The Pain Factory

Chapter 1

He awoke with a start and laid there in the dark trying to figure out where he was and how he got there. The last thing he remembered was drinking in some rinky-dinky, run-down, roadside red-neck bar in the middle of nowhere, listening to some sort of red-neck music and minding his own business. Now he was here but where in the world was here. He breathed in strongly, analyzing the smells surrounding him; he could smell old and fresh blood, urine, shit, vomit and the sharp, sour scent of fear. He listened to the sounds, soft moans, crying, whispered prayers and pleas for mercy and knew with certainly that he was in some type of prison. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the hard platform he had been laying on.

Feeling a kink in his back, he started to stretch only to slam his hands into the ceiling. "What the…" he muttered as he slowly raised one hand over his head only to reach the ceiling just a few inches above his head. He wondered how big a Cell he was in; maybe the platform he was sitting on was in a cutout in the wall or something similar. He touched the ceiling again and then stopped, realizing that he was not actually touching it. He had some sort of glove on. By clicking his fingers together and moving right hand up the left arm, he determined that the gloves were metal and ran halfway up his forearms. He laughed and flexed his fingers to spring his claws to their full length and shred the gloves off.

Damm, he thought as he felt the gloves preventing the claws extension. What are these suckers made of. He brought his right hand up to his face so that he could taste the glove to see what it was made of only to run into a protrusion sticking out from his face. Damm what is this!

He felt around this face and determined that the protrusion was like a wire muzzle used on dogs only thicker, about and inch or so from his face and was somehow bonded to the metal of his skull which meant it was also adamantium. The gloves were some sort of flexible adamantium and he could not tug them off as they were bonded to the bones of his forearm. That meant he would not be able to use his claws or fangs. He reached down to his feet and verified that both feet were incased to about mid calf on each leg just like his hands and forearms. He decided to pat himself down to feel what other surprises there were. He found that he was nude and had an adamantium belt around his waist and a collar around his neck.

He decided to see how big the Cell was. The "bed" platform he was sitting on ran from on side of the Cell to the other and was just long and wide enough for him to stretch out to his full height and lay flat on his back. It was about 18 inches in height and ran straight to the floor with no place to hide under. He got down on his knees and edged forward until after four steps he ran into a wall. He repeated the examination until he had found all four walls. It was not a Cell, but a cage. Running his hands over all the surfaces he found that the wall opposite of the "bed" platform had holes drilled along the top and the bottom, big enough to put two fingers through but not his hand. He figured that they were for ventilation.

He growled in frustration and went back to the bed and laid back down as that was the only way he could stretch his entire 6foot 6 inches frame out. The total darkness was beginning to get on his nerves, if he could stand he would be pacing back and forth like a caged lion that he resembled. When he got his hands on the jokers that put him in this undersized box, they would find out that even though he did not have his claws he could still tear them limb from limb with his bare hands. He would teach the SOBs that Sabertooth was not to be taken lightly and that he was just as dangerous without his fangs and claws as he was with. He kicked the wall and felt something give. There was a soft click and something slid out from under the bed.

That quirked his interest and he slid over to investigate. It was a box shape object with an oval depression in the middle. He felt four small buttons off to the side of the depression and pressed the fourth button. He was rewarded with an ice cold shower coming at him from all directions. He roared and started shouting out obscenities at who ever had put him in the box.

"Hey Mister," a soft female voice called to him. "Calm down, please. If you raise a big fuss, they won't feed us."

Sabertooth went quiet and dropped down to the floor near where he heard the voice come from. "What?"

"Just press the same button again and the water will stop. Press the third button and you will be air-dried. The second button raises and lowers the drinking fountain and the first flushes the toilet and activates the bidet spray."

"The what?"

"You know – to clean your self up. No toilet paper."

"Oh – I get it." Sabertooth found the fourth button and pressed it and the shower stopped. He pressed the third one and warm air blasted out of the ceiling drying him off. After a few minutes it stopped and he went and sat on the bed.

"Mister – what's your name? Mine's Nina."

He listened to the voice and decided that she must be really young – just a pup. "I'm Victor. Do you know where we are?"

A loud buzzer when off. "Victor – close your eyes. The lights are about to come on!"

Sabertooth was glad for the warning as the harsh, bright, white lights came on with a loud hum. Even though his eyes were shut he could still feel the pain from the glare of the lights after being in the dark so long. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the lights.

He saw that he was in a large room and that his Cell was not made of metal but of a clear, glass like substance – most likely Lexan Glass, polycarbonate glass, or bullet-proof glass. To his right was the Cell with Nina in it to his left were two others, the occupants still lying down on their bed platforms. On top of the roll of 4 cells were four more and behind him was a similar set up making it a grouping of 16 cells. Across the aisles was another grouping of cells just like his with what appeared to be another grouping to make a total of 48 cells.

He turned to Nina and looked at her. She was a pretty, little, cat-like feral mutant with long, fluffy, calico fur, grass green cat eyes and a tail. Except for the fur and the metal gloves, boots, belt, collar and muzzle like his, she was nude. But when one was furred who needed clothes. He asked his question again, "Do you know where we are? What type of place this is?"

Looking around, she said, "Don't know where this Hell Hole is but what it is easy to see. It's a Pain Factory and these so-called doctors use us as lab rats and spare parts. Testing one thing or another on us. If some rich dude needs a kidney or some other body part they rip it right out of us. " She hugged her legs closer to her body and continued. "You see, Victor, every single one of us here in this Hell Hole are mutants with a certain type gift they find very useful."

Looking around to the other occupants now starting to move around , he noticed that the others were all some type of feral mutant, male and female all similarly attired like Nina and himself. "How can us all being feral be useful?"

A rueful sound came to his ears. Looking back at the young girl, he saw her roll her eyes in exasperation at his question. "No big guy, it is what all of us have in common despite being feral. Every single one of us have some type of healing factor. Some are really fast healers while others have factors that aren't as good. Take me for instant, I can heal myself from minor cuts and bruises in a few minutes while it takes several hours to days to heal the worse the cut is. I can't re-grow organs or other body parts if they are too badly damaged or removed. Once the bastards burnt me over 40 of my body just to see how fast I could heal from it. I healed in several weeks but the scars did not go away. That's why you see a kitty cat in this cage as I went feral instead of keep up my human appearance – the fur hides the scars."

She used the end of her tail to wipe away the tears and continued, "Now they just test drugs on me to see how I react. Sooner or later, they'll hit on something that I will not be able to come back from and that will be my ticket out of this place – in a body bag. At least I'm luckier than some of the others, I'm not a subject every single day." She pointed at the empty Cell directly across from Sabertooth's Cell. "Like the guy in that cage. Every single day they do something to him and when they are finished for the time being, they drag him back and throw him back in the cage to heal. Just to do it again the next day. Victor? Are you a fast or slow healer?"

He sat on the floor of his cage near her and said, "Fast – really fast."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

A loud clanging noise was heard and Victor noticed that the steel doors at the end of the room started rolling up. He could not see who was coming through the opening but could smell food and could hear the squeak of the delivery cart's wheels and the footfalls of the attendants as the cart was pushed from cage to cage. By the time they reach the row he was on, his stomach was growling in anticipation. One attendant touched a button on the cart and all along the row small opening appeared in the front wall on the bottom of each cage. Into each cage, whether it was occupied or not, a covered plate with a container of orange juice was slid in.

When they reached his cage the large of the two men looked at him as the other slid his plate in. "As you are new, Mutie, you don't know the rules. So here it is -- You will be well fed during your stay here, but if you cause any sort of trouble all you will get will be stale bread. Do you understand?"

Victor glanced over to the cage next to his and saw Nina mouth the word "please don't" so he decided that for the time being not to smart off and cause any trouble. "Yeah – what do I do with the dirty dish when I am done?"

"Just slide it out the same slot. It will be picked up later." With that they proceeded on with their duties.

Victor sniffed at the covered dish and smelt bacon and fried eggs, fried potatoes and buttered toast. He smiled as he lifted the cover off the dish and saw that what he had smelt was the actual food and not some slop thrown together and covered up by a fake scent. It's a dammed shame, he thought, I could really enjoy this if not for the surroundings.

With that thought, he started eating. He used the toast to mop up the last of the eggs and drained the orange juice. He did as all the others were doing and pushed the empty plate and container out into the aisle and drew his hand back quickly as the slot's door closed with a vicious snap.

He sat back on the platform and started looking around noticing every thing. Even though the cage was a well thought out high tech cage – it was still just a cage and no cage had ever held him for very long. The X-Pucks had found that out, as had the Runt. All it would take was one mistake and he would be out of this hellhole and the prick guards would find out what payback was all about.

"Hey Victor," called Nina. "Since we all here in these glass cages, it is not polite to stare at one another. You know – we all try to give each other some sort of privacy. If you know what I mean?"

" Yeah Kid, I can understand that. I am just taking in the surroundings and try to see if there is any way out of here."

"You remind me of the guy in the cage across from you. He was the same as you when he first arrived, but now…", she shrugged her shoulders, " when he is not being worked on , he just lays there and tries to recover."

"How long …?" Before he could complete the question, the double doors at the end of the room slid open and a couple of white-coated men glided a large gurney with someone laying on it into the room. They brought it around the corner of the cages and stopped in front of the empty cage across from Sabertooth's. The smaller of the two "docs" touched the controls on the gurney and typed in some code then the front wall of that cage slid out and then upwards. The doc punched another code and the bed of the gurney lifted off the frame and moved into the cage. It tilted toward the back of the cage and out of the sleeping platform at the back of the cage came a cable, which attached itself to the belt around the person's waist. As the gurney bed moved out of the cage the cable retracted, pulling the person off onto the floor of the cage. Once the bed reattached itself to its frame the cage door slid shut and the cable detached itself and slid back into the platform. As the gurney and the "docs" were still in the way Sabertooth could not see that cage's occupant.

The two "Docs" turned and looked at him. One asked, "Is this one next."

The other pulled a ThinkPad out of his lab coat's pocket and typed in a query. "No – not yet. Doctor Samuels is not yet ready for him. We are to take Subject 22B." He put the pad away and they headed to the cage of Subject 22B.

Sabertooth looked across the aisle and saw that the occupant of the cage across from his was laying on the sleeping platform facing the back way. He caught a familiar scent and went up to the front of the cage. He shouted through the vent holes, "Yo, Runt!" When the occupant did not stir, he shouted again, "Hey, Logan!"

Upon hearing that, the man across the way turned over and looked at Sabertooth. Logan had large burns covering most of his body which were starting to heal and one of his eyes was bandaged. He had similar gauntlets on his hands and feet and had both the belt and collar on. However, he did not have the muzzle like Sabertooth's. " Creed, I see that they got you too."

Creed looked at his sometimes adversary and saw that even though the burns covering Logan's body were healing – they were not healing as rapidly as they could. Logan looked gaunt and ill. "What have they done to you?"

Logan gave a wry chuckle. "You're worried about me? "

"Nah – no one gets to kill you before I do and you look like shit warmed over."

"Thanks for your concern but I will see you in your grave first." Logan slowly set up and looked over to Nina in her cell. "Hey Kiddo, how you doing? Can you change back to human form?"

She looked at Logan and back to Creed and shook her head. "I don't want to. I'm all scared up. I don't heal up like you. At least the docs leave me mostly alone now."

A pearcing scream like a cougar's filled the room and then a man screamed in pain. A few moments later a troop of armed soldiers ran through the double doors and down the far side. There were more cougar screams and men shouting, then a blast of gunfire rang out and the screaming stopped. The gunfire continued for a while longer and then stopped. Several other white-coated docs entered the room with a regular gurney and went over to where the soldiers were standing around a downed cat like mutant and an injured doctor.

Creed hit the walls with his manacled fists and roared out a challenge for the white coats to come and get him Logan looked over to him and shook his head. "You'll learn not to bring attention to your self. Those pricks just love to pick out the strong ones to test."

Looking at Logan in disgust Creed said, "I never thought I'll see the day Runt when you would show yellow."

"It's not showing yellow to be smart when you are trying to survive." Nina said. "If Logan would try to be a bit more like me they wouldn't pick him as much. When they use to come for me he would act up and get taken instead. Look at him now!"

Creed looked over to his old adversary and saw how thin he was and how his once solid black hair was now showing some silver in it. Logan glared back and crawled over to his sleeping platform and laid down on it. He rolled onto his side facing away from the front of the cage. Creed looked over at Nina and saw that she did the same. So he sat back on his sleeping platform and watched and waited.