Five
Skan woke to the sound of medical jargon shuttling back and forth at the end of the room. He dragged his heavy eyelids open… “Wha…?” He blinked away the fuzziness in front of his eyes.
“Wha’s goin’ on…? Where’s Aalu…?” he asked, weakly, addressing the two green-and-white blurs at the end of the bed.
“Got called away by Vykker’s,” Xar’s voice informed him.
“What?!” Skan was halfway out of bed in seconds.
Xar shoved him unceremoniously flat. “You ain’t goin’ anywhere until yer lost that fever. Get some sleep.”
Skan wrinkled his snout up, worriedly. “But she might be in danger…!”
“Look, yer not goin’ ter be much help to ‘er while yer can’t hardly stand up, now, are yer? Get some sleep. An’ if yer goin’ ter persist in arguin’, mebbe I’ll introduce yer to mister needle.”
Skan subsided after that, muttering softly under his breath about the unfairness of it all.
There was soft chuckle, and a vaguely familiar voice said; “Hasn’t changed a bit…”
Skan blinked, mind working overtime in an effort to figure out the voice. “Rek?” he hazarded.
The voice laughed. “Glad to see you remember.”
“Could hardly forget the boffin, could I?” Skan laughed…
While her friends chatted and tried to hide the fact that they were worrying, Aalu stood and trembled in the middle of a sterile white laboratory, a small group of vykkers discussing and poking and examining her, as though she were just a slab of meat… she hated it. Hated it, and hated them…
She gave a faint yelp and started, violently, as someone stuck a needle sharply into her shoulder, but she was only tense for a second or two. The drug was carried swiftly round her bloodstream, all her muscles turned to jelly, and her nerves all curled their toes up and hid.
“Wha’s goin’ on…?” she managed to slur, as one of the interns nipped forward and caught her just milliseconds before she hit the floor, and hauled her into the chair, pulling restraining bands tight around her arms and torso.
“Don’t you worry,” the senior Vykker said, idly. “We’re just taking tissue samples, checking your health, and so on. Nothing to be concerned about; you won’t feel a thing,” he turned to one of his colleagues, and added, in a softer voice; “I want some spectrographic analyses done on her blood. See if those chemicals we used to keep her stable are still present, or whether females are naturally stable at this stage in development; whether it is just the foetal stage we’ve been having the problems with…”
Aalu winced, involuntarily, in spite of his assurances it wouldn’t hurt, when she saw the surgical equipment precisely laid out on the trolley a second intern was in the process of pushing into the room. Every singly piece was gleaming, brilliant steel; every point honed to terrifying sharpness, every blade polished to a wicked razor…
“Oof!” Skan exclaimed, as he landed hard on his side. After eavesdropping on the three and finding out that Skan was all but recovered, Lenk had decided that the young slig had been ‘molly-coddled’ for long enough. He’d marched him down to a small holding cell, where he’d be left to stew for a while, until Skillya demanded he be taken to her.
After slamming the barred door, the Big Bro had taken a cruel delight in taunting Skan from outside. “I wonder what Skillya’ll do ter yer, hey? Mebbe she’ll skin yer alive…”
Skan winced, but didn’t let himself be drawn; Lenk wanted an excuse to beat the crap out of him – and arguing with him would be as good an excuse as any…
Lenk leaned against the wall outside, and lit a cigarette. “I’d pay good moolah ter see it, whatever she decides…”
Skan sighed, and slumped against his wall. “Bet yer would, an’ all,” he sniffed.
Lenk laughed, coldly. “Yer been a pain in the ass fer a long time, now, Skan – nice ter see yer getting yer just desserts, at last.”
“Yer the one what needs teachin’ a lesson,” Skan mumbled, halfheartedly.
“I heard that,” Lenk rumbled.
Skan just keeled over, and lay on his side on the floor, tiredly, kicked his pants off; they felt strangely uncomfortable.
Lenk gave him a sinister, knowing look. “Wonder if Vykkers ‘ave finished wi’ yer lady-friend, yet…”
Skan jerked his head up. “What did yer say…?”
“After all,” he went on, pretending to be oblivious. “Mebbe she’d want a little, uh… ‘company’… while yer busy…”
“No… no, please don’t hurt her…” Skan said, softly, crawling to the door and resting his chin on the lowest cross-bar. “Not jus’ ter spite me… She ain’t done nothing wrong…”
Lenk laughed, nastily. “Oh, don’ be so stupid; I wouldn’ hurt her. She’s too valuable – th’ Bosses wouldn’ like it.
Skan visibly relaxed.
Lenk smirked. “Maybe have a bit o’ fun wi’ her, tho’…”
“You dare…” Skan whispered, hatefully. “An’ I’ll kill yer…”
Lenk smirked, and shrugged, drawing on the cigarette. “It’s a shame, yer know?” He said, calmly, as though they were discussing something as tame as the weather… “Yer used ter be a pretty formidable opponent. Now,” he puffed a cloud of smoke into Skan’s face, making him cough. “It seems yer had yer claws clipped…”
Skan huffed quietly, and didn’t merit the comment with an answer.
Lenk chuckled, and flicked ash into the smaller slig’s eyes. “Well, have fun. I got an appointment ter keep…”
Skan watched him leave, an ache in his heart. But what could he do? Unless he could get out… unless… He frowned, an idea quickly coalescing in his fertile mind. He sat up, and crawled to the door lock mechanism. It was electronic. Good. He knew all about these… Sharply, he tore the cover off, and began to fiddle…
Aalu sat in the room she’d been given, and fretted. The drug had begun to wear off, so she had some degree of mobility back, but she was still a prisoner, and the science team had worried her by using such words as “termination date” and “autopsy”… She stood and paced, trying to get her muscles back under her own control a little faster… Besides, pacing gave her something to think about… She wondered how Skan was. Rek had said earlier that he’d try and get down to see her, and tell her how Skan was, but there had been no word so far…
Then the door opened. Her hopeful look quickly turned into one of fear, seeing it was not Rek standing there, but Lenk… “Oh, no…” she whimpered, backing off. “No…!”
He leered at her, smugly. “Hel-lo, pretty lady,” he purred from the doorway.
Aalu still backed away, trembling in fear and already close to tears, knowing that this time there was no Skan to leap in and save her. “Please…” she begged. “Please… don’t hurt me…!”
Lenk shrugged. “I wasn’ plannin’ on hurtin’ yer…” he said, softly, looking at her with an odd, predatory expression in his eyes, stepping inside the doorway. “I wouldn’ dream o’ hurtin’ someone as pretty as yer…”
She crushed herself into the wall, shaking her head, helplessly, pleading and babbling incoherently by now, feeling the screams bubbling up in her throat. He smiled a chilling, terrifying smile, and shut the door behind him.
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