Chương 243: Those who “escaped“ -238
I used to live in Ironwood, and I have been for years. It was once a nice place, but it is kind of boring now. There is not a lot of stuff happening there, but it was life.
Every day, I worked, spent some time with the guys, had a few drinks, and looked at some girls. Sadly, there weren't all that many pretty people coming through Ironwood, but it was fine. Just the way things were.
Then, well, then the normal days slowly came to an end. It was slow at first, mere rumours of someone out there with impossible powers, monsters prowling in the dark. And suddenly, some freak attacked the white house.
The world exploded at the news of mutants; everyone lost their goddamn minds over them. either want to kill them all or seeing them as heroes.
I didn't care much, as long as they stayed the fuck away from me I couldn't care less. Though I admit, that one, the shapeshifting chick, was pretty nice, there are quite a few nice pictures of her around on the net in no time.
But other than that, I didn't care much; I was sure someone else would handle things; isn't that why we pay out damned taxes after all.
Then things just turned worse, more big attacks; the government almost went on a full damn war against mutants, even the mutants fought among themselves; it was pure madness, and the world started going to shit due to them mutant freaks.
Groups of extremists started popping out, news stories about mutants or innocents attacked in their homes, and the world slowly went downhill once those freaks came out of the closet.
Then, it happened: the Sentinels, the fruit of all my tax dollars, big, expensive robots to hunt down and capture or kill all the mutants. I wasn't sure what to think about them, but well, in hindsight, it was a pretty bad idea.
The first few rounds of sentinels got beaten up, same with half of damn Washington. More money was pumped into the project, and our war was pretty much declared when it was decided to kill them all rather than capture them.
Lots of people weren't really happy with that, I can't blame them, the state going in and killing people like that? Nothing good can come from that.
The news was constantly talking about it, one side saying how good a decision it was, though the ankers clearly didn't believe it themselves, and the other side talking about what a slippery slope it was for the government to take such measures, pretty much throwing the constitution out the window.
Though, that never really happened. It didn't take long before the sentinels went rogue, right after attacking some mutant school, killing a bunch of kids, then getting their asses kicked by enraged mutant adults.
Everyone was enraged; even the most loud-spoken mutant haters had to try to wash their hands of that mess, but well, that didn't go well.
As soon as they tried to put some restrictions on the sentinels, they went rogue, killing most of the government without days.
Then things really started going to shit fast. The sentinels just started to massacre everyone, going from block to block, never leaving a single person alive.
There weren't that many of them, so it started out slowly, and news quickly spread; everyone lost their collective minds; it was suddenly the end of the world; the robots had turned against us.
Well, at first, we didn't realize how bad it was; we had no idea what would come.
We all laughed at the people who screamed that the robot AI apocalypse was coming. Sure, everyone knew the sentinels had gone rogue, but we never thought it would last long.
The army had sworn to take them down, and we believed them.
And for a while, it was looking like the sentinels would be taken down, with humans and mutants both wanting to rip those tin cans apart.
Then, the drones came. The Sentinels had somehow made their own army, and the military was slowly overwhelmed by their numbers.
Sure, the army thought back with all they had; entire cities and towns were razed to the ground by the fighting.
And in the end, we lost, we lost to the robots, and the world finally started ending. The drones allowed the sentinels to kill humans in massive numbers in little time. Everyone panicked, and at some point while our lives had all turned upside down, Ironwood got a new life, a new chance.
Magneto and some of the other surviving mutants chose it as their base, but they never figured out why.
Anyway, while our normal lives had ended, at least we were alive, something that couldn't be said for most people.
They didn't care about us; they tore down people's homes to build their own, throwing good and honest folks to the streets or at least into nasty bunks. They had no respect for anything but themselves, and they acted like we should be grateful just to be breathing the same air as them. Every day, I'd walk through what used to be my neighborhood, now a maze of makeshift barricades and mutant-built structures, and feel the anger boiling inside me.
It wasn't just the fact that they were here; it was the way they looked at us, the way they acted like we were beneath them. Like we were just another problem they had to deal with. You could see it in their eyes, that contempt, that sense of superiority. We were the weak ones, the ones who couldn't protect ourselves, and now we were just in the way.
I hated them for it, but what could I do? Stand up to them? Tell Magneto to his face what I thought of him and his kind? That would be suicide, plain and simple. So I kept my mouth shut and did what I had to do to survive, just like everyone else. I wasn't the only one who felt this way; you could see it in the faces of the other folks from town, the way they'd avert their eyes when a mutant walked by, the way they'd huddle together and whisper when they thought no one was listening.
The only good thing about them was that blue chick walking around naked, her ass nearly clapping as she walked by. That was at least one light in the darkness, but even that ass couldn't protect us; it was only a matter of time before they couldn't hold the sentinels back anymore, and we all would die.
But then the Foundation showed up, and that's when things got... complicated. They came in like they were some kind of saviors, bringing supplies, offering a way out. They didn't seem to care much about the mutants one way or another, and that was a relief. Maybe they were our ticket out of this nightmare, a way to get back to something that at least resembled normal.
When the offer came to leave with them, to get out of Ironwood and go somewhere else, I didn't think twice. I didn't care where they were taking us; anywhere had to be better than staying here under the thumb of those freaks. I convinced myself it was the right choice, the smart choice.
I wasn't naive, though. I knew there'd be a catch. Nothing's ever free in this world, especially not during times like these. But the thought of staying in Ironwood, watching those mutants tear apart what was left of our lives, that was worse. So I packed up what little I had left and took the deal.
I wasn't the only one, nor was I the first. Many others had left before me, mostly those too sick or hurt to work for Magneto, it wasn't until later he finally let us go. So I bid farewell to slaving away for a mutant and instead greeted the life of even less then that.
At least as a slave for Magneto, I was still barely considered a person. Here at the Foundation? I was just another number, another D-class. A disposable asset, they called us. They didn't even try to hide it. The moment we arrived, we were stripped of whatever dignity we had left. Our names were taken, replaced by cold, impersonal designations. I wasn't John anymore—I was D-9273.
The first few days were a blur of confusion and fear. They herded us into sterile, windowless rooms, gave us ugly orange jumpsuits, and barked orders at us like we were cattle. The Foundation's people weren't like the mutants—there was no pretense of superiority, no glares of contempt. They didn't care enough to hate us. To them, we were tools, nothing more.
It didn't take long to figure out what they really wanted. They were obsessed with the X-gene, the genetic quirk that made mutants what they were. They ran tests—painful, invasive tests—to see if any of us had it. They'd strap us down, stick us with needles, draw blood, take skin samples, and pump us full of God knows what kinds of chemicals, all while scribbling notes on their clipboards.
The worst part was the uncertainty. Every day, I woke up not knowing what kind of horror they'd subject me to next. Some days it was the tests, other days they'd throw us into "experiments." They'd lock us in rooms with with things that no sane person should ever have to see. They were trying to trigger the X-gene, to see if they could turn us into mutants.
I had seen many people I know go into rooms, and hear screams, loud and terrifying, and then nothing, the rooms would grow quiet again. I hadn't yet been sent into clean up those rooms, but I had talked with others, and why didn't want to talk about it, they weren't the same, whatever they saw, it changed them.
It was a special kind of hell, and there was no way out. I kept thinking about Ironwood, about how bad things had gotten there, but the truth was, I'd take Magneto's iron-fisted rule over this nightmare any day. At least in Ironwood, I knew what to expect. Here, every day was a roll of the dice, and the odds were never in our favor.
But what could I do? The Foundation had us locked down tight. There was no escape, no way to fight back. They had guards—people in those fancy armored suits that could tear a man apart with their bare hands—and cameras everywhere. We were always watched, always under control.
I don't know how much longer I can take this. Each day, I feel a little more of myself slipping away. The fear, the pain, the constant uncertainty—it's wearing me down, breaking me apart piece by piece. I'm not the man I was back in Ironwood. I'm not even a man anymore, not really. I'm just D-9273, a disposable asset in a place that sees me as nothing more than a potential test subject.
They say hope is the last thing to die, but I don't even have that anymore. All I've got left is the numbness, the dull acceptance that this is how it ends for me. In the end, the mutants didn't destroy my life. The Foundation did.
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