Between a Bear and a Hard Place(42)

“Yes.” The voice was cold, static and impossibly even. “I can speak.”

The same figure had been standing in front of the two Broken Pine alphas since they’d been deposited in this place. This place, which could have been anything. Memories of the last half-day were fuzzy. Rogue remembered a burning sensation in his chest. He remembered the smell of copper and iron in his nose, and then he remembered absolutely nothing. He looked over at King again, who was lolling his head from side to side, incoherent and babbling every so often.

“Then tell me what the hell is going on,” Rogue said.

“No.”

“There’s no point to arguing with you, is there?”

“No.”

Rogue’s shoulders slumped. The chains on his wrists rattled with every move he made, and every breath he took made what he assumed must be bruised ribs send tendrils of pain snaking up his back. “Can I at least have something to eat?”

The black-clad figure just stared. Its eyes were soulless, black circles underneath a set of goggles that covered most of the top of its head. A close-fitting hood covered the head, and then the gas mask – that haunting, bizarre gas mask that strummed something deep in Rogue’s soul that he couldn’t place.

“Are you a robot?”

The creature stared for a moment before static heralded some coming words. “No.”

“Can you say anything other than no?”

It made a clicking sound, then static before producing something that approached a chortle. “No.”

“Oh good, not only are you holding us down here, God only knows where and pumping God only knows what into our kin’s veins, you’re a comedian. Fantastic.”

The thing stared.

King groaned, Rogue massaged his bruised ribs.

“What,” the static gasmask began, speaking without being prompted for the first time. “What are you?”

“Me?” Rogue laughed and cocked one of those half-smiles that made Jill weak in the knees. “I’m a robot, and all I can say is no.”

The figure took a step forward and pushed a series of buttons on the panel beside the door, which slid aside. Rogue tried kicking at him, but the shackles on his legs prevented that, and those on his arms barely gave him enough slack to move his hands. He flexed his fists and found they were completely free. But before he could make a move, a blinding flash of white pain shot through the bear’s nerves, blasting his entire consciousness with searing agony. A moment later, he fell to the ground in a twitching heap.

“Not a robot,” the gasmask said. “Not a comedian. But that was a cattle prod.”

Behind him, the bear he’d just dropped was unleashing loud, terrified, throat-tearing screams.

Just the way he liked it.

Shutting the door behind him, Gasmask smiled under the formless rubber facemask that covered his head. It hurt, the way his lips stretched and the metallic, hydraulic jaws that were attached to his actual jaws, shifted.

He couldn’t remember when the last time was that he felt air on his face.

Then again, he couldn’t remember if he even had a face.

There was a certain comfort to it, a certain peace that came from knowing he had no part in his own fate.

But, then again, Gasmask always had been the rebel. As two other, identically dressed, figures stalked down the hall of cells, turned on their heels and went back the other way, he wondered if they – the other soldiers – even wondered anything at all.

Two of them marched past again, their suits emitting the static sound to which he’d become accustomed. One of the soldiers pressed a small gasket on the neck of his suit. A hiss escaped. That reminded Gasmask to do the same thing. As soon as he did, the pressure that had built up behind his mask escaped in a long, slow hiss.

“Not a comedian,” he said again, to the unconscious bear in the room in front of him. “And not a robot. But... I don’t remember who I actually am. If I’m anyone at all.”





-13-


“Not a comedian, huh?”


-Rogue


Red rage flowed hot and thick through Rogue’s veins.

With each beat of his heart, with each thump of his pulse, he felt more angry, more unreasonably confused, afraid, and furious than he had before. King was still on the ground, still moaning.

Even that made him angry.

“Let. Me. Out.”

Gasmask was still staring at Rogue, although something in the big bear’s shoulders and in his chest ached. He didn’t know what, but he knew something had happened. One of his eyes twitched every few seconds. The other seemed unable to focus. He managed to push himself to his feet and immediately collapsed backward against the wall, unable to move in any meaningful way.