Tolerable Cruelty - Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Chapter 27

“That it? You fucking kidding me?” Carter grilled a worn down, sleepless Peter as she examined a vial of clear, unremarkable liquid. How would this make her powerful like Martinez or Paloma? Where were titanium rod implants?

“You better not be fucking with us, Paloma,” Harris tacked on.

“I’m not! I swear I’m not!” Peter’s voice was hoarse and ragged.

“So why haven’t you taken it and become superhuman, you piece of shit?” Carter grilled.

Peter bit his lip.

Harris slammed the desk of the interrogation room, startling Peter and causing him to fall back. Only his handcuffed wrists linked to the table prevented him from spilling onto the floor. Carter just laughed.

“Well? What is this shit? You really expect us to believe this is what you gave Martinez and your wife?”

“Look, I gave you what you wanted! Just let me go! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Peter sobbed.

“No you didn’t, did you? You just unleashed two monsters on this world. And now, it’s up to normal people like us to fix it,” Harris spat.

Carter and Harris walked out of the interrogation room and left Peter to ponder their judgment. The soundproof door clicked shut.

“You really think this is it?” Harris tapped the vial hidden inside his inner coat pocket.

“Who knows,” Carter inhaled loudly and vigorously as she cleared her nose. “I ran the toxicology myself. Came back negative. But I’m not an expert.” A brief pause. “So all of this is off the record? For sure?”

“Yeah. They dumped us in this shitty facility and I just worked Paloma over a few nights. Sent the rest of the crew to sit in some overnight stakeouts looking for Paloma. Brass wouldn’t believe the fairy tale we’re chasing anyway. Like something out of a TV show. We turn in empty reports and they get to gloat. It’s exactly what they want to see.”

“Alright. Let’s keep it that way,” Carter looked keenly at her partner, gauging his reaction.

“For sure,” Harris agreed, not missing a beat.

He took the vial from his coat and poured half of it into a small glass. He and Carter clinked glasses as they both drank the serum, out of sight of anyone else.

---

“About here?” Piper asked over the roaring winds generated by her flight.

“I don’t… know… can’t… breathe…” her medic and government agent hostage gasped.

Piper slowed down and squeezed him tightly in annoyance, descending vertically where the air wasn’t so thin. She waited a whole 30 seconds, which was incredibly patient for a superhuman with her even newer souped up senses and speed. She held him out at arm’s length, enjoying his grimace of pain. Peter seemed to have trained her well.

“Well?” Piper glanced down.

The agent followed her eyes and looked at the world below from a totally unimpeded bird’s eye view. His vision began to go blurry as he felt his stomach churn. His feet tingled with intensely uncomfortable sensation. He began to struggle and shake violently, on the verge of vomiting.

“God, it’s like you want to die!” Piper held him cautiously. The last thing she wanted was to be thrown up on. “Close your goddamn eyes and figure your shit out! I can always torture someone else into helping me!”

He shut his eyes and heaved deep breaths. With a deep gulp, he swallowed his rising bile.

“I… don’t know… bird’s eye view…”

Piper squeezed his arm tighter with her fingers, bruising his skin.

“Ahhh!” he screamed in pain.

“Pathetic. My Peter could take so much more than this. And he wouldn’t be stupid and useless like you are. Your crew are all going to die when I find them. Now tell me: which way is it!”

---

Harris locked himself in the bathroom and voided his guts into the toilet as he threw up over and over. That motherfucking Paloma! Forget Carter inflicting the bodily harm; Harris himself was going to murder Peter! Maybe he’d try breaking some fingers like his partner did…

…if he could ever pick himself up from retching at the toilet.

Meanwhile, Peter’s miracle formula surged through Carter’s body as her cells began to crackle and develop with superhuman power, just as Maria’s had and Piper’s before her. She felt a pang of hunger inside her body that just wouldn’t go away.

Finding a half eaten box of donuts on Harris’s desk, she wrinkled her nose in disdain as she wondered just how many furious pushups and situps she’d have to do to work it off. She didn’t even like goddamn donuts. But right now, the powdered sugar and chocolate glazes looked far too inviting, and her mouth was already salivating.

She pinched one in her fingers and reluctantly bit into it. The sugar crystals danced on her tongue as she felt a surge of burning ecstasy course through her body. She chewed the now slightly stale but still fluffy ring and swallowed hurriedly, before shoveling the whole thing into her mouth like one of her favorite French dip sandwiches.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck oh fuck!” she moaned with her mouth full. Sorry Harris, I’ll buy you a new box. After I eat a couple more myself, Carter thought. She always hated the donut and law enforcement stereotype, but right now, she’d slap her mama for a couple dozen.

She barely made it to the car while licking her fingers. Sitting in the driver’s seat, Carter’s body shook violently as the effects of Peter’s super serum began to take hold…

---

A ragged, sweat-soaked Harris stumbled back to meet Peter who had been forgotten and left in the interrogation room. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken.

“You… piece of shit…” Harris wheezed.

Peter stared wide-eyed in shock. Is that what would’ve happened if he’d tried taking his own medicine?

“I don’t know how your little stunt got past the toxicology screens,” Harris continued to rasp, “but your little enforcer is in for it now! We’re going to cut her open and figure out just what makes her tick!”

“No!” Peter objected. He tried to stand up, only to dig his wrists into his solid handcuffs.

“That’s right… my partner and I can’t afford to give you up, you fuck! But we can dissect your little experiment. And when we figure it out, then we won’t need you anymore!”

“Leave her alone! Please! She hasn’t done anything!” Peter tried to drag the desk with him as he advanced on Harris, but it was attached to the floor. He just flailed helplessly as Harris left the room and closed the door behind him.

---

After Piper had flown down low enough for her hostage to breathe and for his pathetic eyesight to prove useful, he managed to point out a pair of cars, one black SUV and one that looked like a regular civilian’s. Those had to be some of their personnel, and he instructed Piper that she could follow them back to their makeshift base.

Piper focused her eyes, triggering her telescopic and x-ray vision to peek at the drivers and passengers inside the vehicles. The sheer distance and the metal frames of the cars made no difference to her icy glowing eyes. They were carrying badges in their pockets, alright. Another zoom, and she committed their license plates to memory.

“Well well well, looks like you finally proved yourself useful. What to do with you now…?”

He gulped. The only thing that prevented him from turning into a falling rock and a red sticky paste on the ground was Piper’s slim arm pressing him against her firm flank.

“Please don’t… I did everything you asked for!” he pleaded.

“Oh I know, I know. I’m in a much better mood already. Why don’t I just drop you back off with your friends? That way they won’t know that you gave away their whole operation.”

“You… you really mean it?” he said with unhidden relief.

Piper flew him back to the original compound where she’d been led by that deceased agent who had been staking out her home. She descended smoothly, but still too fast for her fragile cargo. As soon as she touched down, poised tall and proud, his jellied legs gave out as he collapsed to the ground.

“Thank you thank you,” he sobbed as he hugged solid earth again.

“Sweet dreams,” Piper smiled.

“Wait, what…?”

Piper nudged him in the temple with her toe, knocking him unconscious. His body went slack as he breathed deeply. The agents she’d knocked out similarly with her gentle love taps would find him when they came to.

Without such a fragile passenger to tend to, Piper zipped high into the atmosphere once more. A quick swivel, and she was rocketing toward her marks. They were going so slowly… she was tempted to just land atop one of them and dig her fingers into the roof of the car, pulling the metal sheeting back like cling wrap.

Her patience was rewarded when a total of six cars pulled into the same location. Was this really a federal building!? She’d expected security, cubicles, tons of officers; instead, peering through the roof with her electric-granted x-ray vision, she found a lone male walking inside of the dilapidated, musty building. Piper peeked ahead of the path he was going… and immediately scowled furiously.

It was true! A beautifully leggy pale-skinned woman with long, dark hair was shackled up to a metal table, cuffed securely, with IVs sticking into her skin.

Piper huffed. If Peter really had been cheating on her, he hadn’t done a very good job. Bullets just bounced off her skin now—there was no way anyone would be able to contain her like that. Or maybe… he wanted someone softer? Not quite so powerful as her? Goddammit! Why wouldn’t he just communicate that to her!?

Speaking of Peter… there he was. Tied to an interrogation room. Piper’s heart broke even in her state of cold fury. She’d better take care of the agents before they went inside.

Piper zipped downward like a ballistic missile, appearing in front of the nondescript doors of their makeshift field headquarters. Before anyone could react, she’d grabbed the lead man’s arm, reached into his holster, and taken his pistol in her delicate hand.

“Hi boys. Were you on the lookout for me?” Piper grinned.

“What the…”

“Holy shit!”

“Is that her!?”

She squeezed the man’s arm a little tighter, fracturing his forearm under her fingers with a sickening crack. He howled in pain.

“Holy FUCK!” they all drew their arms. “Where did she come from!? Martinez wasn’t like this, was she?!”

“HELP!! GET HER OFF ME!” Piper’s closest victim screamed.

“I’m just here to talk to my husband. You can all leave if you like. But if you want to make a scene…” Piper smiled seductively at them.

“SHOOT HER! SHOOT HER!” the man with the broken arm cried.

The one with the clearest angle didn’t hesitate any longer. He squeezed the trigger.

Piper could hear the metal trigger being squeezed even before the gun fired. She watched the muzzle flash in slow motion and watched the metal projectile zip toward her face. It was a good shot.

She released the agent’s broken arm and shoved her palm into his chest, sending him flying twenty feet backward. If he was to die, she wanted it to be on her terms and not some stray bullet. And she wasn’t sure who deserved to be killed yet.

When the other four agents realized that their comrade had suddenly been flung out of the way, they all squeezed out as many rounds as they could.

Piper just stood there, smiling serenely. She let time resume to normal as all of their bullets pinged harmlessly off her skin. The only thing of hers that took any damage was her trench coat. The straps frayed away, revealing the front side of her torso to the world. Completely unblemished, completely unharmed.

The agents had emptied their magazines. Three of them were inserting a new one, while the other two just stared in disbelief at her beautiful, unmatched, and invulnerable body.

“Nice try, boys. Now I’ll have to get rough with you. We’ll see how I decide to punish you after I speak to my husband…”

Piper puckered her pink lips and blew all of them a parting kiss. Sweeping her head from left to right, the force of her exhalation flung the five agents off their feet, slamming them in the chest even harder and farther than the one she’d physically shoved with her palm. They all flew backwards through the air and either slammed into a wall or rolled head over heels along the abandoned complex.

She forced her way through the front door and zipped into Peter’s interrogation room. Her empowered self-confidence withered a little at the sight of her poor husband dressed in prison fatigues, looking like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Peter. Peter, are you okay?”

He looked up with despair in his exhausted eyes before registering Piper’s appearance. When he realized it wasn’t a dream, his eyes welled with tears of joy.

“Piper! Piper! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry we had that fight! I tried to reach you to apologize, I really did! How did you find me?! You look… you look different somehow.”

“It’s alright Peter, I’m here now,” Piper comforted him as she pinched the metal cuffs between her thumb and forefinger. The chains snapped loose. A simple tug with both hands, and she’d torn the cuffs right off his hands. She bent over to undo the chains on his ankles as well.

“Let’s get out of here. We have some things to talk about,” Piper said as coolly as she could.

“Wait! No! There’s an agent here named Vince Harris. He’s going… I think he’s going to kill Maria! You have to help her!!”

“I saw her,” Piper replied. “She works for you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, yes! Piper, please go help her before Harris does anything to her! I think they want to kill her and use her body for research!”

“And why is that?” Piper probed.

Peter gulped. “She… she got hurt trying to defend me. Defending my secret. I felt so bad for her so I… I gave her some serum, that day when I gave you your second dose. And… there’s something else…”

“Yes,” Piper said flatly. She had heard Peter’s heartbeat speed up as he provided a brief re-telling of events. There was something he was hiding.

“One of the agents, Carter, may have also taken the serum. They threatened to kill Maria if I didn’t produce it for them! Oh Piper! What have I done!?”

“Wait here, Peter. I’ll take care of it. Of everything.”

“Piper! What are you…”

But before he could finish the sentence, his super-wife had disappeared in a blur.

Piper zipped down the hallway following the path that she’d seen the other hobbling agent take. Vince Harris. He was attaching heavy looking cables to Maria’s cuffs.

“I don’t know what he promised you, or if you knew that he was married, or what,” Harris was monologuing as he calmly prepared to execute Maria. “But you sure made a terrible decision to trust him. Was this outcome worth all the beauty in the world?” he chuckled. “Foolish. So foolish.”

Maria struggled vainly. She mustered what little strength she had left, but the drugs had done too much damage to even her enhanced body.

“Stop… please…” she whispered hoarsely. “I just wanted to protect him… save him…”

“We’ll be doing that, ma’am. And your body is going to help us.”

Piper zipped into the room and placed her hand over Harris’ throat.

“Hello. My husband warned me about you,” Piper chirped.

“Paloma!!” Harris hissed.

As soon as Piper got the satisfaction of his acknowledgement, she dug her fingers into his neck a little tighter. A quick twist of her wrist, and he was dead as a doornail. She dropped his corpse to the floor.

“Oh god…” Maria whispered. “You’re… Piper? Peter’s wife?”

“Yes. Hello Maria. It looks like my husband did you quite a favor, hmm?”

“I… please don’t…” Maria began to cry. “I’m sorry I tried to steal your husband. I’m sorry! He always turned me down. We never did anything! Please don’t kill me…”

Piper chuckled as she walked around the table and disconnected the electrical execution that Harris had set up.

“You’re… you’re going to help me?” Maria whimpered, hope against hope.

“You know, Maria. I believe electricity is what really unlocks the power of Peter’s serum. If that piece of shit had gone through with it, do you know how powerful you’d become? Not as much as me, but still. You’d probably even be able to break out of those restraints and get out of here yourself.”

“N-no…” Maria’s hope turned to despair.

“Don’t worry,” Piper smiled mysteriously as she ripped off Maria’s bindings. The simple act was accompanied by an ear-splitting shriek of metal. “This won’t hurt…”