Seventy-four

“Marco” the doctor yelled from behind the door of his office.
“Yessir?” his assistant shouted back leaning in close to it.  He knew better than to open it without permission.
“Get a needle and get me a patient ready, STAT!  I think you’re going to find this quite interesting.”
Marco ran to his desk in the corner of the main operating room where the majority of Dr. Ward’s experiments took place.  Quickly producing a syringe from the top drawer, he dashed back to the door and yelled in “What number?
“Seventy-four”
Marco ducked his head down to the keyhole and saw Dr. Ward pacing back and forth murmuring to himself while clutching something small and unrecognizable in his hands.  Though curious, he didn’t delay in crossing the room and shouldering his way through the free-swinging double doors at the other end; returning a few minutes later with patient number seventy-four strapped to a gurney.  Marco wheeled it to the center of the room, then wheeled Dr. Ward’s stainless steel equipment table next to it, removing the syringe from between his teeth and placing it beside the doctor’s forceps.  He nervously pulled out a flask from his back pocket and took a long gulp before stowing it in the drawer of his desk.  If Dr. Ward said something would be interesting it usually meant he’d need a stiff drink before even beginning to think about it.
He approached the office door and knocked gently.  “Come in” Dr. Ward commanded. 
Marco walked in and found the doctor staring up at him through a few feathery wisps of his shoulder length charcoal hair with is face bowed toward several lines of cocaine on his desk.  He snorted one and gave a violent grin.
“Have some Marco; I know you’ve been working hard.”  All of Marco’s skinny frame bowed to him then crossed the room and took a line to each nostril.  Dr. Ward smiled and said “Okay, you’re ready!”
“Ready?” gasped Marco, his eagerness and terror both magnified as the cocaine began to kick.  Dr. Ward dug into his lab coat pocket and produced a small glass vial containing perhaps a gram or so of orange powder.
“This” said the doctor “is the result of the last six months worth of work.  Through some low-dose self experiments I have determined some bizarre effects from this substance.  Although I planned to develop it as a street drug, I think I’ve stumbled across something much greater.”
Marco’s eyes were wide with bewilderment “What do you call it?”
“I’m still working on a name, but for now it’s ‘Mindfuck.’” Dr. Ward put the vial into his breast pocket and took Marco back to the gurney, then, after looking over the equipment, approached the marble-topped counter along the wall by Marco’s desk, turned a gas valve, and with the striking of a match he lit a Bunsen burner.  Tossing the still burning match into the sink on his left, he pulled a cigarette from the pack on Marco’s desk, leaned in towards the flame, and lit it.
Marco watched all this with nervous anxiety that peaked when Dr. Ward made his way toward the patient.  Pulling madly at the cigarette he spoke.  “Patient number Seventy-four…..do you know why I chose this one Marco?”
Marco shook his head.  He suddenly felt as if his mouth was paralyzed.  He wanted a cigarette badly, but found that his legs wouldn’t budge either.
“Because” said Dr. Ward, ashing on the floor “He’s had a full frontal lobotomy.  Do you understand those implications?”
Marco’s eyes grew wider, but he only shook his head.
“This man has had the front half of his brain removed.  He is incapable of thought.  He possesses the capacity to live only by maintaining the most basic of human functions.  He is even unresponsive to all external stimuli.  Observe!”  He turned his half burnt cigarette downward and placed the ember on Seventy-four’s hand.  The smell of burning flesh filled the air, but the man didn’t even twitch.  The terror in Marco’s eyes was masked only by the look of shock on his face.
What Dr. Ward saw was nothing more than a subject for study, while Marco saw a man in his mid-thirties with light brown hair and a week’s worth of stubble on his face.  He saw a human; pathetic, weak, and helplessly alive.
Dr. Ward’s hand slid into the right pocket of his lab coat, then dove into his left, followed by a frenzied patting down of his pants pockets.  Panic was recognizable on his face for a moment, but then became calm when he found the vial in the breast pocket of his shirt.
“Now watch carefully.” he said, picking the cigarette up from Seventy-four’s arm where he left it and placing it between his lips.  He removed the rubber stopper from the top of the vial and set it on the equipment tray, then picked up a pair of forceps.  Again he walked over to the counter and proceeded to use the forceps to hold the vial with its base just above the burner’s flame and the orange powder quickly became a liquid.  Removing it from the heat, with his free hand he picked up the syringe and filled it full of the liquid.  Marco winced as Dr. Ward plunged the needle into Seventy-four’s forearm.  Then his disgust became sublime interest as he saw the corner of the man’s mouth move in a tiny, isolated spasm.
Marco had just begun to mouth “What in the—” when the patient’s whole body tensed.  Dr. Ward picked up a scalpel and placed it just above the cigarette burn on the man’s arm.  Marco noticed that the doctor’s hands were shaking badly.  With one quick swipe Seventy-four’s arm began to pour blood and flex against the restraints.
Dr. Ward’s excitement was all too apparent, for rather than undo the straps just below the shoulders and right above the waist, he sliced them both with the scalpel. He cut the abdominal strap first, and the bleeding arm shot up into the air making a fist.  As he cut the second, the man’s body sat upright.
“How did you—” Marco began, but Dr. Ward already knew the question and cut him off with the answer.
“By accident”
Seventy-four hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but was feeling around for something to grasp in his hands.  He was momentarily satisfied when he found one of the cut straps and was content to pull at it for no apparent reason.
“How’s it work?” asked an astounded Marco.
“It’s complicated” the doctor paused “Besides, I’m not entirely sure.”
Both turned to Seventy-four who had advanced to chewing on the strap.  Dr. Ward flashed a devilish grin “I’m thinking about cutting that last strap.  What do you think?”
“Is it safe?”  The doctor’s eyes flashed but he remained silent.  That alone was enough to answer the question.
“You got any more of that coke?” Marco asked.  Dr. Ward cleared an area on his equipment tray and cut them both a line.  After two long snorts Marco stared at him through glazed eyes.  “Alright, let’s do it.”
When the scalpel slashed through the last strap, Seventy-four noticed immediately.  Although he didn’t move his legs, his mouth opened and allowed the chewed end of the strap to drop, dangling helplessly from his clenched fists.  He emitted a low groan and then fluttered his eyes a few times.  Slowly they worked their way from a squint to fully open as he became accustomed to the light.
Dr. Ward started with a sense of accomplishment while Marco stared purely in wonder.  He was shocked at how much less human Seventy-four looked now that he was awake.  Seventy-four was looking around the room with expressionless eyes.  They danced from object to object, but returned to Dr. Ward and Marco every few seconds.
“How’s it doing that?  It’s not possible.”
“It’s possible, just very improbable.  At any rate, it isn’t ‘him’ in any traditional sense, it’s the drug.  Every trace of ‘him’ was removed six months ago.”
There was a moment’s silence as Marco absorbed this fantastic notion that was shattered with a crash when Seventy-four, trying to dismount the gurney, sent himself spilling onto the ground as the gurney fell on its side.  He lay motionless for a few seconds, then picked himself up and proceeded to stand unsteadily, yet remarkably on his own.  He was face to face with his two observers, narrowing his eyes as if an attempt to see them better, Marco took two steps back.  Being unaccustomed to the field of medicine, this unprecedented discovery was almost too much for him.  Dr. Ward on the other hand picked up his scalpel and took a step forward.  Holding the blade directly in front of Seventy-four, he turned it in his hand to make it glisten in the light in an attempt to draw attention to it.  This was successful, and Seventy-four made a grab for the blade, then withdrawing after his palm closed around it.  Blood poured from his fist but his face, devoid of any emotion, showed no lasting recollection of pain.  Again Seventy-four reached out his hand, but this time touched the razor edge of the blade with his index finger gently enough that only a thread of blood appeared from a miniscule cut.
Dr. Ward beamed while Marco gave only a numb stare.  He hadn’t made the connection that the doctor had and saw this only as a pathetic sign of his mindless state.
Abandoning the self-injury routine, Seventy-four formed a circle around the toppled gurney by walking around and around and around it.  Although still far from graceful, with each lap he built speed (nothing more than a brisk walk) as well as losing the stiffness to his movements.  Finally after nearly five minutes of this, he broke from the circle, his interests drawn elsewhere.  It took only a minute for Dr. Ward to realize what Seventy-four‘s eyes were fixed on: the flame that danced atop the Bunsen burner.
Seventy-four approached it unblinking and placed a finger about two inches from the flame.  Dr. Ward counted as he held it there and reached five before it was pulled back.  Both the eyes and the grin of the doctor grew wider.  Without giving Seventy-four a chance to divert his attention, he dashed back to Marco’s desk, picked up another cigarette, and then held it out in front of Seventy-four’s face.  Just when the patient’s bloody hand reached for it, Dr. Ward pulled it back.  He thrust the end into the fire while Seventy-four watched attentively. 
After taking a couple of drags on it, Dr. Ward held the cigarette out towards Seventy-four, making sure to put the ember at Seventy-four’s eye level.  It succeeded in consuming his attention, and after a few seconds of staring he touched the ember with a bloody finger as Dr. Ward counted aloud once more “One…two..” before it pulled back.  The doctor took two more drags on the cigarette, then pushed the sink faucet’s handle to the left, then stuck his free hand into the stream of water.  Raising it up, he sprayed Seventy-four with the water droplets by flicking his fingers at him, then extinguished the cigarette under the flow of water.  After turning off the faucet, Dr. Ward touched the soggy tip that had been lit seconds earlier.  Following his lead, Seventy-four touched the same spot and held it there for a full fifteen seconds before lowering his hand.
Marco was watching all of this with a confused look on his face.  Finally, curiosity got the best of him and she asked “What is he doing?”
Dr. Ward looked at him with overly-apparent joy.  “It’s learning!”
To further prove his point, he walked over to Marco’s desk, ripped off half of a sheet of paper from a legal pad sitting next to the cigarettes, twisted it into something roughly in the size and shape of a pencil, and stuck one end of it into the flame.  He passed the non-lit end to Seventy-four, manually closing the patient’s fingers around it, watching it burn down silently, drawing closer and closer to Seventy-four’s hand.  When it was close enough that he was sure to feel the heat, Dr. Ward turned on the faucet.  He turned to Marco with self-assuring pride as Seventy-four pushed the paper under the running water and the flame went out with a faint sizzle.
Marco, finally grasping the concept, whispered “There’s no fucking way!” But there was, and it was happening.  While Marco lit a cigarette from the pack he was regretting leaving on his desk, the doctor was engrossing himself with Seventy-four who had taken to wandering around aimlessly, but eventually winding towards the far wall where Dr. Ward had a series of shelves that housed various chemicals in boxes, bottles, bags, and all sorts of containers imaginable.  Seventy-four took some notice of the shelves, but appeared oblivious of the chemicals until a fortuitous loss of footing sent him reeling into the shelf and a glass bottle crashing to the floor.  Dr. Ward knew by the smell and the location on the shelf where fifteen or so identical bottles sat.  The label amongst the shards of glass read: Diethyl Ether.  He had to laugh when Seventy-four staggered from the intoxicating vapors.  The doctor soon went from amused to amazed though as Seventy-four stepped back from the buddle, then approached it again after a good twenty seconds, fell to his knees, pressed his face to the floor, and began breathing deeply and rapidly in and out, in and out.
Marco was just as surprised.  So surprised, in fact, that all he could manage was “Is he…” before trailing off.
Dr. Ward finished Marco’s question as well as answered it.  “Huffing ether?  Precisely!”
The situation was changing as rapidly as Seventy-four was learning.  After is “discovery” of ether, Seventy-four’s hand fell on the neck of what was left of the glass bottle which had smashed more-or-less into the shape of a beer bottle shank used in all the Hollywood bar fights.  The air seemed to fill with tension, and no mistake could be made regarding Seventy-four’s new intentions as he walked toward Marco with his ether-bottle blade raised and ready to cut.  There was no logic behind the change except for the possibility that the drug had switched gears on him.  Logic was the least of Marco’s worries though; as Seventy-four drew near Marco’s main concern was survival.
Fortunately for Marco, the first thing that came to mind to do was to flick his lit cigarette at Seventy-four’s face to slow him down or at the very least distract him.  What Marco did not expect is what happened next.  As the ember hit Seventy-four right square between the eyes the highly flammable ether engulfed is face in flames.  As he threw his hands to his face, they too ignited from the ether while the broken glass bottle crashed to the floor and shattered.  Both Marco and the doctor watched stunned as Seventy-four ran to the faucet, slapped the handle, and used his hands to throw water on his face, putting both out.  Then he turned unfazed, this time eyeing Dr. Ward.
“Holy shit!” Marco screamed.  Dr. Ward, though overwhelmed at what had just taken place, kept his cool long enough to calmly approach his equipment table and wield his razor-sharp scalpel, wearing a fiendishly morbid expression.
“I think this experiment’s gone fare enough” he said, walking toward Seventy-four with his blade raised “wouldn’t you say?”
Marco ignored this obvious question, saying “I wasn’t expecting him to light up like that.  DAMN!”
“I wasn’t expecting him to put it out like that.”  No sooner had Dr. Ward finished saying that (calm and collected as ever); he lunged, aiming his blade for Seventy-four’s jugular.  He made a strong contact, but instead of the sinking feeling he expected the blade sunk into something hard and solid.  Dr. Ward had missed the vital target and only took a small gouge out of Seventy-four’s jaw.  Without pause, Dr. Ward took another swipe, this time determined to stick between his enemy’s ribs, but the blade never met flesh; Seventy-four caught the doctor’s wrist mid-swing.  Dr. Ward’s free hand balled into a fist and blasted his mindless attacker’s cheekbone with force enough to nearly break his fingers.  Still, it was not enough to deter Seventy-four.  With unexpected strength, Seventy-four bent his adversary’s arm back until the scalpel clattered to the ground.
Dr. Ward screamed more from rage than pain and wound back his fist for a second punch.  This one fell solid, dead center on the nose.  He felt a popping beneath his fist and Seventy-four staggered back as a fountain of blood poured down out of his freshly broken nose.  For good measure, Dr. Ward sent his knee into the stomach of the monstrosity.  He succeeded in dropping Seventy-four to the ground, but in doing so brought his foe’s hand close enough to the scalpel to scoop it up.  Now rearmed and posing a significant risk, Seventy-four sent Dr. Ward and Marco retreating into the corner.  Dr. Ward commanded Marco to stay there while he slid Marco’s desk over, barricading his assistant behind it.  Although Dr. Ward was not a particularly scrupulous man, he would sooner place himself in danger than his hired help.
With Marco successfully blocked into the corner, Dr. Ward grabbed Marco’s wooden desk chair in both hands, leapt atop the desk, and raised the chair above his head, ready to smash it over Seventy-four’s head in a flying leap as soon as he was given the opportunity.  Seventy-four seemed to pick up on this and kept a safe distance from the doctor, pacing back and forth aimlessly.  It appeared to Dr. Ward that a stalemate had been reached……….unfortunately, appearances are often deceptive.
The standoff lasted for ten horribly long drawn-out minutes.  Beads of sweat were forming on Dr. Ward’s forehead, and the stress on Marco was so great that two minutes into the showdown he bent over the desktop, opened the top drawer, and polished off the rest of his flask.  For the final eight he returned to the corner in a crouch, hugging his knees and rocking gently back and forth.  Seventy-four made the first move to break their locked game of cat and mouse.  He disappeared behind one of the metal shelves that stored chemicals and returned moments later with a brown glass one-liter bottle clutched in his raised right hand, and four more of the same type held between his stomach and left arm, the scalpel still held tightly in his left hand.  Dr. Ward barely had time to yell “FUCK—ETHER!” before Seventy four threw them all in rapid succession at the walls around the desk and Dr. Ward cringed and raised his arm against the spray of glass and solvent as the five resounding crashes of incoming bottles broke.
A scent like that of paint thinner filled the air with sickening pungency, making the lungs feel like they had been coated in a layer of water.  Just as the dizzying intoxication set in (ringing of the ears, blurred vision, diminished motor function) Dr. Ward’s eyes fell onto the flame of the Bunsen burner just a few yards away.  It would only be a matter of seconds before the massive quantities of the volatile liquid filled enough airspace with its vapors that a cloud of it would touch the flame and that would spell the end of both him and Marco.
The doctor leapt towards it, but inevitably lost his balance, landing hard on his stomach.  He hated leaving Marco to fend for himself as he was doing, but he had a bigger crisis to stop.  He rose to his feet, ripping off his lab coat and ether soaked shirt as he ran, and closed the burner’s gas valve with little time to spare.  He spun around in a haze from ether inhalation and screamed.  Marco had lost consciousness while attempting to climb over the desk and was at that moment being turned face up by Seventy-four.
Dr. Ward made a mad dash to save Marco, but by the time his knee slammed into Seventy-four’s head, the scalpel had already been in and out of Marco twice, and had he not been attacked, Seventy-four would have made yet another deep wound in the young man’s belly.
The enraged doctor kicked Seventy-four twice across the eyes after knocking him to the ground before he received a small cut on his ankle from Seventy-four’s blind swipes.  Then turning, he hoisted Marco onto his shoulders and staggered (still ether-high) into his small personal office.  After locking the door and lying Marco down on the desk he collapsed to the ground overwhelmed.  His assistant was suffering from possibly life-threatening injuries, he was trapped in his office, and to top it all off, his six-shot .38 revolver was I the drawer of the desk in the library which sat directly opposite his office across the 100 foot length of the lab he had just locked himself out of.  He was out of options.
Dr. Ward lay there feeling defeated until his eyes fell upon the enormous metal cage in the corner of the office.  Inside of it lay Angel, his pit-bull, somehow fast asleep despite all of the commotion.  He flashed a manic grin.  She was the answer; she was his way out.
“Angel” he said, and her ears perked up but she remained asleep.  “ANGEL” he yelled, and she leapt up in her cage, her tail wagging and body jerking with excitement.  “Who’s a good girl?” She dropped the front of her chest to the ground in a playful bow.  “Wanna go play?  Yeah?  C’mon, let’s go play!” he said, flinging open the cage.  She threw her front legs onto her master’s bare shoulders and proceeded to lick every square inch of his face.  Twisting and pinning her to the ground, he said “Okay, enough of that.” and planted a kiss right on her nose.  Then he got up, unlocked the door, flung it open and yelled “GET ‘IM!
The overjoyed pit bounded across to the center of the room and made a flying lunge, locking her powerful jaws onto Seventy-four’s right elbow (the one holding the scalpel) and doing a front flip in mid-air, twisting his arm in a most unnatural way until it mad a sickening popping sound and he fell to the ground on top of the dog.
By that time Dr. Ward was already halfway to them and rather than break his course when he reached them, he opted to hurdle their entangled bodies rather than go around.  When he landed, he doubled his speed (a feat he did not think himself capable of) and instead of slowing himself to open the library door, he simply braced himself and threw his shoulder into it, blowing it off its hinges.  The doctor had no recollection of the impact, but a second later found himself laying on the door which slid a good four feet into the room.
He got up as quick as he could and scrambled over to the desk, throwing the middle drawer open.  Just as he expected, there lay the little .38.  Holding it triumphantly he called “ANGEL, C’MERE GIRL!” and sure enough, there she came, tail wagging and tongue hanging out of her mouth dripping blood.  Coming after her, but limping badly was Seventy-four.  Dr. Ward raised his gun and fired.
BANG! Seventy-four’s shoulder was knocked back
BANG! A bullet ripped though his side.
BANG! Another sank into his belly-button.
BANG! He bent over as one hit his hip.
BANG! He collapsed face first as a bullet took out his kneecap.
Dr. Ward approached the bleeding mass on the floor and aimed the barrel right at what laws left of that poor bastard’s brain and said “This is for my close personal friend Marco Mercano!”
BANG! A hole appeared in the back of Seventy-four’s head.
As the doctor walked with Angel back o this office he noticed that Marco had regained consciousness and had been watching through the open office door.  There was a faint smile on his face.  As Dr. Christian approached the desk he tried to comfort Marco by saying “Don’t worry; I am, after all, a doctor.”
Marco ignored this remark and motioned from him to lean in closer.  When he did Marco grinned and in a weak voice said “So, how much will this shit go for on the street?”

Dr. Ward’s Human Research Facility
Undisclosed location, Brazil
July 7, 2001