Horseshoes and Hand Grenades aesthetics: Dr. Henri Larocque
“Hippocrates”
The years since I had last seen him had done him no favors. The hollows beneath his eyes had deepened, making his already-sharp cheekbones stand out like knives. Like scalpels. The skin on his person-suit was stretched tighter than usual, but he smiled when he saw me.
“John.” His lips twitched, like a snake unhinging its jaw before particularly appetizing prey, and he said my name in a longing sigh. “I knew you would come back to me. Out of all of them, I always knew that you -- you were special.”
My chest tightened, and I could feel his fingers under my ribs, searching, probing, clawing, squeezing the air from my lungs and wrapping around the frantic pulse of my heart. If I blinked, I could still see myself in the mirror, strapped to a table, breathing around a gag, clawing at the stainless steel with the world misting from pain. But I didn’t blink. I couldn’t, or I might fall apart. I might already be falling.
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades aesthetics: Harding in ... high fever
There was the slightest wrinkle in his labcoat, a little fold near his right shoulder. Harding focused his eyes on it, with difficulty. Ever since the fever his vision had been slightly blurred, and it seemed like his eyes wanted nothing more than to gaze into some distant point, or better yet close and go back to sleep. But that wrinkle, that little shadow, the only sign of irritation that Larocque wore in his otherwise impeccable humansuit. It made Harding afraid, made him feel like he was being doused into the ice bath all over again. Goosebumps prickled along his arms. His mouth clotted with cotton.
"You are dehydrated," Larocque said at last. "A not unusual side effect of the treatment. We will bring your body temperature back to normal, and fit you to intravenous liquids before we do the second round."
"Second round?"
The doctor smoothed down his papers, and set the clipboard back on the end of the bed. Not a wrinkle in the sheets, nothing but that crease on his shoulder. It darkened in Harding's vision, and starbursts of color swirled away from it. It was an oracle, a siren, a banshee, a black dog on a moonless night, fog settling on a dark lake. Larocque stuck a thermometer into his mouth again, and held it in place, leaning close to peer into Harding's eyes.
"I do believe your fever has returned," he remarked coolly.
Ice hit Harding's limbs, tingling and burning, and Larocque's fingers prodding at the thin skin around his eyes were needles, daggers, swords, guillotines. He sucked in a breath through his nose. Larocque plucked the thermometer free. The wrinkle on his labcoat winked a thousand purple stars.
"I expected better from you." Larocque's voice dripped disappointment so thick that Harding could see it drip from the corners of his mouths like wet, inky blobs. They suspended just below his thin lips, dappling like scales on his chin. His fingers began to shake. "With the healing power you possess, I had hoped we could push past this part of the treatment faster," he went on, then lifted one hand and snapped his fingers. The sound was like a gunshot.
"Nurse! A dose of lorazepam, please. He is about to seize."
The wrinkle went black, and then the rest of his vision did, too, and the last thing Harding remembered was the wonder that, if he died down here, what explanation would the CIA give to his wife?
When the human genome project finished in 2003, the CIA made genetic testing mandatory, and one head scientist discovered something incredible. Genetic anomalies could be markers for...unusual powers. And with the right treatment, those powers could be brought to the surface.
Agent John Harding never intended to be a field agent. Hired as a translator and settling into life in America with his wife and children, he was perfectly content to a life of desk work and phone calls. Until his blood came up with the genetic marker for a rare and very useful possibility.
Threatened into working with Dr. Henri Larocque, Harding undergoes a series of painful tests and treatments to unleash what has been affectionately dubbed the “cockroach gene,” and thrusting him into field work. Turns out, he’s pretty good at it. Things could work out. He could survive this, scars and all.
That is, until Larocque’s project is abruptly shut down, and he’s fired after the project is not only under-performing, but causing a string of particularly gruesome deaths. Without funding, humiliated and enraged, Larocque returns to France and finds friends in organized crime, who are very interested in superpowered thugs. Especially considering the doctor has some impressive powers of his own.
Everything comes crashing down for Harding when he’s assigned to catch and bring in Larocque, and discovers the doctor’s grotesque influence has dug its claws deep into the CIA and elsewhere. Again and again, Harding comes close to catching him, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and someone has to pay the price.
Introducing Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, the story that’s been building for a long time and finally seems to have a cohesive plot! Superpowers, government agencies, gray morality, and gratuitous use of the word fuck lies ahead. All updates will be tagged with the title, and if you’re interested in being on the tag list for updates, please let me know!
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, Larocque’s Introduction
As I’m finally getting some actual words done on the project, here’s a fun sneak peak into the early chapter, and Harding’s first interaction with Larocque. I feel like I’m finally finding the narrative voice, and I may be having too much fun with descriptions.
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"Agent John Harding, Sr.?"
The use of his full name startled Harding out of his focus, and he jerked up so suddenly he sent half a dozen papers fluttering to the ground. They hadn't been in much order to begin with, emptied from the file box and strewn across his desk and the floor with a few of his own notes scribbled on post-its on top of them, still trying to make sense of the flood of information. He had expected some other lackey suit to be standing in the door to his office, perhaps holding another full box or checking in on his progress as they had been doing for the past couple days, but instead was someone he had never seen before. And he didn't look like a paper pusher, or a field agent. Instead of a suit, he wore a long white lab coat, immaculately pressed and clean. He had the long, narrow look of someone who had at one point been a normal proportion, but then had been squeezed and pulled too tightly through some sort of unforgiving machine. His high cheekbones angled too sharply against the line of his jaw, leaving hollows that might have been called dimples if they didn't look so severely cut. Dark blond hair curled loosely across his temples, and seemed the only thing about him not pressed and stretched into a cultivated, regimented perfection. Harding got the distinct impression that he was some sort of lizard that had decided to wear a human-suit, but had no idea how to make it properly fitted. If he saw a forked tongue, Harding was going to carve a window into the wall behind him and jump through it.
"Yes, sir," he answered instead. "That's me. Can I help you?"
The reptile in the doorway smiled, at least much in the same way a snake smiled while sizing up a cornered mouse. It was less of a gesture of goodwill, and more a yawn of fangs in preparation to swallow someone whole. "My name is Dr. Henri Larocque. I have the results of your bloodwork."
"Ah." When Larocque didn't continue right away, Harding felt compelled to speak. "Is this like looking up symptoms on the Internet? Do I have brain cancer?"
The doctor's smile widened marginally, enough to finally wrinkle the hollows of his pitted cheeks. "Quite the contrary. Won't you follow me?"
"Why do I feel like I don't have a choice in the matter?" Harding picked up a few of the papers that had fallen, returned them to the piles where (he thought) they came from, and gingerly stepped around the rest. Standing beside Larocque, he was even more acutely aware that his own suit was rumpled, his tie was loosely done, and he hadn't really slept in a day or so. He felt rather like a stray dog beside a freshly-groomed Westminster poodle.
"You always have a choice, John."
Harding flinched. No one called each other by first names here, and he wasn't sure if it felt too familial, or too mocking when the doctor said it. It was just weird. Everything about the doctor spoke something of the other, and he couldn't help but wonder if there was some sort of Lovecraftian beast lurking under the skin, rather than a simple razor-toothed lizard. "Yeah, it sounds like it. You sure I don't have brain cancer?"
Larocque led him down the hallway, past the series of windowless offices where other paper-pushers like him worked, past the open cubicles of other agents. RJ saw them pass by, and she stood to exchange a glance with him. He offered her a shrug, and gestured vaguely towards the white coat in front of him, before spinning one finger beside his temple in a gesture of insanity. When she looked genuinely alarmed, a tightness formed in his stomach. Did she know something he didn't?
The doctor pushed open a door at the end of the hall, and gestured Harding into the same small clinic room where the nurse had drawn his blood almost two weeks ago. "Please, have a seat."
The only place to sit was on the hard metal table, covered with a sheet of sterile paper, and Harding felt like a child waiting for a round of vaccinations when he hopped up onto it. The paper crinkled under his hands. The sound settled around the knot in his stomach, adding an acidity that made his teeth ache, as if he had just heard nails scraping against chalkboard for the past two hours. "So," he began lamely, "what's this about? They never said what the blood draw was for."
Larocque drew the shades on the door's window, giving them as much privacy as could be expected. Harding half waited for him to pull out a butcher's knife and begin painting the white walls with chunks of his flesh. But instead, the doctor moved in front of him, and tapped his tapered fingers against a clipboard. "How much do you know about the human genome, John?"
His teeth ached, and he realized he had been gritting them. "It's Agent Harding."
The doctor smiled thinly. "Answer the question, please."
What the fuck was he supposed to say? "I'm not a biologist. I studied French and political science. I know they finished the human genome project recently. It was all over the news." Larocque nodded, and seemed to be waiting for him to go on. He felt a frustrated sigh hiss past his clenched teeth. A headache began to throb in his temple. He hadn't slept, hadn't eaten anything that morning aside from three cups of coffee and half a bagel that he had mostly neglected after he found mold in the cream cheese. "I don't know. DNA makes us who we are?"
"That is correct." He sounded like a teacher, praising an especially thick student for finally answering a simple question, while the rest of the class snickered and flicked spitballs at them. "And we have mapped your genetic code. This is a brave new world we are entering, and you and I are to be on the forefront of this new science. You see, your DNA is holding something extraordinary."
"Not brain cancer, then?"
Larocque's impeccable human suit flickered with irritation. His nostrils flared, and a hint of color finally touched the hollows of his face. "I am certain that you are aware of the rumors of humans with powers beyond the norm? Those that can produce elements with the powers of their mind, or move at speeds and strengths thought impossible?"
"I read comic books," Harding agreed.
"This is not colorful fiction any longer, John. We may have the power to unlock and strengthen these abilities, now that we know the genetic markers that indicate a predilection towards them." He tapped the clipboard again, and his taunt body leaned forward some. "And the markers on yours are incredibly rare. Tell me, how often do you get sick?"
"Get sick?" he repeated, feeling a fresh pulse in his headache when Larocque called him by his first name again.
"Yes, how often do you contract an illness?"
The question gave him pause. "I don't know. I guess--as often as anyone."
"Specifically, when was the last time you were ill?"
"I don't know." He had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing. Professionalism had been his feedback when he was accepted into the program. He had really wanted to tell them then that they could go fuck themselves. Translators weren't in the public eye anyway. But he needed this job. He just didn't need this reptile probing him with weird questions. Fuck, when was the last time he had been sick? He could remember looking after Karen when she got colds, when she got the flu last year, and she had scolded him for kissing her, because what if he got sick next? The only thing he could remember-- "Food poisoning," he said at last. "Uh, senior year of college. Four buddies and me went to a bad choice of restaurant. They all ended up in the hospital."
"And you?" Larocque pressed.
He shrugged. "I was cradling the toilet for eight hours or so. It was miserable."
"Only eight hours for food poisoning, when all your friends were in the hospital for--how long?"
His shrug came stiffer. It hurt his shoulders to make the gesture. His stomach tightened again, knotting in on itself like a low throb of warning. "I don't really remember. They got their stomachs pumped and they were dehydrated so--a day? Two?" He could taste the lie. One of his friends had nearly died, and was there for a week. The other two spent four days wretched and pale. They had sued the restaurant and won enough money that the one who had treaded the veil decided he didn't need to find a job, and bought a house instead. Harding hadn't been a part of all that. He had never even told a doctor that he had been ill. It hadn't seemed to do any harm.
Larocque made a note on his clipboard. "And that was how long ago now? Four, five years?" he guessed.
Harding felt his shoulders jerk in another harsh shrug. It felt as if his muscles were trying to tear themselves free of the bone.
"And before that? Or since then? Any allergies?"
"Nope. Not that I've found yet. Why? Do you think I'm some sort of superhuman cockroach or something?"
"Precisely that."
Harding opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue was dry, and he snapped his teeth shut again. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that?
"What about injuries?" the doctor went on. "Any broken bones?"
"I broke my arm when I was a kid. I got a papercut this morning." He held up his hand to show the mark on his finger, but the line was so thin it was nearly invisible, and the skin was barely torn. He had a hard time finding where it had happened to begin with. "Fuck, I was in a car accident two years ago and had a concussion. Ripped my head open on the steering wheel." He tilted his head slightly, running his fingers along a scar just at his hairline, faded and smooth. "I'm not a man of steel or anyth--can you back up?"
But Larocque had closed the distance between them, and took Harding's head between his thin hands. His fingers were cold. Harding tried to pull back, but he was held like a vice, and the doctor inspected the scar with such intensity that he had to wonder if the reptile also possessed laser vision or something.
"Fascinating," the doctor breathed at last. "A scar this healed would take decades for a normal individual. You had stitches on this wound, yes?"
"Twelve staples."
"Incredible. The marks have completely vanished. If your body already possesses this sort of accelerated healing, then it should only grow stronger once we begin the treatment."
Harding finally jerked himself free of Larocque's probing hands, and all-but fell off the metal table to get away from him. "The fuck do you mean, treatment?"
"I have your paperwork to sign first, of course. We will need your informed consent to begin." Larocque's dark eyes were glittering, and he had the giddy appearance of a schoolboy that had found a particularly large worm on the playground, and couldn't wait to pull it apart to watch both ends wiggle bloody death throes. "I'll have it all sent to your desk. I suggest you finish your current project quickly. We start treatments on Monday."
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades aesthetics: Dr. Henri Larocque, “Hippocrates”
"You are very reactive," Larocque commented, making a note on his clipboard. "You must be feeling well."
Harding gritted his teeth as his arm went rigid from shoulder to wrist. He put his opposite hand on his elbow, trying to bend it, but the muscles refused to budge, too tight and quivering. "Is this a new side effect?" he asked, the words hissing past his clenched jaw.
"No, of course not," Larocque tsked. "As I told you, I have run these improvement protocols before. They helped my own power considerably." He smiled. Harding waited for the jaw to unhinge. "Had I had such an ability to heal when I was a student, I could have halved my time of study. Now I only need to touch someone once, and I can influence their body within a certain radius."
"This doesn't feel like healing."
Larocque chuckled. "What is poison and what is medicine is often dependent on the dose."
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Aesthetics: Dr. Henri Larocque: “Hippocrates”
|| Doctor || Scientist || Supervillain ||
“Agent Harding, this is Dr. Larocque. He’ll be guiding you through the process from here.”
Harding had felt exposed enough after being stripped down to nothing more than a hospital robe, after countless tests and blood samples, after three days in sterile, windowless rooms, enough that he was sure nothing could make him feel more like a lab rat. Dr. Larocque proved him wrong. The doctor studied him with the same calm gaze he imagined was used on rodents just before a scalpel split them open.
“A pleasure to finally meet you, John,” Larocque said at long last, each word a smooth caress still laced with a pronounced accent. “I’ve been studying your lab results, and I must say that I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a genetic reaction this strong.”
“Thanks. My mother gave them to me.”
Larocque’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I think it’s time we start some more intense training. Shall we?”
