On one particular day he was brought out of his drugged state by Irvine, who counseled him, “Yule, they want to examine you while you are in a fully cognitive state. Please, do me a favor and be cooperative. I’m up for an administrative post. You have no idea how mean Wong is to me.”

Irvine then whispered, “I could sneak Joan into see you—she would like that. Thank you, Yule.”

It was difficult for him to speak after so long but he did, “I want to see her, Doc.”

Irvine was comforting, squeezing his left hand. “I’ll do what I can, Yule. I’m on your side here.”

That’s nice; a nice little dude there, a doctor at that.

A procession of suited and uniformed people came in and surrounded him as Irvine held his hand and Wong gave them the Yule tour:

“This is Yule, or at least the man who believes himself to be Yule Alpha Seven, son of Mother Corp and War Chief of the AllPeople Nation; a time-hunter if you will, a genetically-engineered deep-retrieval asset to be exact, who is periodically called back to the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries by an Iroquois boy-prophet named Three-Rivers to battle European invaders on behalf of the indigenous population.

“We, however, stranded in the Twenty-first Century as we are, know Yule as Jay Bracken, an orphan, itinerant laborer, prize-fighter and one-time outlaw biker.”

That’s a sarcastic little geek for you.

There was a snicker. Jay located that little prick with his ears and nose, triangulated his location and spit a wad of saliva back over Wong and one of the big wigs to splash on a bald head. Wong was un-phased as Irvine squeezed his hand pleadingly. “As you can see Yule possesses remarkable physiological abilities. You have seen the video evidence, and here, even half-sedated, he is able to triangulate the location of an unseen heckler and hit his mark with indirect fire. Supposing Yule was armed with a mortar?”

An authoritative voice spoke up, “Look the nut bag just spit on my attaché. I hope you have better evidence than that for his being some kind of genetically engineered human weapon?”

“Of course, General, permit me to proceed. Yule has been drugged, placed under hypnosis, tortured and interrogated by various means, and questioned under polygraph. By every scientific measure what he has told us are truths that he absolutely believes.”

Wong paced around Erving and picked up a pointer.

Darn, I wish I could rotate my head. This halo is so confining—the worst part of the restraints.

Jay, mindful of Irvine’s promise of a visit with Joan, just followed with his ears as they all examined his naked body, with Wong expounding on every single injury; and Wong was right about every single one. If you got shot with a flathead, broad-head, field-tip, bobkin or whack-master arrowhead Wong would know which one it was based on examining the wound. The litany of injuries occupied near an hour. At one point a female got kind of close to his nose as Wong gave the “chest injury tour”.

Damn, she’s wet. That old girl smells past ready.

Wong did not miss a beat. “As you can see by this impressive erection, Yule is easily aroused by female sights, scents or sounds. Yule has three-hundred percent normal testosterone, is acutely sensitive to female pheromones, and himself emits more pheromones than all of the men currently present in this room. Agent Henderson admitted to forming an attraction to this man even as he assaulted her.

I didn’t hurt her, Doc. She asked me to.

“We have determined that this occurred on a chemical rather than social level. Yule’s hormonal output is such that a woman who does not consciously or socially have a basis for being attracted to him, finds herself yearning for his intimate attention. Based on Agent Henderson’s rape kit, we have gone on to examine Yule’s seminal output and found it—at eighty-seven CCs—to be more than seven times greater than normal. Most astonishingly, we found the rapacity of his sperm to be unparalleled. If—forgive me—all six men in this room were to ejaculate into a dish containing an equal amount of Yule’s seminal fluid his sperm would annihilate ours. As distasteful as this course of inquiry is, it points to the probability of genetic engineering in Yule’s case.

“In fact, Agent Henderson, who suffers from Stein Leventhal syndrome—a condition supposed to prevent conception—has become pregnant from Yule’s single attack. Agent Henderson has—heroically I might add—agreed to carry this child to term in the interest of science and national security.”

One of the males blurted, “So what does this mean, we have a rape-machine here? So what? Put his ass in the general population at Leavenworth and hose out his cell every day—let him rape and kill all of the scum we discard.”

Wong was unflappable, “Colonel this is an aspect of the condition. Genetic engineering will probably never be as precise as surgery. If one generates a dominant aggressor the resulting condition is likely to be full-spectrum, affecting physical and reproductive prowess. For instance, Yule’s adrenal output is five times normal and pumps into his system in controlled bursts, as is his serotonin and endorphin output. His glands and their high output and sympathetic activity are his most remarkable characteristic. What this means is that Yule can maintain maximum human-range physiological performance, at [ITTALIC]his performance ceiling, for five times the normal ability of our most stress-adapted special ops soldiers. He can then tolerate surgery without anesthesia and then attain an REM sleep-state within seconds. Gentlemen, he is a war-machine.”

Another male voice, soft but assertive, asked, “What about his immune system? If he is an engineered post-apocalyptic war-fighter there should be some enhancements there.”

Wong seemed uncomfortable, and deferred to Irvine, “Doctor Irvine conducted the immunology profile—Doctor?”

Wong is pissed.

Irvine spoke sharply, not his normal tone, “Yule has what I would term a medieval immune system where the consumption of bacteria and other food-borne pathogens are concerned. Everything we have fed him has been contaminated in some manner. His immune system is very healthy, but not hyperactive like his glandular system. We cannot expect his immunology to be on par with the rest of his abilities, otherwise his immune system would turn on his body and he would develop rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions.”

You’re a dick too Irvine. But I still like you.

Irvine paused and cleared his throat, “Concerning viral agents we have not been able to trigger an immunological response. Yule’s cells simply lack the necessary characteristics to permit any of the viral agents introduced into his blood and tissue samples—we did not actually try to infect him you understand—to ‘dock’. This is astounding. Yule would keep the CDC busy for a decade at least; Doctor.”

But we’d rather use him to figure out how to develop better geopolitical murderers.

Sarge?

No, that was you dummy, apparently you possess our conscience.

Wait, I thought we were an ‘I’?

Now Irvine is a nice humble brainiac for you. All mad scientists should be like him.

Here comes the showoff.

There was a murmur going around the room; about avian flu, swine flu, plague, anthrax, etc., which Wong nixed with his perfectly intrusive voice, “Let us look to Yule’s true talents. Over the past month Yule has, without weapons, disarmed, disabled, maimed, killed and even cannibalized eighteen law-enforcement officers. He is immune to pepper spray and unaffected by electronic incapacitation devices. His tendon strength is three times greater than the track and field, gymnastic and wrestling athletes we have used for a control group and is on the high end of the chimpanzee range.

Come on dude, at least take a breath! I’m not all that—just good at jacking dudes and critters up is all.

And the mad scientist forged on, “His glycogen levels—the fuel in his muscles—are at the top of the mammalian range, as is his bone-density. His shin bones are as lethal as axe handles. He is virtually immune to shock, pain and battle-stress. His psychological markers are off the charts. His lung-capacity far exceeds that of a Sherpa or extreme diver, and he claims to have spent no time at elevation and has no diving experience.”

This sounds like a car commercial.

“Yule’s neurology is actually the most interesting thing about him. The fact that he can run five miles per hour faster than any other human being and not have his muscles tear away from his bones is astounding. But, paired with his neurological anomalies these factors become frightening. He has a low normal IQ.”

Thanks, Doc. I was Jason Bourne a minute ago and now I’m back on the short cheese bus.

“However, his frontal lobe remains over active and his hypothalamus—the lizard brain—is forty percent more massive than it should be. His mechanical recall is ridiculous. Yule is able to field strip weapons he has no previous experience with while under hypnosis, while drugged, frozen, baked, electrocuted and burned, and even at seven Gs in the flight simulator.”

What a dickhead! I don’t like you anymore Wong.

“The most fascinating aspect of Yule’s cerebral condition is the ‘web’—for want of a better term—of inactive synapses resting at the apex of both hemispheres of his brain. It appears, via MRI to be an organic implant. There are however, no signs of surgical procedure beyond simple suturing of impact cuts from the neck up.

A female voice spoke up, “Doctor Irvine, could we do something about this erection. It is disturbing to say the least.”

“I’m sorry Major—Doctor Irvine…”

He felt himself being pinched at the base of his penis and it started to deflate.

Wow, I need to learn that trick!