There is a New Villainess in Town

© 2011 by: Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Three

Rebecca woke inside the empty tank, it wasn’t the same room she realized after fighting down the intense pain of her broken bones. Not unless she had been unconscious a couple of days so they could clean it up and reset it. If it hadn’t been for the clamps holding her up she would have collapsed in mind numbing pain. Abruptly a man in a white coat stood before her, oddly he didn’t look anything like the preferable mad scientist, in fact he was quite handsome. Attractive even, if she had been into boys that was. “So” she said softly, husbanding her word. It hurt to breath, it hurt worse to talk. “You make me monster.”

Looking aside to where Rebecca could not see the man gestured for someone to come over. Turning his attention back to Rebecca he shrugged. “Like you Miss I’ve no choice. Oh, I could kill myself but my sisters would take weeks to die, they promised me that. So your to be the new Super Villain?”

“Looks like it. What, a snake?”

“No Mam” the man answered. “I understand you love cats? That was one of the reasons you were chosen.” He turned his head to the side, facing someone. “All right Pat, let her see you.”

There was movement to her right, then a black and white housecat moved into her view. It looked completely normal, except that it stood over five feet tall. “Hello” the cat said gently, waving a hand that looked much too human. “I’m Pat.”

If Rebecca’s jaw hadn’t already hurt so much it would have dropped to the floor. She stared at the woman before her who was completely naked except for a full body covering coat of long fur. “Ha.. How” she asked eventually.

It was the man who answered her. “We basically melt your body, except for your nerve system, which includes your brain of course. The enzymes were designed to ignore nerve tissue, then we add the chosen, and very altered feline DNA to rebuild your body. It takes about two months.” He put a protective arm around Pats shoulder and to Rebecca’s surprise the feline leaned against him. “Pat was my first human victim” he admitted. “She is my assistant, just as she was before the change. This group discovered what we were researching, discovered that we had success’s with our lab animals then one day we woke up here with all our equipment and notes.”

He looked down at the woman in his arm. “Pat is a wonderful woman Miss Feinstein, we’ve been married for years. When they ordered me to test the process on her I balked, when they started on her with the electrical tortures I broke. I couldn’t see her savaged, I couldn’t let them burn her brain out.”

“What about it Pat” Rebecca asked through a dry throat.

“Better this than death” the feline answered. “And I still have...” She pressed closer to the scientist. “We can’t have children now but that hasn’t stopped us from trying. All they can do now is kill us, promises or not, we know we are not going to wake up some day on a deserted island. They will simply kill us or keep us here in case you fail. Miss, you are our ticket to ending our madness and I really wish you wanted this but they don’t care. They are scared to death that the Super Heros are going to turn on them some day and they have nothing that can match them. Short of nuking them and all of New York.”

Rebecca struggled with her thoughts, then nodded gently yes. “Fine, lets get this over with. I assume that there is a lot of pain?” Saying that long line cost her more burning pain, but she wanted, needed to be clear.

“None” Pat answered. “A gas will put you to sleep before the gel is introduced. Before your brain can be damaged by lack of oxygen it will be fed by the nutrient. I’ve watched the films of my own change, its icky seeing your entire nervous system floating free in that tank. But then the new body builds, incorporating your nerves back where they belong. Even your eyes are replaced.” She tried to give Rebecca a smile, but her facial muscles were not up to the challenge. “Unless something happens to me I’ll be there when you wake up. I promise.”

“Before we start” the white coated man said, gently pushing Pat out of sight but not before patting her gently on her buttocks, “I need to know what kind of feline you would prefer to be.”

“I finally get a free choice?” Rebecca asked softly.

“Probably the only one until they let you out to start killing Super Heros I guess” he answered.

“I don’t kill unless I have too so what options?”

Turning to a computer screen, a rather large one Rebecca noted the man pulled up a file. “It’s a stupid slide show” he admitted. “We will go through it once, you call out the numbers of the types that interest you. Then we will go just through them. We’ve all day so don’t rush.” He looked up into her eyes. “Please don’t rush, you see this isn’t reversible.” At her nod he started the slide show.

Hours later they had it down to two species. A Snow Leopard and a Bobcat. “It’s the tail, isn’t it” the scientist asked while an image of the Snow Leopard was on his screen.

“Vanity” Rebecca agreed. She could seriously go for a drink of water now and a bathroom break. Besides, the clamps were really starting to hurt. “And the fur. But I like the Bobcat too.”

“Then let us go with the bobcat” her companion decided. “A Snow Leopard’s fur will drive you nuts just combing it and that tail may be beautiful but it will be a liability in a fight. Shedding season? You’ll never get that mess cleaned up.”

“Bobcat it is” Rebecca decided. “Lets get started.” She watched as the scientist wrote down the number on that image then came to her prison tank. “Two months Miss, I hope to still be alive to see the results.” Then he entered a code into the panel attached to Rebecca’s prison. A hiss came to her ears, along with a mechanical sound of gears. Looking up she watched as the tanks stainless steel lid closed. Soon groggy she retained just enough consciousness to see the light blue liquid start entering through her prisons base. She certainly wasn’t awake to feel the clamps release and retract, or the pain her body experienced as no longer supported she collapsed. And she certainly didn’t feel the horror as her body first drowned, then started to dissolve. Nor did she see the four now unmasked figures walk into the laboratory.