Subject: [OTL]: (Ult-X) fic: "The Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg" (surprise characters) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 00:09:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Minisinoo -- THE GOOSE WHO LAID THE GOLDEN EGG Minisinoo Summary: Ult-X, Weapon-X arc (post issue #8), very short vignette of less than 1000 words. The thoughts of a special mutant prisoner. Warnings: Some disturbing discussion, nothing shown. Notes: Look who's helping Weapon X. (This one will make more sense, the more core comic background one has.) It popped into my brain as I was taking care of a sick baby at 3:30 in the morning. CHALLENGE: Somebody else write the next part. ;> Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel, Miller, et al. -------- They keep me isolated from the other mutants in the Weapon-X program, and I'm never sent out on missions. I'm too valuable. I'm the goose who lays the golden egg. I breed true. The other mutants here either don't know about me or hate me because I get enough to eat and the guards aren't allowed to mishandle me -- nothing which might cause a possible miscarriage. But I wonder if my lot is so much better? In four years, I've given birth to three children, none of whom I've seen since their sixth month. And at least the other mutants here remember who they were before. All I know is that I woke in a lab four years ago, already three months pregnant with no recall of who I'd been or what I'd done in my life. I can't even remember what my body feels like to be normal. I watch it grow each time, distort until my belly-button pops out and I can't see my own feet, can barely spend half an hour off the toilet. Then the baby comes in sky-ripping pain. They could give me drugs but they won't -- fear it might hurt my offspring, never mind that it hurts me. Intense labor is like having two white-hot swords driven in on either side of your womb, and the baby tears you apart coming out. Maybe some women have it easier, and maybe wanting the baby makes a difference, but I'm not so blessed. So, it's nine to ten months carrying, six breastfeeding, a month to rest if I'm lucky, and then it starts all over again. I figure they'll breed me until my body wears out, or I die on the birthing table. But they'd probably do anything in their power to prevent that. After all, I'm the golden goose. Every one of my children will be a telepath-telekinetic. Who can hide secrets from a telepathic spy? Or what could resist the force of sheer will if enough power lies behind it? It's that magic combination of my ability with pure, raw *power* that they seek, because I don't have the power within myself. Now, the door to my cell opens and I stand, watch the familiar figure enter. Nathaniel Essex. Grey hair, white lab coat, glasses, a sharp face and eyes as black as the night sky. No mercy. No cruelty, either -- not like Wraith -- but a man without human compassion. "It's time for number four?" I ask. It's already been longer than I'm usually granted between pregnancies. They took Clara from me almost two months ago. But he shakes his head, seats himself in the comfortable, reclining chair that I'm permitted in my plush cage. "Not today. I'm waiting for a very special new prisoner." If eyes could glow, his would be doing so. "Your perfect match." "I didn't know I had one." I've learned to be sarcastic without appearing to be. "Oh, indeed. I've known of this man for a very long time. Why do you think we came here? Not to further that idiot Wraith's militaristic paranoia. The other children were my payment. I delivered three infants certain to be mutants and trainable from infancy." I said nothing about his choice of pronoun. Certainly *he* hadn't been the one to deliver them. "And in return, Wraith will collect for me the one mutant I want. Your perfect mate." He smiles. It's winter cold. "What makes you so sure that Wraith can catch this 'perfect mate.'" "Because, my dear, he already has. Soon, soon -- I'll send him to you." "What makes you think he'll see me as his perfect match, just because you do?" "Because you were made to be, my dear. You were made to be." And I wonder just what the hell that means. Rising, he comes over to lift my hair and study it critically under the bright overhead lights. "The color has returned finally. All the red is back." Carrying girls, they say, is bad on the hair and skin, and my last two have been girls. "But we must put you on a diet. Can't have you thirty pounds overweight, now can we?" I don't reply, just glare. Food is my only consolation in this place. "Why are you so certain this guy Wraith will deliver?" Essex turns his winter smile on me. "Because he knows what will happen to him, if he doesn't." Turning, he heads for the doorway. "I'll speak to the kitchen about your new diet. Have a good evening, and enjoy your vacation." "What if *I* don't want this guy?" I call after him. He pauses in the doorway to glance back at me. "You will have a child by Scott Summers, if I must artificially impregnate you as I did the first time. As for your motivation -- when we finally have the child we've been seeking, we won't be giving it up to Wraith. We'll leave this place for good, and you will be permitted to watch your child grow up." And he shut the door quietly behind him. Leaning over, I wept into my hands. I wept for the three children I'd never see again, and for the one I would finally raise. Essex thought to turn my child into a weapon, a plan to which I'd cheerfully submit. But that child would be *my* weapon. I, Madelyne Pryor, would raise him to kill Nathaniel Essex. ---- Anybody game to take me up on the the story thread?