Between a Bear and a Hard Place(44)

Rogue chuffed. “You don’t know me very well.”

“You’re right.”

Gasmask squeezed. Hard.

“Ah! Hey! Let go!”

He twisted Rogue’s hand, squeezing the much bigger man’s fingers together so hard it felt like the bones were grinding against each other. “Jesus! Stop!”

At once, Gasmask released his grip. “See?”

“Fine,” Rogue said, rubbing his aching hand.

Gasmask turned on his heel and began walking with such impossible smoothness that it was more of a glide than anything else. Each step, his – her? – heel clicked against the smooth tile laid on the floor, but every other part of the movement from the leg extending to the knee bending to the arms moving from side to side was inhumanly smooth.

“If you’re not a robot,” Rogue said, trying to do anything to break both the monotony of walking through blank hall after blank hall, and also relieve some of his tension, “then what are you?”

“Good question. I’m tired of this.”

The rest of the long, winding walk was spent in silence. The strange part was, although his host was entirely unwilling to say anything at all, Rogue couldn’t help but sort of like the... whatever it was. His absolute flat way of speaking, his Newhart-esque wit.

But before there was much time to ruminate on the finer points of Gasmask’s personality, they stopped in their tracks. Gasmask pushed what must have been a few buttons on a panel, though it was invisible. Still, after a few deft touches in a lengthy pattern, the door slid open.

Sitting there was a small, round man with a bald, egg-shaped head. Sweat beaded on the man’s brow. Something – a scarf, or a shawl – was wrapped around the lower part of his head and his neck. The man’s cold, blue-gray eyes regarded Rogue for a lengthy moment before taking a long, deep breath through his nose. When he exhaled, a slight whistle was audible. He steepled his fingers and leaned forward slightly, until his belly touched the edge of the desk in front of him.

“What is—?”

“Quiet.” Gasmask dug a finger into Rogue’s hand, just above the wrist and squeezed until the bear hissed and shut up.

The man’s voice was barely a whisper. Rogue had to concentrate to make out the garbled, whisper-quiet words. “Bring him,” he pressed a couple of fingers into the cloth around his neck. “Closer.”

There was a smell wafting from the man that singed Rogue’s nostrils. The smell of rubbing alcohol was heavy on him, and something else that reminded the bear of hospital smells, though he’d only been in one of those, and only very briefly. It was the scent of sterility, of surgery. When Gasmask shoved him forward again, Rogue felt himself try to resist, to push back from being driven closer to the strange, round man in front of him. Something about the man was unsettling, even a little nauseating.

What is that, he wondered. What’s he hiding under that scarf? Why does he smell like a goddamn doctor’s office?

“Who are—?”

Gasmask squeezed his wrist again, still pushing him closer to the pale lump behind the desk. “This is the one you wanted,” the not-robot intoned. “The others have been sedated.”

“Hum,” the little man grunted. Air hissed underneath the scarf.

Was there a hole there? Some kind of stoma, or scar? Why does he smell like that?

“Less... impressive... than I had hoped. Hand... me that.”

He stretched his fingers toward a notepad on the desk, which Gasmask collected and handed over a second later. Just like walking, his fingers moved impossibly smooth.

The man with the shaking hands scribbled a note and then put down his pen. A clammy pair of fingers, like short lengths of bologna, reached out and caressed the bear’s sweat-covered forehead. A rasp came from that strange neck, and then an ‘hmm’ from the moistened lips. Normally that wouldn’t have flown as far as Rogue could throw an anvil. But something about the room, the man, and the helplessness of his situation just froze the big bear solid. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. It was all he could do to keep breath going in and out of his lungs.

When the hand slid down his jaw, leaving a cold trail in its wake, Rogue felt a shiver run through him.

“Have you ever been...” the man took a long, slow breath. When he exhaled, it hissed and his scarf fluttered briefly. “Been... dead?”

The hairs on the back of Rogue’s thick neck stood at attention. A splash of goosebumps ran down the center of his back. He was absolutely dumbfounded at his reaction. The gruff, wild, Fat Tire swilling bear was utterly helpless in front of this desk-bound toad. He reached out again, but this time Rogue jerked back, avoiding the clammy, cold, trembling fingertips. The man poked his tiny, bright red tongue out between his lips and licked them, leaving a sheen behind.