The Setup
A/N: I don't own any of the MutantX characters. The doctor isn't mine either. This is going to be a dark story, I think. Short and dark. So if you get depressed easily, don't read it.
************
The doctor paced slowly around the examination table, keeping a hand-held monitor poised carefully over her patient. The patient, a man in his early forties lay there silent and motionless in the darkened room. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts and his pale thin body lay face-down, face held steady in a chin harness, a concave hollow in the examination table. A golden beam slowly passed over him every 15 seconds. The doctor watched the monitor's readout intently as she measured from all angles. Finally she gently touched the man's bald head.
"Ok, I'm finished." She told him.
The patient lifted and turned his head upward toward the woman, dressed in a long lab coat. Her stethoscope hung around her neck more as a symbol of her profession than for any utility. Her real tool was in her hand, the portable monitor of vital functions which doubled as a cardiopulmonary resuscitator when necessary, a small black box with a couple buttons and a readout screen. The man sighed deeply, his intense dark eyes accented with straight, dark eyebrows that angled up slightly at the ends studied the doctor. He suddenly squinted and looked away as the beam passed over him.
"How'd I do?" he asked.
The doctor extended her gloved hand toward her patient to help him up to a sitting position. He looked at the proffered hand curiously.
"You never did tell me why you wear those," he commented, allowing the woman to lift and guide him to a sitting position. He studied her pale countenance crowned with a neatly bound mane of dark hair that had streaks of gold running through. The doctor looked sideways at her patient and allowed herself a half smile. He was in a good mood today. She bowed her head deferentially to her half naked subject.
"It's for your protection and for mine," she answered enigmatically, moving behind him. She now extended both of her gloved hands toward his back, starting from the shoulders and slowly but gently ran the tips of her fingers down his back in a vertical line to his waist. She closed her eyes as she sensed the man's physical pain. She probed more deeply. The bald man closed his eyes and visibly relaxed as her hands slowly traveled downward, millimeter by millimeter.
"Sir? This may sound strange, but I have been detecting untapped meta- human potential in you for several months. I have been monitoring this anomaly to see if it was a false reading, but my instrumentation and my natural senses both strongly confirm it."
"Are you saying that I am a New Mutant?"
The doctor nodded. "Potential New Mutant."
"That's impossible," the man replied huffily. "I am a normal human. Except for the genetic destruction that occurred to my body thanks to Adam Kane's experiment, I am perfectly normal." The man craned his neck to look back at her. "What kind of ability?" he asked, suddenly intrigued.
"You are aware that the body learns to compensate for that which is missing. In the absence of your immune system, coupled with the tremendous exposure to both radioactive and mutagenic materials and the months of rest- or shall we say incubation in the stasis pod- your body has been building up a potential of meta-human energy. How it will be utilized may be manifested soon, it would depend on your unique disposition."
The patient had a bemused expression on his face as he contemplated the new information. He suddenly looked alert when he realized that the doctor had finished her therapy and had moved to the console. She was writing something on the clipboard that held his medical chart.
"Are we finished?" he asked.
"Yes." The doctor replied.
The man moved to a small private chamber located in the sterile examination area, removed his shorts and stood at its center. Only his head was outside of the chamber. "Begin sequence." He said.
A translucent mist enveloped his body. Where it contacted his body, it bound to the molecules on his skin and formed a transparent film that allowed his skin to respire and sweat, yet blocked deadly microbes and germs from entering his body. It was his second skin that made it possible for him to live outside a germ-free bubble. The second skin was good for up to seventy two hours, allowing him to live a fairly normal life. This facility even had a sterile bath allowing him to luxuriate in water, cleansing away the toils of the day without the possibility of the water infecting him.
After his body had been mist-wrapped in its protective film, a computer- voice said, "Sealed." The man clothed himself and stepped out of the chamber back into the sterile area. The doctor held a container out to him. He removed a wig of white hair and fitted it carefully on his head. A band of biofilm lined the edge of the wig. The man, highly practiced in this manual operation carefully pulled and stretched the biofilm down over his face and neck. The doctor watched. His expression was relaxed, his eyes closed as he stretched and patted the biofilm onto his skin. He adjusted the wig and looked at her inquisitively.
"You look fine, Mr. Eckhart." The doctor said gently. The white-haired gentleman looked brightly at the doctor. "I've been seeing you for exactly a year now. Would you care to join me for lunch?"
"Lunch?" she echoed, handing his glasses to him.
"To celebrate." He replied with a self-depreciating smile. He knew that the doctor was remembering their first encounter a year ago..
"I asked for a male doctor!" Eckhart had spat at her, his eyes filled with rage. She faced him emotionlessly, her grey eyes studying him.
"There are no male doctors in this specialty, sir." She had replied respectfully without backing down.
"Then get me one."
The doctor looked over at Eckhart's sponsor. "I have no desire to baby-sit an unwilling patient. I have many others who require my expertise. THEY are not female-phobic." She turned to leave.
"I am NOT female-phobic." Eckhart responded, glaring at the pale woman.
"Mr. Eckhart has been accustomed to having a male physician for many years," the sponsor told her. "Unfortunately, he is no longer available."
The doctor stepped close to the white-haired man and scrutinized him. "Perhaps that was a good thing. In addition to fear of women, you appear to have survived the attack of a mutagenic agent. If you will permit me." the doctor extended a leather-gloved hand toward Eckhart. "I won't actually touch you," she hastily reassured him.
"I don't want you reading my mind." Eckhart stated.
"I'm not telepathic." She replied, "I'm a physiological empath."
Eckhart stared at her. "You appear older than the generation of New Mutants that Adam Kane created."
The doctor started at the name. A shadow crossed her face. "I've read his works and my 'condition' is not the result of his experimentations." she replied defensively.
"You seem to disapprove of him," Eckhart commented, watching her carefully.
She grimaced. "I've treated many of his victims, excuse me, patients and have seen an enormous amount of physiological and emotional damage. So excuse my knee-jerk reaction to hearing his name." She held her gloved hand about a foot away from Eckhart's chest for a moment then withdrew it.
"Why do you wear gloves, doctor?" Eckhart's eyes betrayed his curiousity as he looked at his own gloved hands then back up at the doctor's pale complexion.
"For a person who will not be requiring my services, you ask an awful lot of questions." The doctor commented.
**** flash back to the present ************
The doctor sat across from Eckhart in the hospital cafeteria. "you should really try the kale soup," she was saying.
"You're avoiding my question," Eckhart chided her gently. "I've studied you for a year. We have so many things in common, our manner of dress, skin coloring, avoidance of physical contact, our opinion of Adam. So, do you date men, or are you male-phobic?"
The doctor's grey eyes regarded Eckhart with an amused look. The man remembered every little detail since their first meeting. "I am androgenous, although not by choice, Mason. I am unable to have any sexual relations." She watched his expression carefully to gauge his reaction. She considered the man almost a friend, yet had held back from entrusting him with very personal information.
Eckhart listened with interest. "You're very feminine for an android. So you're not homosexual."
"I'm as homosexual as you are." She answered mildly.
"I'm asexual." Eckhart replied softly. "My condition requires that."
The doctor nodded. "Mine too."
Eckhart shifted a little in his chair. "Are you immune-compromised too?" He looked at her gloved hands and gazed expectantly at her. She shook her head and sighed gently.
"I was subjected to mutagenic materials as a child. Space-rock, I believe- under the mound of earth that I played on every day irradiated my body and changed me. I was sick for a long time, the condition resulting in my albino complexion. As an early teen, my body mutated further, causing me to assimilate the life force of any creature that I came in physical contact with. One of my friends ended up in the hospital in a coma for several weeks when I touched her hand. Shortly afterwards, one of the school bullies landed in the hospital in a similar state when he pinned me down and tried to (ahem) kiss me." Her eyes flashed. "My folks couldn't deal with me any more. They sent me away to a boarding school. I wear the gloves for your protection and for mine, otherwise, a stray touch of my unprotected skin could kill you." She finished.
"I understand," Eckhart replied softly.
"I've worked up a new formula for both of us. This will enhance our potential and in turn, strengthen our bodies. I hope to be able to reverse this force within me so that instead of drawing out life force, perhaps I can put some back into my patients and heal them. As for you, you have meta-human potential. Your charisma is human, but there is both an attractive force about you and a superior intellect. Perhaps these will become manifest in some meta-human way." She smiled.
"You're the highly acclaimed genetic reconstructionist" Eckhart quipped. They clinked their plastic glasses together.
"Here's to 12 months together and to our potential," the doctor said smiling.
"And here's to the catalyst,." Mason Eckhart answered matter of factly. They drank the mixture. Michael cleared the table for them. Michael was her concession to Eckhart's original demands for treatment. He wanted a male body-guard in the examination room with him during treatment. She had no problem with the request. A year later, Michael still sat unobtrusively in the corner of the exam room like a fixture or rather, more like a family member. He was a non-mutant, single, loyal. Eckhart was fortunate to acquire men like him for his bodyguard. The doctor gazed warmly at her patient. He was likeable, after all.
"Let me walk you to your car," she said.
.
A/N: I don't own any of the MutantX characters. The doctor isn't mine either. This is going to be a dark story, I think. Short and dark. So if you get depressed easily, don't read it.
************
The doctor paced slowly around the examination table, keeping a hand-held monitor poised carefully over her patient. The patient, a man in his early forties lay there silent and motionless in the darkened room. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts and his pale thin body lay face-down, face held steady in a chin harness, a concave hollow in the examination table. A golden beam slowly passed over him every 15 seconds. The doctor watched the monitor's readout intently as she measured from all angles. Finally she gently touched the man's bald head.
"Ok, I'm finished." She told him.
The patient lifted and turned his head upward toward the woman, dressed in a long lab coat. Her stethoscope hung around her neck more as a symbol of her profession than for any utility. Her real tool was in her hand, the portable monitor of vital functions which doubled as a cardiopulmonary resuscitator when necessary, a small black box with a couple buttons and a readout screen. The man sighed deeply, his intense dark eyes accented with straight, dark eyebrows that angled up slightly at the ends studied the doctor. He suddenly squinted and looked away as the beam passed over him.
"How'd I do?" he asked.
The doctor extended her gloved hand toward her patient to help him up to a sitting position. He looked at the proffered hand curiously.
"You never did tell me why you wear those," he commented, allowing the woman to lift and guide him to a sitting position. He studied her pale countenance crowned with a neatly bound mane of dark hair that had streaks of gold running through. The doctor looked sideways at her patient and allowed herself a half smile. He was in a good mood today. She bowed her head deferentially to her half naked subject.
"It's for your protection and for mine," she answered enigmatically, moving behind him. She now extended both of her gloved hands toward his back, starting from the shoulders and slowly but gently ran the tips of her fingers down his back in a vertical line to his waist. She closed her eyes as she sensed the man's physical pain. She probed more deeply. The bald man closed his eyes and visibly relaxed as her hands slowly traveled downward, millimeter by millimeter.
"Sir? This may sound strange, but I have been detecting untapped meta- human potential in you for several months. I have been monitoring this anomaly to see if it was a false reading, but my instrumentation and my natural senses both strongly confirm it."
"Are you saying that I am a New Mutant?"
The doctor nodded. "Potential New Mutant."
"That's impossible," the man replied huffily. "I am a normal human. Except for the genetic destruction that occurred to my body thanks to Adam Kane's experiment, I am perfectly normal." The man craned his neck to look back at her. "What kind of ability?" he asked, suddenly intrigued.
"You are aware that the body learns to compensate for that which is missing. In the absence of your immune system, coupled with the tremendous exposure to both radioactive and mutagenic materials and the months of rest- or shall we say incubation in the stasis pod- your body has been building up a potential of meta-human energy. How it will be utilized may be manifested soon, it would depend on your unique disposition."
The patient had a bemused expression on his face as he contemplated the new information. He suddenly looked alert when he realized that the doctor had finished her therapy and had moved to the console. She was writing something on the clipboard that held his medical chart.
"Are we finished?" he asked.
"Yes." The doctor replied.
The man moved to a small private chamber located in the sterile examination area, removed his shorts and stood at its center. Only his head was outside of the chamber. "Begin sequence." He said.
A translucent mist enveloped his body. Where it contacted his body, it bound to the molecules on his skin and formed a transparent film that allowed his skin to respire and sweat, yet blocked deadly microbes and germs from entering his body. It was his second skin that made it possible for him to live outside a germ-free bubble. The second skin was good for up to seventy two hours, allowing him to live a fairly normal life. This facility even had a sterile bath allowing him to luxuriate in water, cleansing away the toils of the day without the possibility of the water infecting him.
After his body had been mist-wrapped in its protective film, a computer- voice said, "Sealed." The man clothed himself and stepped out of the chamber back into the sterile area. The doctor held a container out to him. He removed a wig of white hair and fitted it carefully on his head. A band of biofilm lined the edge of the wig. The man, highly practiced in this manual operation carefully pulled and stretched the biofilm down over his face and neck. The doctor watched. His expression was relaxed, his eyes closed as he stretched and patted the biofilm onto his skin. He adjusted the wig and looked at her inquisitively.
"You look fine, Mr. Eckhart." The doctor said gently. The white-haired gentleman looked brightly at the doctor. "I've been seeing you for exactly a year now. Would you care to join me for lunch?"
"Lunch?" she echoed, handing his glasses to him.
"To celebrate." He replied with a self-depreciating smile. He knew that the doctor was remembering their first encounter a year ago..
"I asked for a male doctor!" Eckhart had spat at her, his eyes filled with rage. She faced him emotionlessly, her grey eyes studying him.
"There are no male doctors in this specialty, sir." She had replied respectfully without backing down.
"Then get me one."
The doctor looked over at Eckhart's sponsor. "I have no desire to baby-sit an unwilling patient. I have many others who require my expertise. THEY are not female-phobic." She turned to leave.
"I am NOT female-phobic." Eckhart responded, glaring at the pale woman.
"Mr. Eckhart has been accustomed to having a male physician for many years," the sponsor told her. "Unfortunately, he is no longer available."
The doctor stepped close to the white-haired man and scrutinized him. "Perhaps that was a good thing. In addition to fear of women, you appear to have survived the attack of a mutagenic agent. If you will permit me." the doctor extended a leather-gloved hand toward Eckhart. "I won't actually touch you," she hastily reassured him.
"I don't want you reading my mind." Eckhart stated.
"I'm not telepathic." She replied, "I'm a physiological empath."
Eckhart stared at her. "You appear older than the generation of New Mutants that Adam Kane created."
The doctor started at the name. A shadow crossed her face. "I've read his works and my 'condition' is not the result of his experimentations." she replied defensively.
"You seem to disapprove of him," Eckhart commented, watching her carefully.
She grimaced. "I've treated many of his victims, excuse me, patients and have seen an enormous amount of physiological and emotional damage. So excuse my knee-jerk reaction to hearing his name." She held her gloved hand about a foot away from Eckhart's chest for a moment then withdrew it.
"Why do you wear gloves, doctor?" Eckhart's eyes betrayed his curiousity as he looked at his own gloved hands then back up at the doctor's pale complexion.
"For a person who will not be requiring my services, you ask an awful lot of questions." The doctor commented.
**** flash back to the present ************
The doctor sat across from Eckhart in the hospital cafeteria. "you should really try the kale soup," she was saying.
"You're avoiding my question," Eckhart chided her gently. "I've studied you for a year. We have so many things in common, our manner of dress, skin coloring, avoidance of physical contact, our opinion of Adam. So, do you date men, or are you male-phobic?"
The doctor's grey eyes regarded Eckhart with an amused look. The man remembered every little detail since their first meeting. "I am androgenous, although not by choice, Mason. I am unable to have any sexual relations." She watched his expression carefully to gauge his reaction. She considered the man almost a friend, yet had held back from entrusting him with very personal information.
Eckhart listened with interest. "You're very feminine for an android. So you're not homosexual."
"I'm as homosexual as you are." She answered mildly.
"I'm asexual." Eckhart replied softly. "My condition requires that."
The doctor nodded. "Mine too."
Eckhart shifted a little in his chair. "Are you immune-compromised too?" He looked at her gloved hands and gazed expectantly at her. She shook her head and sighed gently.
"I was subjected to mutagenic materials as a child. Space-rock, I believe- under the mound of earth that I played on every day irradiated my body and changed me. I was sick for a long time, the condition resulting in my albino complexion. As an early teen, my body mutated further, causing me to assimilate the life force of any creature that I came in physical contact with. One of my friends ended up in the hospital in a coma for several weeks when I touched her hand. Shortly afterwards, one of the school bullies landed in the hospital in a similar state when he pinned me down and tried to (ahem) kiss me." Her eyes flashed. "My folks couldn't deal with me any more. They sent me away to a boarding school. I wear the gloves for your protection and for mine, otherwise, a stray touch of my unprotected skin could kill you." She finished.
"I understand," Eckhart replied softly.
"I've worked up a new formula for both of us. This will enhance our potential and in turn, strengthen our bodies. I hope to be able to reverse this force within me so that instead of drawing out life force, perhaps I can put some back into my patients and heal them. As for you, you have meta-human potential. Your charisma is human, but there is both an attractive force about you and a superior intellect. Perhaps these will become manifest in some meta-human way." She smiled.
"You're the highly acclaimed genetic reconstructionist" Eckhart quipped. They clinked their plastic glasses together.
"Here's to 12 months together and to our potential," the doctor said smiling.
"And here's to the catalyst,." Mason Eckhart answered matter of factly. They drank the mixture. Michael cleared the table for them. Michael was her concession to Eckhart's original demands for treatment. He wanted a male body-guard in the examination room with him during treatment. She had no problem with the request. A year later, Michael still sat unobtrusively in the corner of the exam room like a fixture or rather, more like a family member. He was a non-mutant, single, loyal. Eckhart was fortunate to acquire men like him for his bodyguard. The doctor gazed warmly at her patient. He was likeable, after all.
"Let me walk you to your car," she said.
.