"Put That Brain Back Where You Found It"
May. 27th, 2022 02:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Put That Brain Back Where You Found It"
10/6/2018
I.
Slowly, Bane realized he was in a hospital bed. A wide canvas strap was drawn tightly around his waist but his arms were free, with a thin sheet drawn up to his waist. Why did his head throb so abominably? Why did everything seem foggy and distant? Had he been injured? Maybe he had been shot or beaten as he had been so many times before, but he hadn't often felt groggy like this. It took extreme trauma for him not to bounce back. His healing factor usually worked promptly.
As he lay there, the Dire Wolf gazed around the room. Pastel green walls, a heavily curtained window, white tile floors. No other bed in the room, no television on the wall, no nightstand with a landline phone. It wasn't a regular hospital. Turning his head, he saw a monitor to which he was attached with leads glued over his chest. The readings seemed strange. Heartbeat was regular but fast at 100 per minute, blood pressure low at 100 over 60... that was unheard of for him. He was so fit and conditioned that his readings were always better than average. How badly had he been hurt? The last he remembered was the day before... he had been preparing to go undercover after some threat but that was as clear as his thoughts could arrange themselves.
Then he glanced down and saw the round bulge of his belly sticking up. Now he knew something funny was going on. At six feet even and one hundred and seventy pounds, he always had a flat abdomen with clear definition. This wasn't right. Bane lifted a hand and caught his breath. The fingers were thick and meaty, the skin was pale with a scattering of freckles. He held the hand closer to his eyes. The hair on the knuckles was white. Not his hand at all.
For some reason, this revelation didn't upset him. Maybe he had been sedated, he thought, because logically he should be extremely agitated at the changes in his body. In the bend of his left elbow was a strip of adhesive and a catheter needle from which a clear tube led up to three separate plastic bags hanging on a stainless steel tree. What was dripping into his system anyway? Some sort of tranquilizer, he bet, maybe something that was affecting his perception.
Starting to feel anger rather than fear, the Dire Wolf examined the strap around his middle and found it fastened under the bed where he couldn't reach it. That flabby pot belly sure seemed authentic but how he could have put on forty pounds in a day or so? None of this was adding up. Bane tentatively reached up with both hands to explore his head and received the worst shock yet. No hair. His head had been shaved. Running horizontally around his skull at the temples was a ridge of hard scar tissue with numerous metal clamps firmly in place.
That did it. Time for some answers. He didn't feel as strong as he normally did but he should be able to free himself. Bane began wriggling and tugging at the restraint, drawing up his legs and arching his back as high as he could. He was starting to slide out from under the strap when a door swung inward and a man in a white smock rushed into the room.
"No, no, no. mustn't exert yourself, sir," said the man, drawing nearer. He apparently intended to tighten the strap but he was in for a surprise. Bane caught him in an iron grip on the right wrist and above that elbow, levering the man down hard across the bed and holding him there.
"Don't yell," the Dire Wolf said with ominous calm. "You don't want me to give you a broken elbow. Now. Tell me slowly. Where am I?"
"You're.. you're in the ICU at Holcomb Research Insititute," came the frightened response.
"Okay. I've heard of that. Out on Long Island. I'm going to ease up the pressure a little. Tell me what happened to me."
"Ow,ow. Easy, sir. Your car flipped on the LI Expressway and your head went through the windshield. You suffered a skull fracture and cerebral edema. We were the nearest facility with an ICU. When you were brought in, your chances were considered extremely poor but... let me up a little, that really hurts."
"In a minute. I don't think I'm buying any of this. What's my name? My age?"
"You're... Franklin DeSalvo. You're sixty-seven, from Queens."
"Yeah? I don't think so." Bane relaxed his grip slightly, then moved his hands so he was bending the doctor's hand forward further than it could comfortably go. "This is going to hurt a little. Cooperate. If your wrist breaks, it'll never be the same again. I want you to reach under the bed with your other arm and unfasten the strap. Go ahead."
"I can't, I can't," pleaded the man. "Please let me go. I'll bring Dr Marius here. He can explain everything."
From the doorway boomed a deep enraged voice. "What is THIS? Mr DeSalvo, release Dr Willets at once. Do you want to be kept sedated until you show you can behave?"
"You can try," Bane snorted. Maybe he didn't feel like his arms were as strong as they normally were but at least he remembered holds and pressure points.
"I will have an orderly hold each of your arms and legs while I increase your dosage of Turazamine," Marius said as he stepped into view. He was an imposing, stocky figure with a bristling golden beard and thick-lensed glasses. He was wearing a tailored tweed suit of light brown with a yellow shirt and tan necktie, and the coordinated color scheme was striking. That voice carried conviction. "You could be transferred to the psych floor easily enough."
Bane considered this, then let go of Willet's wrist and saw with wry satisfaction how quickly the man backpedaled out of reach. "I want to make a few phone calls."
"No, that would be most inadvisable in your condition."
"Now I know you're phonies." The Dire Wolf convulsed violently, flipping the bed off the floor onto its side and suddenly he was squeezing his lower body out from beneath the strap. He seemed to be wearing a standard hospital gown, flimsy and tied across the back, leaving him barefoot. He heaved up to stand erect as Willets tried to grab him. Not trusting his speed or strength in this strangely weakened condition, Bane kicked Willets' leading leg out from under him and swung him by an arm to reel across the room into the far wall where he hit his face with a wet smacking sound.
Dr Marius was holding a hypodermic syringe in one hand, removing the clear plastic cap from its point. He should have called for help instead. Bane sprang at him, sinking his fist to the wrist in the doctor's soft stomach and then bringing that same fist back for an uppercut that clapped Marius' jaws shut and threw him backwards onto the floor with a crash.
Some confidence came back to the Dire Wolf after that burst of action. Maybe he felt sluggish compared to his usual self, but decades of Kumundu training remained in his muscle memory. Those punches had been crisp and well-timed. Next, his tentative plan would be to get the clothes from either of these guys and escape from the place. Bane straightened up. His eyes met a mirror set over a shelf by the door and he froze. That wasn't his face staring back at him.
II.
The round sagging cheeks and wide-bridged nose were not familiar at all. With his head shaved and that gruesome ridge of scar tissue around his head, he looked even more unfamiliar. The eyes had dark brown irises. Bane scowled, lowered his head and gingerly popped out two soft lenses. When he looked at the mirror again, the cold grey eyes of the Dire Wolf stared back at him.
This WAS his body he was in. There was wax or something injected in his nose and cheeks to change his face, he could feel the edges under the skin. They were putting him through some ridiculous ruse to make him think that he was someday else. Why? What possible reason could there be? Feeling something poking his arm, he pulled out the catheter needle and tossed it away. Where an average person in such a strange situation might have felt fear or panic, Bane was only getting angrier.
He heard steps in the hall outside but there was no concealment in this wide open room and he faced three men who entered, each with an automatic in hand. The newcomers wore scrubs and white smocks, but these looked wildly out of place on them. With their brutal faces shaped by hatred and greed, they could not pass as medical personnel.
Bane realized he was not wearing the flexible Trom armor he normally had on beneath his clothes. With his reduced reflexes and agility, he couldn't expect to avoid any bullets if shooting started. Very slowly and carefully, he held up his open hands and raised them to shoulder level.
"I told you it wouldn't work," complained Willets from the other side of the room. He came over toward the door but stayed well out of reach.
"Shut up," Dr Marius snapped. He himself had straightened up and adjusted his clothing as he got a grip on his rage. The old man's wide face was almost purple and his fists were trembling. "Mr DiSalvo, please..."
"Skip the DiSalvo nonsense, doctor," Bane said. "It's not working. You seem to have gone through a lot of trouble to fool me into thinking I was someone else... Wait." He reached up and touched the scar tissue that ran around his bald cranium. The metal clamps were secure. "I get it now. Your scheme was even crazier. You intended to make me believe that I had brain surgery....?!"
Marius did not reply. He snapped his fingers and gestured for the three thugs to encircle Bane. "Don't get too close. We don't want him to grab a gun. The transplant aftereffects are uncertain."
"Transplant? This is the craziest thing I've come up against in a while," Bane said. He took a step to one side, positioning himself for a leap at Dr Marius. "Brain transplants aren't going to be possible for decades if ever. We can't repair the spinal cord, we can't make thousands of nerves join up and function with foreign nerves. The rejection problem is huge."
Dr Marius had calmed down slightly after being punched in the stomach and the face. His voice had become even-toned again. "Conventional medicine is nowhere near the challenge, that's true. But this facility was founded by someone whose innovations were a century ahead of everyone else."
"Of course," Bane said barely above a whisper. "John Grim." Although he tried not to show it, his head was clearing. Without the sedative drip into his veins, his enhanced healing factor was kicking in again. With each passing second, he felt more and more like the Dire Wolf.
"That is a name to be respected," Marius said smugly. He lifted a hand to stroke his tawny beard and on one finger was a gold band, while the wrist held a subtantial golden watch. The doctor seemed to have a monomania for his color co-ordination. "The greatest genius the modern era has ever known! I was proud to be his most trusted confidant."
Bane kept an eye on the three gunmen, deciding that stalling for time would help. In another few minutes, he might be back to normal. "Hold up a second, doc. There's a few things you should know about Grim. He was a low-level telepath. That meant he picked up thoughts from people around him without even being consciously aware. Many of his so-called great breakthroughs were based on ideas he had swiped from other peoples' brains."
"Here, now! You are merely slandering a great man--"
"Not at all. As it happened, several Trom were working undercover at Grim's research labs to keep an eye on him. You know about the Trom. John Grim no doubt honestly thought he was creating projects like his Solar Knights or those Devil Lights aircraft, but actually he was building on ideas he stole from the Trom."
Dr Marius exhaled strongly and calmed down. He jabbed his thumbs into his vest pockets and even smiled. "Well, think what you want. I suspect you are only reluctant to give proper credit to a true genius. Be that as it may, you will meet John Grim's most lasting accomplishment."
"You know," Bane said as if to himself, "He's been dead for thirty years, yet Grim is STILL causing trouble. What a pain that guy was."
Gesturing with his own automatic, Dr Marius directed Bane toward the door. "Dolan and Elting, wait in the hall. Curtis, come around behind the prisoner and keep a distance. He is a trained fighter and quite dangerous."
"Oh, I've heard stories about the Dire Wolf," the goon muttered as he entered the ward and took his place ten feet behind Bane."Ready, doctor."
"Don't I get slippers?" Bane asked, but he complied as five gun barrels focused on him from a variety of angles. Moving slowly and smoothly so as not to alarm the gunmen, he was marched down a long deserted hallway, around a corner and down an open staircase to a pair of massive metal doors. Dr Willets had already hurried ahead, he was punching a code into a keypad set at eye level. With a series of buzzes and clicks, the doors swung outward to reveal a high-ceiling chamber brilliantly lit from overhead.
"I think now you will admit the incomparable genius of John Grim," Dr Marius announced. "Our leader... Sarah Bellum."
III.
Bane stared with his mouth open. Decades in the Midnight War had left him thinking he was hopelessly jaded and could not be surprised but this was something new. On a waist-high electronic concsole sat a rectangular glass tank ten feet high and six feet wide. Aeration bubbles entered the thick greenish liquid in which sat what had once been a human brain. The monstrous organ was larger than a prize-winning pumpkin, and instead of the classic walnut-halves structure, the brain had a half dozen irregular lobes growing out of it. The horrifying object rested in a shallow depression atop what looked like a platform holding diagnostic equipment. Five thin cords ran from that platform to leads which were glued to the brain's surface.
Cold fear gripped the Dire Wolf. He had seldom felt a stronger sense of wrongness, of being in the presence of something that should not exist. He tried to speak, but couldn't manage words.
On top of the tank was an array of speakers, microphones and cameras. A pleasant contralto voice spoke, female and smooth, "Greetings, Mr Bane. I regret the masquerade we put you through. Were you fooled at all?"
"Not really," the Dire Wolf answered, his steady voice not betraying his unease. "I'm told I have a stubborn personality without much imagination. You were introduced as Sarah Bellum?"
"Juvenile puns are a weakness of mine," said the soothing voice. There was nothing robotic or mechanical about its tones or cadence at all. "It doesn't matter any more what my original name was. That person is long gone. Dr Marius, please provide a seat."
As a hard plastic chair was brought for him, Bane obligingly sat and faced the gruesome matter floating in the tank. "So I hope these metal strips in my head are cosmetic?"
"Oh yes, you will be able to work them out easily enough. Mr Bane, I want to talk to you about brain transplants."
"Oh brother. Here we go." Even as he spoke, the Dire Wolf probed thoughtfully at his belly and decided that they had put a silicone-filled implant in there. Getting it out by himself would entail a good amount of bleeding and some stitches, so he put that thought aside.
Sarah Bellum's voice continued undeterred. "The procedure is neither quick nor safe. Fully half of the subjects die right away. Another ten per cent suffer cognitive damage. You can see that only a truly desperate person would willingly undergo the transplant."
"Sure. Let me guess. Some billionaire who is ninety years old with a bad heart. Or someone with aggressive cancer spreading throughout the body. They might roll the dice, right?"
"Exactly," replied the brain. It could be seen that two added lobes near the top throbbed when it was going to speak. "I have to admit the project has reached its limits. You have noticed that I have grown new structures never seen before. I have insights, fresh revelations, breakthrough concepts that Humans have never imagined before. But it is still not enough."
Bane scowled and checked again where the gunmen were positioned. He thought he knew where this was going. Seeing everyone was waiting for him to speak, he sighed. "Sarah Bellum, please. We are not meant to live forever. We must make room. The young deserve their chance to make their own mistakes... and their own victories." Not receiving an answer for a minute, he asked, "You've already taken blood samples from me, I guess."
"Many. Also a spinal tap, and bone marrow and cells from various vital organs."
The Dire Wolf spread his feet and leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees, readying to move quickly. "Let me guess. You got nowhere. The healing factor in my body is something only Tel Shai can provide. Alchemists have spent centuries trying to isolate the factor. The Trom themselves admit that it's beyond their knowledge at this point. You're not going to do any better."
"Forgive us if we try," came the mellow voice from above the tank. "You might as well cooperate, Mr Bane, at least you will be comfortable."
"Yeah, the comfortable lab rat in its cage," Bane snarled as he vaulted to his feet and wheeled around to slam two of the guards into each other. Seeing Dr Marius raising his gun, the Dire Wolf leaped over to press his back against the apparatus which contained Sarah Bellum.
"Go right ahead!" he yelled. "Put a couple of 9mm slugs through this fish tank and see what happens to your boss."
"Hold it, men," said the doctor. "Everyone calm down. We can resolve this."
"We'll start with getting me some clothes and showing me an open door," Bane said. As he spoke, a small furry form tore through the doorway and crashed into him like a soid lightning bolt striking.
IV.
For once, he was taken entirely off guard. Bane was lifted into the air and swung down against the lab floor with bone-breaking impact. The breath was knocked out of him. Something hard exploded against the side of his face with a force that would have killed any normal Human. Sent sliding across the room, the Dire Wolf nevertheless reacted immediately to the attack. He rolled over and hopped up on his toes, the fingers of one hand touching the floor as he clenched his other hand into a killing fist. But he had lost the advantage of being in front of the brain's tank. Five men pointed their guns directly at him at point-blank rage. There was no way he could survive a barrage like those automatics would launch, not without his armor.
As he froze into position, he got his first good look at the mystery opponent. It was a Chimpanzee, a few inches over five feet tall. The hair on the top of its skull was growing back in from where it had been shaven and a genuine scar ridge around its forehead. The beast stood resting its weight on its knuckles, arms stiff, and regarded Bane with barely repressed hostility.
Then, even in a day packed with unlikely events, he was surprised once more as the Chimp pointed an index finger at him and then shook its fist in an unmistakable belligerent gesture.
"Ha ha," came the smooth female voice from the speakers. "I was going to save the introductions for later but you've already met." As the Chimp rose to stand upright with its angry stare still fixed on Bane, Sarah Bellem continued, "But I believe you and Lorenzo are already old friends."
The Dire Wolf had gotten to his feet, satisfying himself that no bones were broken and his bruises would not keep him from moving about. He had no illusions about being able to meet a full-grown Chimp in unarmed combat. Aside from the vicious fangs and bone-snapping bite force, the animal was both stronger and faster than a Human being. Bane thought his Kumundu training and enhanced healing might let him survive a clash with the animal if he could get in a fast first strike... but he didn't have the silver daggers or any other possible weapon. He had already scanned the lab for any object that could be useful without luck.
Lorenzo....
As soon as he heard that name, Bane shook his head. "Oh, come on. Lorenzo Scarselli, is that you in there? Why would you do such a thing?"
The Chimp lowered his head and looked away. From the speakers, Sarah Bellum explained, "I'm afraid he can't manage speech. Not that he hasn't tried, he just doesn't have the physical equipment for it. Yes, the brain of Lorenzo Scarselli from the old STIGMA gang is in that body. He has a slight grudge against you, my boy."
Bane remembered. "The last time I met Lorenzo, there was a rumble between STIGMA and the White Web assassins. I smacked him aside and got out of there. I haven't heard anything about him since. Lorenzo, is that really you?"
The Chimp turned his hateful gaze full on Bane and thumped a gnarled fist down on the lab floor. It looked as if the skull had been reshaped slightly above the ridge of scar tissue and the metal clamps, possibly to accomodate more brain tissue than previously.
"When you punched Lorenzo in the side three years ago, you ruptured his right kidney," Sarah Bellum explained. "Doctors discovered his other kidney had already been failing for some time. A year on dialysis left Lorenzo weak and miserable and hoping for death. Then my agents contacted him with an interesting offer."
Turning back to the misshapen mass of tissue floating in that viscous fluid, Bane put his hands on his hips. "So you've become a disembodied brain in a tank AND your friend is a Chimpanzee with a Human brain. Quite the circus. Any more surprises?"
"This is only the beginning," purred Sarah Bellum. "I promised Lorenzo he could pull your arms and legs off for what you did to him, but first I'm sure you can be useful to us. The famous Dire Wolf! You know so many secrets of the Midnight War. You have been trusted with information by the Mandate, by the FBI's Department 21 Black, by the leaders of INTERCEPT. You have access to Trom technology which I can use. Oh, you're a treasure trove, my boy. You have information that will make my organization unstoppable once we pry it from you."
"You can try." Despite the way he still looked, with the shaved head and implanted soft belly, Bane felt his full abilities had returned. He was already weighing which of three possible attacks he would choose.
"You might awaken in the body of an elderly man suffering from advanced rheumatoid arthritis," the pleasant voice said. "Constant unbearable pain. And I think I should auction off your own body. How many millions would some beat-up old gangster with COPD or congestive heart failure offer to be placed in the perfectly healthy, highly conditioned body of the Dire Wolf... a body which heals dozens of times faster than a normal person?"
Bane scoffed. He swung back to where the Chimp was still watching him with murderous eyes. "Hey, Lorenzo. I have to be honest, I think you're better looking now than you were before!"
V.
The enraged beast left the floor as if he had been shot from a cannon, coming straight at Bane with a screeching roar. The Dire Wolf acted with cool precision. He seized that powerful furry arm with both hands, swivelled at the hips and redirected the ape's momentum so that Lorenzo crashed against the glass of the tank in which Sarah Bellum floated. Cracks ran across the surface of the glass, the pale green fluid started gushing out and suddenly the wall of the tank split open to pour its contents out onto the floor. Alarm bells rang overhead and red lights flashed up by the ceiling.
That had been more damage done than Bane had hoped but he did not pause to watch. As soon as he had released Lorenzo, the Dire Wolf sprang at the nearest gunman, wrested the .45 out of the thug's grip and instantly shot the man right in the forehead, then dropped to one knee to swing his extended arm in an arc that blasted out four more gunshots in an unbroken roar. One of the thugs only got caught high on the left shoulder and needed a second slug in the center of the chest to drop him.
Less than a full second had passed since the Chimp had attacked. Bane snatched up another pistol from where a guard had dropped it and leaped up to his feet. He was preparing to empty both guns into Lorenzo if the Human-brained ape came at him, but to his surprise the beast had made a run for it through an open door on the other side of the lab. Something like a white-hot wire sliced across his cheek as he heard the flat snap of a lower caliber weapon behind him. The Dire Wolf fell flat to the floor, stomach down, and snapped off a dozen shots in a storm of gunfire that cut down four more thugs who had appeared in the doorway. Within the past minute, eight corpses had been created in that lab, sprawled where they had fallen, most with eyes and mouths still open.
Knowing it wasn't over yet, Bane rolled twice and hopped up to swing in a semi-circle. The tank had spilled its briny-smelling contents all over the floor. Alarms still sounded. The Dire Wolf stared down at the wreckage and realized that the platform on which Sarah Bellum had rested was gone. Had Lorenzo snatched it up and made a run for it? So it seemed. There was still time to pursue the monsters. Bane sprinted out into the hallway and skidded to a halt in front of a window overlooking the parking lot of the Holcomb Institute. A black SUV was peeling out and hopped over a speed bump as it tore off down the access road. He caught only the faintest glimpse of a dark arm through the driver's side window.
Well. Even after the adrenalin surge and agitation of the previous few minutes, Bane reflected dryly that he would love to see Lorenzo and his boss get caught in a routine traffic check. Long Island cops were blase but everything had its limits. The Dire Wolf satisfied himself that all the gunmen were quite dead. No more were coming, evidently any cleaning crew or maintenance men had scattered at the sound of gunfire.Dr Willets was nowhere to be seen, though. Bane wanted to vacate the crime scene but first he took a full hour to search the facility. He found his blood and tissue samples and flushed them down a toilet, soaking the test tubes in bleach. There was a single manila folder with his name on it, stuffed with onionskin sheets covered with data. That he thoroughly burned in a sink before rinsing the ashes away.
His memory had cleared. When he had come here undercover the previous day, everything he had brought had been dispensable. The nondescript clothing, the burner phone, the beat-up old wallet with its fake IDs. Bane found a row of lockers in a staff room and dug around until he located black dress slacks and a white shirt that would fit him, as well as a pair of loafers. Good enough. A Yankees cap that had been left on a snack table would cover his head. Bane faced the nuisance of having the clamps in his forehead removed as well as the silicone bag implanted into his abdomen, but he would see if Megan Salenger would perform that in the emergency ward at KDF headquarters, He trusted her competence more than most hospital ER staff and she was his teammate who would keep it all secret.
A heavy weariness started to weigh him down as he went to the parking lot and started looking for any car that had keys in it. No luck. He sighed and headed back into the building. This meant he would have to search the bodies for keys and a working phone, not a fun task. Bane had decided to abandon the car once he got to town and could place a few calls. First, to see who was at KDF headquarters who would come and give him a ride. Then to contact Department 21 Black one more time. The FBI's least publicized unit would take over this facility and cart away everything down to the furnishings. By nightfall, there would be a stripped-down empty building. No sign of anything weird would remain to hint at what had happened that day.
Well, almost no hint, he reflected. Somewhere out there on the back roads of eastern Long Island, Lorenzo was driving along frantically, probably with Sarah Bellum stowed in some emergency tank secured in the rear of the SUV. He hoped the brain hadn't survived all the trauma but he had a feeling it was already planning and scheming how to punish him. They'd find him waiting.
12/23/2018
10/6/2018
I.
Slowly, Bane realized he was in a hospital bed. A wide canvas strap was drawn tightly around his waist but his arms were free, with a thin sheet drawn up to his waist. Why did his head throb so abominably? Why did everything seem foggy and distant? Had he been injured? Maybe he had been shot or beaten as he had been so many times before, but he hadn't often felt groggy like this. It took extreme trauma for him not to bounce back. His healing factor usually worked promptly.
As he lay there, the Dire Wolf gazed around the room. Pastel green walls, a heavily curtained window, white tile floors. No other bed in the room, no television on the wall, no nightstand with a landline phone. It wasn't a regular hospital. Turning his head, he saw a monitor to which he was attached with leads glued over his chest. The readings seemed strange. Heartbeat was regular but fast at 100 per minute, blood pressure low at 100 over 60... that was unheard of for him. He was so fit and conditioned that his readings were always better than average. How badly had he been hurt? The last he remembered was the day before... he had been preparing to go undercover after some threat but that was as clear as his thoughts could arrange themselves.
Then he glanced down and saw the round bulge of his belly sticking up. Now he knew something funny was going on. At six feet even and one hundred and seventy pounds, he always had a flat abdomen with clear definition. This wasn't right. Bane lifted a hand and caught his breath. The fingers were thick and meaty, the skin was pale with a scattering of freckles. He held the hand closer to his eyes. The hair on the knuckles was white. Not his hand at all.
For some reason, this revelation didn't upset him. Maybe he had been sedated, he thought, because logically he should be extremely agitated at the changes in his body. In the bend of his left elbow was a strip of adhesive and a catheter needle from which a clear tube led up to three separate plastic bags hanging on a stainless steel tree. What was dripping into his system anyway? Some sort of tranquilizer, he bet, maybe something that was affecting his perception.
Starting to feel anger rather than fear, the Dire Wolf examined the strap around his middle and found it fastened under the bed where he couldn't reach it. That flabby pot belly sure seemed authentic but how he could have put on forty pounds in a day or so? None of this was adding up. Bane tentatively reached up with both hands to explore his head and received the worst shock yet. No hair. His head had been shaved. Running horizontally around his skull at the temples was a ridge of hard scar tissue with numerous metal clamps firmly in place.
That did it. Time for some answers. He didn't feel as strong as he normally did but he should be able to free himself. Bane began wriggling and tugging at the restraint, drawing up his legs and arching his back as high as he could. He was starting to slide out from under the strap when a door swung inward and a man in a white smock rushed into the room.
"No, no, no. mustn't exert yourself, sir," said the man, drawing nearer. He apparently intended to tighten the strap but he was in for a surprise. Bane caught him in an iron grip on the right wrist and above that elbow, levering the man down hard across the bed and holding him there.
"Don't yell," the Dire Wolf said with ominous calm. "You don't want me to give you a broken elbow. Now. Tell me slowly. Where am I?"
"You're.. you're in the ICU at Holcomb Research Insititute," came the frightened response.
"Okay. I've heard of that. Out on Long Island. I'm going to ease up the pressure a little. Tell me what happened to me."
"Ow,ow. Easy, sir. Your car flipped on the LI Expressway and your head went through the windshield. You suffered a skull fracture and cerebral edema. We were the nearest facility with an ICU. When you were brought in, your chances were considered extremely poor but... let me up a little, that really hurts."
"In a minute. I don't think I'm buying any of this. What's my name? My age?"
"You're... Franklin DeSalvo. You're sixty-seven, from Queens."
"Yeah? I don't think so." Bane relaxed his grip slightly, then moved his hands so he was bending the doctor's hand forward further than it could comfortably go. "This is going to hurt a little. Cooperate. If your wrist breaks, it'll never be the same again. I want you to reach under the bed with your other arm and unfasten the strap. Go ahead."
"I can't, I can't," pleaded the man. "Please let me go. I'll bring Dr Marius here. He can explain everything."
From the doorway boomed a deep enraged voice. "What is THIS? Mr DeSalvo, release Dr Willets at once. Do you want to be kept sedated until you show you can behave?"
"You can try," Bane snorted. Maybe he didn't feel like his arms were as strong as they normally were but at least he remembered holds and pressure points.
"I will have an orderly hold each of your arms and legs while I increase your dosage of Turazamine," Marius said as he stepped into view. He was an imposing, stocky figure with a bristling golden beard and thick-lensed glasses. He was wearing a tailored tweed suit of light brown with a yellow shirt and tan necktie, and the coordinated color scheme was striking. That voice carried conviction. "You could be transferred to the psych floor easily enough."
Bane considered this, then let go of Willet's wrist and saw with wry satisfaction how quickly the man backpedaled out of reach. "I want to make a few phone calls."
"No, that would be most inadvisable in your condition."
"Now I know you're phonies." The Dire Wolf convulsed violently, flipping the bed off the floor onto its side and suddenly he was squeezing his lower body out from beneath the strap. He seemed to be wearing a standard hospital gown, flimsy and tied across the back, leaving him barefoot. He heaved up to stand erect as Willets tried to grab him. Not trusting his speed or strength in this strangely weakened condition, Bane kicked Willets' leading leg out from under him and swung him by an arm to reel across the room into the far wall where he hit his face with a wet smacking sound.
Dr Marius was holding a hypodermic syringe in one hand, removing the clear plastic cap from its point. He should have called for help instead. Bane sprang at him, sinking his fist to the wrist in the doctor's soft stomach and then bringing that same fist back for an uppercut that clapped Marius' jaws shut and threw him backwards onto the floor with a crash.
Some confidence came back to the Dire Wolf after that burst of action. Maybe he felt sluggish compared to his usual self, but decades of Kumundu training remained in his muscle memory. Those punches had been crisp and well-timed. Next, his tentative plan would be to get the clothes from either of these guys and escape from the place. Bane straightened up. His eyes met a mirror set over a shelf by the door and he froze. That wasn't his face staring back at him.
II.
The round sagging cheeks and wide-bridged nose were not familiar at all. With his head shaved and that gruesome ridge of scar tissue around his head, he looked even more unfamiliar. The eyes had dark brown irises. Bane scowled, lowered his head and gingerly popped out two soft lenses. When he looked at the mirror again, the cold grey eyes of the Dire Wolf stared back at him.
This WAS his body he was in. There was wax or something injected in his nose and cheeks to change his face, he could feel the edges under the skin. They were putting him through some ridiculous ruse to make him think that he was someday else. Why? What possible reason could there be? Feeling something poking his arm, he pulled out the catheter needle and tossed it away. Where an average person in such a strange situation might have felt fear or panic, Bane was only getting angrier.
He heard steps in the hall outside but there was no concealment in this wide open room and he faced three men who entered, each with an automatic in hand. The newcomers wore scrubs and white smocks, but these looked wildly out of place on them. With their brutal faces shaped by hatred and greed, they could not pass as medical personnel.
Bane realized he was not wearing the flexible Trom armor he normally had on beneath his clothes. With his reduced reflexes and agility, he couldn't expect to avoid any bullets if shooting started. Very slowly and carefully, he held up his open hands and raised them to shoulder level.
"I told you it wouldn't work," complained Willets from the other side of the room. He came over toward the door but stayed well out of reach.
"Shut up," Dr Marius snapped. He himself had straightened up and adjusted his clothing as he got a grip on his rage. The old man's wide face was almost purple and his fists were trembling. "Mr DiSalvo, please..."
"Skip the DiSalvo nonsense, doctor," Bane said. "It's not working. You seem to have gone through a lot of trouble to fool me into thinking I was someone else... Wait." He reached up and touched the scar tissue that ran around his bald cranium. The metal clamps were secure. "I get it now. Your scheme was even crazier. You intended to make me believe that I had brain surgery....?!"
Marius did not reply. He snapped his fingers and gestured for the three thugs to encircle Bane. "Don't get too close. We don't want him to grab a gun. The transplant aftereffects are uncertain."
"Transplant? This is the craziest thing I've come up against in a while," Bane said. He took a step to one side, positioning himself for a leap at Dr Marius. "Brain transplants aren't going to be possible for decades if ever. We can't repair the spinal cord, we can't make thousands of nerves join up and function with foreign nerves. The rejection problem is huge."
Dr Marius had calmed down slightly after being punched in the stomach and the face. His voice had become even-toned again. "Conventional medicine is nowhere near the challenge, that's true. But this facility was founded by someone whose innovations were a century ahead of everyone else."
"Of course," Bane said barely above a whisper. "John Grim." Although he tried not to show it, his head was clearing. Without the sedative drip into his veins, his enhanced healing factor was kicking in again. With each passing second, he felt more and more like the Dire Wolf.
"That is a name to be respected," Marius said smugly. He lifted a hand to stroke his tawny beard and on one finger was a gold band, while the wrist held a subtantial golden watch. The doctor seemed to have a monomania for his color co-ordination. "The greatest genius the modern era has ever known! I was proud to be his most trusted confidant."
Bane kept an eye on the three gunmen, deciding that stalling for time would help. In another few minutes, he might be back to normal. "Hold up a second, doc. There's a few things you should know about Grim. He was a low-level telepath. That meant he picked up thoughts from people around him without even being consciously aware. Many of his so-called great breakthroughs were based on ideas he had swiped from other peoples' brains."
"Here, now! You are merely slandering a great man--"
"Not at all. As it happened, several Trom were working undercover at Grim's research labs to keep an eye on him. You know about the Trom. John Grim no doubt honestly thought he was creating projects like his Solar Knights or those Devil Lights aircraft, but actually he was building on ideas he stole from the Trom."
Dr Marius exhaled strongly and calmed down. He jabbed his thumbs into his vest pockets and even smiled. "Well, think what you want. I suspect you are only reluctant to give proper credit to a true genius. Be that as it may, you will meet John Grim's most lasting accomplishment."
"You know," Bane said as if to himself, "He's been dead for thirty years, yet Grim is STILL causing trouble. What a pain that guy was."
Gesturing with his own automatic, Dr Marius directed Bane toward the door. "Dolan and Elting, wait in the hall. Curtis, come around behind the prisoner and keep a distance. He is a trained fighter and quite dangerous."
"Oh, I've heard stories about the Dire Wolf," the goon muttered as he entered the ward and took his place ten feet behind Bane."Ready, doctor."
"Don't I get slippers?" Bane asked, but he complied as five gun barrels focused on him from a variety of angles. Moving slowly and smoothly so as not to alarm the gunmen, he was marched down a long deserted hallway, around a corner and down an open staircase to a pair of massive metal doors. Dr Willets had already hurried ahead, he was punching a code into a keypad set at eye level. With a series of buzzes and clicks, the doors swung outward to reveal a high-ceiling chamber brilliantly lit from overhead.
"I think now you will admit the incomparable genius of John Grim," Dr Marius announced. "Our leader... Sarah Bellum."
III.
Bane stared with his mouth open. Decades in the Midnight War had left him thinking he was hopelessly jaded and could not be surprised but this was something new. On a waist-high electronic concsole sat a rectangular glass tank ten feet high and six feet wide. Aeration bubbles entered the thick greenish liquid in which sat what had once been a human brain. The monstrous organ was larger than a prize-winning pumpkin, and instead of the classic walnut-halves structure, the brain had a half dozen irregular lobes growing out of it. The horrifying object rested in a shallow depression atop what looked like a platform holding diagnostic equipment. Five thin cords ran from that platform to leads which were glued to the brain's surface.
Cold fear gripped the Dire Wolf. He had seldom felt a stronger sense of wrongness, of being in the presence of something that should not exist. He tried to speak, but couldn't manage words.
On top of the tank was an array of speakers, microphones and cameras. A pleasant contralto voice spoke, female and smooth, "Greetings, Mr Bane. I regret the masquerade we put you through. Were you fooled at all?"
"Not really," the Dire Wolf answered, his steady voice not betraying his unease. "I'm told I have a stubborn personality without much imagination. You were introduced as Sarah Bellum?"
"Juvenile puns are a weakness of mine," said the soothing voice. There was nothing robotic or mechanical about its tones or cadence at all. "It doesn't matter any more what my original name was. That person is long gone. Dr Marius, please provide a seat."
As a hard plastic chair was brought for him, Bane obligingly sat and faced the gruesome matter floating in the tank. "So I hope these metal strips in my head are cosmetic?"
"Oh yes, you will be able to work them out easily enough. Mr Bane, I want to talk to you about brain transplants."
"Oh brother. Here we go." Even as he spoke, the Dire Wolf probed thoughtfully at his belly and decided that they had put a silicone-filled implant in there. Getting it out by himself would entail a good amount of bleeding and some stitches, so he put that thought aside.
Sarah Bellum's voice continued undeterred. "The procedure is neither quick nor safe. Fully half of the subjects die right away. Another ten per cent suffer cognitive damage. You can see that only a truly desperate person would willingly undergo the transplant."
"Sure. Let me guess. Some billionaire who is ninety years old with a bad heart. Or someone with aggressive cancer spreading throughout the body. They might roll the dice, right?"
"Exactly," replied the brain. It could be seen that two added lobes near the top throbbed when it was going to speak. "I have to admit the project has reached its limits. You have noticed that I have grown new structures never seen before. I have insights, fresh revelations, breakthrough concepts that Humans have never imagined before. But it is still not enough."
Bane scowled and checked again where the gunmen were positioned. He thought he knew where this was going. Seeing everyone was waiting for him to speak, he sighed. "Sarah Bellum, please. We are not meant to live forever. We must make room. The young deserve their chance to make their own mistakes... and their own victories." Not receiving an answer for a minute, he asked, "You've already taken blood samples from me, I guess."
"Many. Also a spinal tap, and bone marrow and cells from various vital organs."
The Dire Wolf spread his feet and leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees, readying to move quickly. "Let me guess. You got nowhere. The healing factor in my body is something only Tel Shai can provide. Alchemists have spent centuries trying to isolate the factor. The Trom themselves admit that it's beyond their knowledge at this point. You're not going to do any better."
"Forgive us if we try," came the mellow voice from above the tank. "You might as well cooperate, Mr Bane, at least you will be comfortable."
"Yeah, the comfortable lab rat in its cage," Bane snarled as he vaulted to his feet and wheeled around to slam two of the guards into each other. Seeing Dr Marius raising his gun, the Dire Wolf leaped over to press his back against the apparatus which contained Sarah Bellum.
"Go right ahead!" he yelled. "Put a couple of 9mm slugs through this fish tank and see what happens to your boss."
"Hold it, men," said the doctor. "Everyone calm down. We can resolve this."
"We'll start with getting me some clothes and showing me an open door," Bane said. As he spoke, a small furry form tore through the doorway and crashed into him like a soid lightning bolt striking.
IV.
For once, he was taken entirely off guard. Bane was lifted into the air and swung down against the lab floor with bone-breaking impact. The breath was knocked out of him. Something hard exploded against the side of his face with a force that would have killed any normal Human. Sent sliding across the room, the Dire Wolf nevertheless reacted immediately to the attack. He rolled over and hopped up on his toes, the fingers of one hand touching the floor as he clenched his other hand into a killing fist. But he had lost the advantage of being in front of the brain's tank. Five men pointed their guns directly at him at point-blank rage. There was no way he could survive a barrage like those automatics would launch, not without his armor.
As he froze into position, he got his first good look at the mystery opponent. It was a Chimpanzee, a few inches over five feet tall. The hair on the top of its skull was growing back in from where it had been shaven and a genuine scar ridge around its forehead. The beast stood resting its weight on its knuckles, arms stiff, and regarded Bane with barely repressed hostility.
Then, even in a day packed with unlikely events, he was surprised once more as the Chimp pointed an index finger at him and then shook its fist in an unmistakable belligerent gesture.
"Ha ha," came the smooth female voice from the speakers. "I was going to save the introductions for later but you've already met." As the Chimp rose to stand upright with its angry stare still fixed on Bane, Sarah Bellem continued, "But I believe you and Lorenzo are already old friends."
The Dire Wolf had gotten to his feet, satisfying himself that no bones were broken and his bruises would not keep him from moving about. He had no illusions about being able to meet a full-grown Chimp in unarmed combat. Aside from the vicious fangs and bone-snapping bite force, the animal was both stronger and faster than a Human being. Bane thought his Kumundu training and enhanced healing might let him survive a clash with the animal if he could get in a fast first strike... but he didn't have the silver daggers or any other possible weapon. He had already scanned the lab for any object that could be useful without luck.
Lorenzo....
As soon as he heard that name, Bane shook his head. "Oh, come on. Lorenzo Scarselli, is that you in there? Why would you do such a thing?"
The Chimp lowered his head and looked away. From the speakers, Sarah Bellum explained, "I'm afraid he can't manage speech. Not that he hasn't tried, he just doesn't have the physical equipment for it. Yes, the brain of Lorenzo Scarselli from the old STIGMA gang is in that body. He has a slight grudge against you, my boy."
Bane remembered. "The last time I met Lorenzo, there was a rumble between STIGMA and the White Web assassins. I smacked him aside and got out of there. I haven't heard anything about him since. Lorenzo, is that really you?"
The Chimp turned his hateful gaze full on Bane and thumped a gnarled fist down on the lab floor. It looked as if the skull had been reshaped slightly above the ridge of scar tissue and the metal clamps, possibly to accomodate more brain tissue than previously.
"When you punched Lorenzo in the side three years ago, you ruptured his right kidney," Sarah Bellum explained. "Doctors discovered his other kidney had already been failing for some time. A year on dialysis left Lorenzo weak and miserable and hoping for death. Then my agents contacted him with an interesting offer."
Turning back to the misshapen mass of tissue floating in that viscous fluid, Bane put his hands on his hips. "So you've become a disembodied brain in a tank AND your friend is a Chimpanzee with a Human brain. Quite the circus. Any more surprises?"
"This is only the beginning," purred Sarah Bellum. "I promised Lorenzo he could pull your arms and legs off for what you did to him, but first I'm sure you can be useful to us. The famous Dire Wolf! You know so many secrets of the Midnight War. You have been trusted with information by the Mandate, by the FBI's Department 21 Black, by the leaders of INTERCEPT. You have access to Trom technology which I can use. Oh, you're a treasure trove, my boy. You have information that will make my organization unstoppable once we pry it from you."
"You can try." Despite the way he still looked, with the shaved head and implanted soft belly, Bane felt his full abilities had returned. He was already weighing which of three possible attacks he would choose.
"You might awaken in the body of an elderly man suffering from advanced rheumatoid arthritis," the pleasant voice said. "Constant unbearable pain. And I think I should auction off your own body. How many millions would some beat-up old gangster with COPD or congestive heart failure offer to be placed in the perfectly healthy, highly conditioned body of the Dire Wolf... a body which heals dozens of times faster than a normal person?"
Bane scoffed. He swung back to where the Chimp was still watching him with murderous eyes. "Hey, Lorenzo. I have to be honest, I think you're better looking now than you were before!"
V.
The enraged beast left the floor as if he had been shot from a cannon, coming straight at Bane with a screeching roar. The Dire Wolf acted with cool precision. He seized that powerful furry arm with both hands, swivelled at the hips and redirected the ape's momentum so that Lorenzo crashed against the glass of the tank in which Sarah Bellum floated. Cracks ran across the surface of the glass, the pale green fluid started gushing out and suddenly the wall of the tank split open to pour its contents out onto the floor. Alarm bells rang overhead and red lights flashed up by the ceiling.
That had been more damage done than Bane had hoped but he did not pause to watch. As soon as he had released Lorenzo, the Dire Wolf sprang at the nearest gunman, wrested the .45 out of the thug's grip and instantly shot the man right in the forehead, then dropped to one knee to swing his extended arm in an arc that blasted out four more gunshots in an unbroken roar. One of the thugs only got caught high on the left shoulder and needed a second slug in the center of the chest to drop him.
Less than a full second had passed since the Chimp had attacked. Bane snatched up another pistol from where a guard had dropped it and leaped up to his feet. He was preparing to empty both guns into Lorenzo if the Human-brained ape came at him, but to his surprise the beast had made a run for it through an open door on the other side of the lab. Something like a white-hot wire sliced across his cheek as he heard the flat snap of a lower caliber weapon behind him. The Dire Wolf fell flat to the floor, stomach down, and snapped off a dozen shots in a storm of gunfire that cut down four more thugs who had appeared in the doorway. Within the past minute, eight corpses had been created in that lab, sprawled where they had fallen, most with eyes and mouths still open.
Knowing it wasn't over yet, Bane rolled twice and hopped up to swing in a semi-circle. The tank had spilled its briny-smelling contents all over the floor. Alarms still sounded. The Dire Wolf stared down at the wreckage and realized that the platform on which Sarah Bellum had rested was gone. Had Lorenzo snatched it up and made a run for it? So it seemed. There was still time to pursue the monsters. Bane sprinted out into the hallway and skidded to a halt in front of a window overlooking the parking lot of the Holcomb Institute. A black SUV was peeling out and hopped over a speed bump as it tore off down the access road. He caught only the faintest glimpse of a dark arm through the driver's side window.
Well. Even after the adrenalin surge and agitation of the previous few minutes, Bane reflected dryly that he would love to see Lorenzo and his boss get caught in a routine traffic check. Long Island cops were blase but everything had its limits. The Dire Wolf satisfied himself that all the gunmen were quite dead. No more were coming, evidently any cleaning crew or maintenance men had scattered at the sound of gunfire.Dr Willets was nowhere to be seen, though. Bane wanted to vacate the crime scene but first he took a full hour to search the facility. He found his blood and tissue samples and flushed them down a toilet, soaking the test tubes in bleach. There was a single manila folder with his name on it, stuffed with onionskin sheets covered with data. That he thoroughly burned in a sink before rinsing the ashes away.
His memory had cleared. When he had come here undercover the previous day, everything he had brought had been dispensable. The nondescript clothing, the burner phone, the beat-up old wallet with its fake IDs. Bane found a row of lockers in a staff room and dug around until he located black dress slacks and a white shirt that would fit him, as well as a pair of loafers. Good enough. A Yankees cap that had been left on a snack table would cover his head. Bane faced the nuisance of having the clamps in his forehead removed as well as the silicone bag implanted into his abdomen, but he would see if Megan Salenger would perform that in the emergency ward at KDF headquarters, He trusted her competence more than most hospital ER staff and she was his teammate who would keep it all secret.
A heavy weariness started to weigh him down as he went to the parking lot and started looking for any car that had keys in it. No luck. He sighed and headed back into the building. This meant he would have to search the bodies for keys and a working phone, not a fun task. Bane had decided to abandon the car once he got to town and could place a few calls. First, to see who was at KDF headquarters who would come and give him a ride. Then to contact Department 21 Black one more time. The FBI's least publicized unit would take over this facility and cart away everything down to the furnishings. By nightfall, there would be a stripped-down empty building. No sign of anything weird would remain to hint at what had happened that day.
Well, almost no hint, he reflected. Somewhere out there on the back roads of eastern Long Island, Lorenzo was driving along frantically, probably with Sarah Bellum stowed in some emergency tank secured in the rear of the SUV. He hoped the brain hadn't survived all the trauma but he had a feeling it was already planning and scheming how to punish him. They'd find him waiting.
12/23/2018
