How Jack lost his limbs

It was a risky mission. Jack knew that. It was not much different, however, than the many missions he'd been on before in his profession as a hit man. He felt confident enough in his skills to handle pretty much anything thrown at him at this point. ‘Bring it on!’ was one of his favorite phrases. Therefore, as he crept slowly along down the tight, cramped space of the air duct of a large warehouse, risk was not a major concern on his mind. He could never in a thousand years have guessed what awaited him at the end of the night.

His mission was to take out the head of an illegal drug corporation, operating under the assumed name of MetroCorps, a supposed packing company. The corporation had been dealing in smuggled and illegal drugs, as well as experimenting with new drugs and poisons of their own design, testing them unscrupulously on unwilling human subjects. He’d read the file, shrugged, thought of the thirty grand he’d be getting when it was all said and done, then accepted the job with a handshake and a smile, as he always did, then headed out the door.

About three days of prep later found Jack in the middle of a maze of factory air ducts, trying to navigate his way to the basement, where he believed the actual laboratory to be. Air ducts were cliché, yes, and shaky at best, but with all the security in the place Jack had had little other choice. He’d covered his shaggy bright blue hair with a black ski cap to match the rest of his gear and snuck past the front security guard and around back, thankfully finding an external vent reasonably accessible.

“Damnit-“ The eighteen year old muttered under his breath as the path ahead of him split. He hadn’t anticipated that. He’d foolishly forgotten his map at home, but he had the vague feeling that the basement lab was somewhere to the left...ish. He took the left fork and before long, a side vent came into view, casting sharp white bands of light across the duct wall before him. Jack moved cautiously forward until he could peek out from one of the slits in the metal plate, peering into the room beyond. Bingo. He was looking at rows of tables laden with test tubes and beakers, simmering distillers and other laboratory equipment, all bathed in a sterile, harsh white lighting. About seven men in white coats were tending various bubbling concoctions, while a balding man in a black suit and tie and sunglasses observed. That was his man, Jason Rieder. At his side was a thin, young looking blonde man with a clipboard, talking animatedly about something. Jack couldn’t make out what he was saying.

A second glance told Jack he was positioned near the middle of the room, height-wise. A perfect height for taking aim. He smirked and slowly withdrew his small sniper rifle, setting it up on a low stand and positioning it so that the end of the gun was pointed between two of the bars in the grate. He shut one eye and peered through the viewfinder, moving the gun just millimeters to get the suited man in his sights. He silently cursed the grate as he found one of the bars directly in his way. The hit man raised his head and thought for a moment before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a pair of razor sharp wire cutters. Praying they would do the job, he slowly lifted the tool and began to try to cut through the offending bar. Luckily, the thin aluminum of the grate couldn’t stand up to his cutters, and within a moment he’d quietly snipped away the obstruction. He counted himself lucky the men in the room below were so preoccupied.

Jack set the piece of metal aside softly before returning to his viewfinder. He nudged the sight ever so slightly, centering the cross-hairs over Jason Reider’s heart. He took a second, then a breath, then pulled the trigger. A sharp fwipp! filled the air as the bullet whizzed through the air, striking the balding man in the chest. There was a sharp, echoing gasp, followed by the loudest second of silence Jack had ever witnessed as time seemed to stop. Just as quickly, however, it snapped back into motion, making up for lost time. Immediately all of the men in coats ran over to their boss, who had fallen to the ground, a bright red flower of blood blossoming against his white undershirt.

Jack pulled himself back quickly out of view, listening as someone shouted orders. The rabble of voices and footsteps slowly died down as Jack guessed the men were fleeing the room to get help. He knew whoever they brought, however, it would be too late. He smirked to himself a job well done, then started to put his gun away, preparing to make a quick and silent getaway. He paused, however, as he heard something very strange coming from the laboratory. Silence. He’d assumed they would at least have left someone to check over the room; try to find out where the shot had come from. The hit man held his breath, listening hard. No footsteps... no alarms... no sound but the low gurgling of a beaker someone had left to boil.

His curiosity got the better of him. Slowly he crept back up to the grate and peered out into the room. It was deserted but for the unmoving body of Jason Reider. The hit man paused for a second, considering. He then shifted forward and pushed against the grate. It fell open easily, which surprised Jack, before swinging down on a hinge and clattering against the wall below. Jack winced at the noise as it echoed and slowly died down, but no one came running back into the room. He bit his lip, then moved to the gaping hole, shifting forward and dropping lightly to the floor of the laboratory.

He knew it was reckless but maybe if he could get some samples of the drugs they were making, or if he could find some paperwork or other evidence, his boss would throw him a bonus. He glanced around the room carefully before stepping over to the suited man’s body. Jack leaned down and pressed two fingers to the man’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

“Dead as a doornail..” He muttered to himself before rifling through the man’s pockets. He pulled out a folded up piece of paper and a wallet. He flipped the wallet open, verifying the man’s identity, then stuffed both pieces in his shirt pocket before moving around the room. He spotted a filing cabinet in the corner and made his way over toward it, pulling the top drawer out and starting to sift through the files.

“Jackpot… This has to be the recipes for every drug they’ve created!” He whispered under his breath, examining the chemical formulas spread across each page. He pulled the rather fat file from the cabinet and started to turn around, before a sharp pain in his forearm made him cry out in pain and surprise. The file fell from his hand as his entire arm started to shake, pain coursing through it at lightning speed. Papers scattered across the floor.

“AH-!” He cried out, gripping his arm and feeling around as he spun the rest of the way around.

The young man who’d been at Jason’s side was standing in the doorway, a dart gun in his hand and a cold smirk on his face. “My name is Rick. Congratulations on finding your way inside..”

Jack’s eyes widened as his fingers found the dart and pulled it quickly from his arm, letting it fall to the floor. The pain in his arm wasn’t dying down, in fact it was getting worse, starting to burn… “What-“ He gasped out, fumbling for the pistol at his belt with his left hand clumsily.

The thin man’s voice rang out again, coldly. “I would also like to congratulate you on becoming our newest test subject. That dart just injected you with a new, special kind of fast acting poison. As you might have noticed, it is particularly painful. It also has a unique acidic base… a flesh eating acidic base.”  

Jack looked down at his arm and gasped, the gun in his left hand clattering to the floor. There were thin, blue, spider web-like glowing veins spreading rapidly over his skin. What was worse, at the place where the dart had punctured his arm, Jack could see an open wound forming, slowly growing larger. His skin was being dissolved before his very eyes.

“YOU BASTARD!” He growled before taking off toward the man at a run. Maybe if he could pin him down or get a knife to his throat he could get an antidote before it was too late. His head was swimming with pain at this point. Maybe if he-

“Yah-!” Jack tripped and fell forward onto the ground as his leg buckled beneath him, a sharp searing pain similar to the one in his arm beginning to tear through his leg. The damn bastard had shot him again! He scrambled to sit up and yanked the dart from his lower thigh quickly, but just as he’d succeeded in this he found himself flat on his back. Rick had thrown himself at Jack, and now crawled on top of him, trying to pin him down. Jack struggled against the thinner man blindly through his pain, letting out a scream and stiffening up, however as Rick’s knee found his injured thigh, digging into the spreading wound.

By now the wound on Jack’s arm was several inches in diameter and still growing, pouring copious amounts of blood onto the floor. He was growing dizzy with pain and blood loss, weakening. He couldn’t struggle any longer. Rick was saying something to him, but Jack couldn’t make it out for the ringing in his ears. Time seemed to slow to a stop and race forward all at once. He couldn’t tell if it’d been a minute or several pain steeped hours.  His brain started to focus a bit more as he began to feel the searing pain work up his inner thigh, edging toward his most sensitive of areas. He felt panic well up in his chest and escape as a harsh scream of pain, his fingernails scraping fruitlessly at the cold tile floor. Then, mercifully, Jack’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he knew no more.