for your client’s names, now do I?”

He tapped his fingers on his desk, holding up a finger. The nurse watching over the captive turned down the pump, but didn’t shut it off. “How much?”

“Five million. Transferred immediately to the bank account of your choosing.”

“Five million,” snorted von Diem. “I can get that for just one unit of blood from her. I have a Saudi prince offering three hundred million for one of her kidneys.”

“That’s five million guaranteed and not an offerof a payday, Brian. One you might not even see; you’ve heard the rumours about the League running some kind of black ops these days. Provisional or not, you’ve got one of their members. Once they find out what you did, you’re going to end up in that file.”

He thought about it. “One hundred million.”

“I can go up to fifteen.”

“That’s not a counter-offer,” he scoffed,“that’s an insult. Whoever your client is, tell them to come back with a bigger piggy bank. I’ll save them some choice cuts.”

Rattler sighed. “So that’s a no, is it?”

“That is definitively a no.”

“Well, I tried. On to the next bit of business, then.” The woman set her briefcase down on the desk. “You were looking for special eyes.”

“Correct. Is there anything I should know about where these came from?” Von Diem asked as he unlatched the briefcase and opened it. He reached in, picking up a small baggy. He frowned. “What...”

“If you want more, you can get them at Professor Cane’s Candy Emporium on 17th,” Rattler suggested helpfully as Brian held up a baggy filled with gummy candy eyes. “If that’s not enough, there’s also a note. It should help explain things.”

His face darkening, the man reached into the briefcase and picked up the small slip of paper. A few shades of colour drained from his face. He looked over at his guest. “You’re not serious. ...are you?”

Her tail started to shake. Tka-tka-tka-tka-tka, the sound of a rattlesnake on the verge of striking. “I’m very serious,” the woman purred, her talons unsheathing and her fangs extending, venom dripping from their tips.

Brian looked down at the card again. There, written on it in Rattler’s own handwriting was a very simple message.

YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE MONEY

GIVE HER TO ME OR I’LL KILL YOU.

~

“Come on baby, we’re almost there,” Tasha Sabeer said as she opened her car door and slid Kaley into the passenger seat, buckling her in. “Just hang on. We’ll get you to a hospital. You’ll be fine.” If I’d been just a little later, she’d be dead.The younger woman had still lost a lot of blood and she needed immediate attention.

“Mmmmm,” Starlight murmured, her head drooping forward. Between the drugs, the exposure to the inhibitor and the blood loss it was a miracle she was even partially coherent. “I had th’ funn’st dream. I was ‘n a hospit’l an’ you were there...”

“Sssh, I know,” Rattler lifted her head, brushing blood and bits of Reject brain out of her face as she double-checked the streets. Before she’d even gotten halfway out of Brian’s little house of horrors, he’d sicced his goons on her. She’d had to fight her way out, getting a punctured lung, several broken bones and some substantial internal bleeding in the process, but that was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before. Maybe it was the reptile in her, or just an aspect of her powers, but she was very good at healing. Kaley wasn’t.

No one was coming, though. Either she’d given them the slip or the mess she’d left behind had discouraged pursuit. She got into the driver’s seat and started the vehicle.

“Y’ came f’r me...” Kaley mumbled. “I tol’ ya yer a goooood girl.”

“No, I just don’t like people touching my things.”

“Nope,” Kaley said, her head leaning against the window. “Yer a good person...” she drooled before passing out again.

“Yeah,” Tasha said as she pulled out onto a thoroughfare, cutting someone off and ignoring the blare of their horn as she rushed Kaley to the nearest hospital. She’d lost David. She hadn’t been there in time to save him, but she’d gotten to Kaley on time. She hoped. “I’m a real hero,” she said no one as she wiped the blood from her face and raced through the city streets.