[color=7ea7d8]"What - "[/color] Martin's head reeled, and he stepped back from the shield, as much from the horror of what he was hearing as obedience. [color=7ea7d8]"I'm, I'm not..."[/color]

[color=87CEFA][i]You've been directly exposed to a Miasma carrying organ...[/i][/color] Martin trembled, and without being aware of it a ripple passed through his flesh, a line of transformation that flowed up from the fingertips of his left hand like a wave, finishing with his right, an inch-wide shift that faded away again as the line moved. There was a moment when first one and then the other eye disappeared, others opening up along his body, that registered as a sudden visual distortion. Like dizziness. He blinked and forgot, the reaction of his observers going unobserved. [i][color=7ea7d8]Miasma...[/color][/i] Hadn't there been something in the news? Some new disease, it drove people crazy, put their faces into rictus, caused tumors and bone growths, but...major outlets wouldn't verify, and the message board details were always so fantastic, more conspiracy stuff than anything. Miasma in the streets, alien abductions in the cornfields. Except

[color=ed1c24]Wet red ropes, a spider's Eden, breathing in cobwebs of viscera...
The thunder of another's pulse, veins tearing into his veins, pumping - something...
The stink of blood, it was flooding his lungs, his eyes, his mouth, something else under the taste...
Bitter and sweet, like poisoned candy, it almost made him want to[/color] [color=BC8F8F]smile.[/color]
 
maybe it wasn't just conspiracy stuff. A disease, like rabies, except it also made people turn into monsters... [color=7ea7d8][i]My hand changed. I saw that happen. I felt it happen. It could be a hallucination, only...[/i][/color] Only he was here in some clean white containment cell, warded off by a polycarbonate shield, and the guy talking to him had brought guns to do it. Big guns. Which...

Martin paused. He'd opened his mouth to say something about his rights, needing his phone back, but something was wrong. [i][color=7ea7d8]Luca D. Beake. Not a DOCTOR Luca D. Beake, and...no department, no...oh, fuck. Oh no.[/color][/i] He was looking at the scientist, replaying what he'd heard. No. That wasn't official parlance of any kind he recognized, and the flanking bodyguards...was that military armor? Maybe. Maybe not. Martin was thinking not. [color=7ea7d8][i]Where the fuck am I?[/i][/color]

The image of his hand flashed through his mind again, and something else. An instinct, an impression of - what? He looked up at the shield. His jaw rippled, teeth stretching out and melting away. [color=7ea7d8][i]I could get out.[/i][/color] [i]Weight[/i], that was the impression. Force. Somehow he knew he could build up enough of it to punch whatever his hand had become, that killing spike of bone, through the polymer. One hole could become many, with a few minutes to work he could...

The hissing in the room brought Martin back to reality with a start. [color=7ea7d8][i]I could maybe get past this one obvious barrier. Assuming the room doesn't fill with poison gas or electrical current. And then...they fill me up with holes, or, fuck, I don't know, blow the whole chamber. And even if that doesn't happen, I have no idea where I am or what's on the other side of that door.[/i][/color] A cold sweat broke out and started to trickle, and he stared at Luca, to the guards, looking for something, anything in their eyes except for...what Luca had said. About pain.

He thought maybe this was the worst trouble he'd ever been in.

Time. [i][color=7ea7d8]I need to think.[/color][/i]

What to do? [color=7ea7d8][i]Play the game.[/i][/color]

[color=7ea7d8]"I don't feel great, Luca. Like I'm Wile E. Coyote at the end of the skit, after he's been run over a few times, you know? I, uh, I don't suppose I could trouble you guys for some water. Or a phone."[/color]