Slater triggered the door to open just long enough for them to both step through before it closed and locked behind them.
No computerized equipment or beeping machines cluttered the room, though such equipment could be at hand in seconds. Instead the room was filled with strange devices made of copper, wire, bolt, and leather.
It looked like a madman’s laboratory.
Or a torture chamber.
These were the things taken from Dr. Case’s home. These were the designs meticulously sketched in his research.
These were the things that Quinten had used to make a girl immortal, and these things would now make him immortal.
Two clean tables with restraining straps draped off the sides, lay waiting in the center of the room. An array of lights and a spread of medical equipment that was a collision of low and high technology spread out across clean trays.
“Today you will be undergoing modifications,” Slater said, holding his gloved hand out toward one of the tables.
Robert Twelfth hesitated.
“You will serve House Orange without question or pause,” Slater said. “I assure you no permanent harm will come to you, as is law by contract and seal.”
The galvanized made eye contact this time, hatred hooded there.
Slater met its gaze, waiting. His was the only power in this room.
Finally, the creature walked over to the table and lay down upon it. “What is it you want of me?”
“I want you to relax, Robert Twelfth. And when you wake, your purpose will be clear to you.”
Slater knew the galvanized couldn’t feel pain. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t feel fear. The light sheen of sweat that covered its forehead betrayed its seeming calm.
“You may come in now, Mr. Case.”
Robert flinched at the name. A curious reaction.
Slater watched the galvanized for any other reaction as Quinten Case entered the room, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t blink.
Quinten wore clean clothes but not sterile scrubs. He had insisted that the kind of operation he was going to perform wouldn’t spill blood.
Slater did not believe him, of course. But to ensure that the procedure went according to his wishes, he had arranged for a small motivational offering to be on display.
Quinten Case walked over to the table and secured the galvanized’s wrists, feet, and torso with straps even a monster like it could not break.
The galvanized and the man made eye contact, but they did not speak to each other. They both understood the price they would pay for stepping out of line.
“The injection,” Slater ordered.
Quinten Case selected a syringe from the table and inserted the tip of it into the galvanized’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He thumbed down the plunger.
Robert Twelfth’s eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp. Unconscious.
“Now, Mr. Case,” Slater began. “You will note that your sister is still within my grasp.”
The wall behind Slater faded to display a screen.
Slater enjoyed watching the man struggle to close down his reactions to what he saw there.
His sister, Matilda Case, was standing in a room with the heads of House Gray and House Black, a mutant, and two galvanized. The screen showed the scene from three angles, as the scopes of guns followed the slightest shift of her every move.
“When you are done,” Slater said softly, “when you are successful in transferring my mind into the galvanized body, I will give those gunmen the code to stand down. It is a word only they and I know. If you try to kill me, your sister will die. If you try to stop me, your sister will die. If you are unsuccessful in transferring my mind, memories, and thoughts into that galvanized brain, your sister will die.
