[Moosh da Outlaw]

Glad you liked it. ^^
And of course, comments are appriciated. *nudge nudge*



-----



The guard barracks weren’t exactly what you’d call ‘quiet.’ Half the people in the room were snoring loudly, beat from killing cylonite slogs all night. Everybody else was just lying awake and chatting care freely. The relief in the room was immense. Finally, after all this time, they wouldn’t have to worry about being eaten in the middle of the night.

Dan rolled over so his face was buried in his pillow, groaning. He was exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep. Yet he was so troubled with his thoughts that he couldn’t keep his eyes shut.

They had taken Nedd somewhere. Nobody knew where, nobody knew why; all they did know was that he was still alive. This was troubling. Dan rolled over again so that he was looking at the top bunk of his bed, which used do belong to another intern. That intern had been killed in the recent fight. Grumbling, Dan shifted again so that he was lying on his side, looking around the room.

Can’t sleep? Red whispered from two bunks over.

Nope. Dan replied, pulling his thin bed sheets around him tighter.

What do you think they did with Nedd?

I don’t know. Dan paused. But if they haven’t killed him by now, they’ve made a huge mistake.

Just go to sleep.

Hesitantly Dan flipped over again, letting his eyes fall shut. Sleep.

<~{.epidemic.}~>

It was nearly 3 AM; in a matter of hours the sun would rise. Helix rolled over from where he slept in his comfortable, private room, trying to drown out the sound of footsteps out in the hall. He closed his eyes tighter. Who would be up at this hour? It was the middle of the night!

With a flinch, Helix heard his door open, and saw light filter in from behind his eyelids. He curled up tighter, pretending to be asleep. Whoever they were, they could wait.

“Helix?” Came a nervous squeak. Helix ignored it. Whoever it was poked him carefully in the side with a claw. “Heeelix?”

“What do you want?” Helix spat, his mouth smacking as he tasted his morning breath. Nasty. He opened his eyes and looked over to see who had entered his room.

Brux was standing by his bed, looking nervous and terrified. Helix blinked and leaned to the side to look past him. In the doorway, holding a bright flashlight, was one of Vhern’s bodyguards. He was impassive. Helix frowned.

“Has something happened?”

“I don’t know.” Brux squeaked in his high-pitched, normally cheerful voice. “But he wants us to follow him.”

Helix addressed the slig bitterly. “What could that idiot boss of yours possibly want right now?”
Helix saw the slig tighten its grip on the flashlight, but other than that, it didn’t respond. Smugly Helix tumbled out of bed.
“Whatever.” he said, yawning broadly. “Lets just go and get this over with.”

The slig stepped aside to let the two vykkers through before following them down the hall. For a long time they didn’t speak. Helix tried once or twice to start a conversation to pass the time, but Brux just shrugged all his comments off with an unconcerned whimper. He seemed to be terrified of Vhern’s bodyguard. Helix decided to take extra precautions and avoid the two sligs as often as he could.

Eventually the miniature big-bro stopped. Helix and Brux turned, watching as the slig jammed a key in a huge metal door. Helix had passed the door plenty of times, but had never actually gone in the room it was hiding; it was reserved for especially dangerous test subjects, which he never messed with.

The metal door flew open, revealing a small foyer. The three stepped inside. Helix shuffled uncomfortably; it was cramped. The metal door slammed behind them and the slig pushed open the second door, stepping inside without hesitation. Helix and Brux both looked around. The outside of the perfectly-square room was like a torture chamber; rust and water stains discolored the walls, formed from thin pipes in the walls that lead to other rooms for circulation. The room had no vents, so it locked the scent of blood and decay in. As they moved slowly closer towards the room’s center, they felt dirt scratch under their feet, but didn’t look down to see what they were stepping in.

Helix blinked in confusion when he saw the center of the room. It was higher up, like a stage, and perfectly sanitized. An array of solid-white lights the exact size of the stage were implanted in the ceiling. On the stage was a long, wheeled stretcher. Helix could tell something was on it, but he didn’t know what; it was draped over by a thick black tarp. A life support system with a fully-functioning oxygen tank was connected to the thing under the tarp by dozens of thick cables.

“Why hello.” Vhern said, stepping out from a second room off to the side. Helix looked back. The room was full of racks and tools; he could see a few interns working inside, minding their own business. Helix turned his attention back to Vhern.

“What do you want?” he asked, arms crossed. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Vhern adjusted his widely-brimmed glasses. “I suppose,” he said, smirking, “you haven’t heard the news from Durc yet?”

Helix scowled. Vhern new very well that Helix didn’t meddle in the guard’s affairs; he simply didn’t care about what they did. “I haven’t heard anything.”

Vhern sighed happily and looked up in an ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know’-sort-of-way. “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t. It only happened less than an hour ago.”

Helix glared at him suspiciously. “Just tell me what I’m doing here so I can do it and get back to sleep, okay?”

“Come closer.”

The two vykkers stepped hesitantly onto the stage. Vhern pulled some vykker-fitted surgical gloves over his claws. Then, grinning like an exited child, he grabbed the end of the tarp and threw it back.

Brux let out a squeak, his hands over his mouth. Helix’s mouth fell open.

“Y-you...” Helix stuttered, “c-caught him?!”

Vhern swiped back the tarp completely, exposing Nedd in the full light. Helix guessed that the lights were somehow fixed so they gave off no UV rays.

“No, but the guards did.” Vhern shrugged.

Nedd was freakishly huge compared to normal interns. Not fat or overly-muscled, but long and tall, with dark purple-grey skin from the cylonite that had entered his bloodstream. He was strapped to the table by thick metal bands, four around his legs, three around his arms and wrists, two over his chest and stomach, one around his neck, and one around his forehead. Strapped tightly over his mouth was an oxygen-mixed anesthetic mask. He had two pulse readers over his chest that beeped faintly with each slow heartbeat. Both his dead eye and working eye were shut and motionless.

“He’s still alive.” Brux breathed, horror stricken.

Vhern licked his lips quickly before snapping his fingers. An intern in the second room looked up. “Bring me some surgical equipment.” He ordered.

The intern wheeled a cart with medical supplies over to the stand, uninterested, before walking back towards the previous room. Nedd growled in his sleep. The intern looked back, did a double take, and walked rigidly into the previous room, looking like he’d just seen a ghost. Were vykkers experimenting on interns now?

Helix removed a jar of liquid and a needle from the cart. He filled the needle to the brim, tapped it with a claw, and placed it against Nedd’s vein. Vhern grabbed his wrist before he could inject Nedd. “What are you doing?!” he hissed.

“Cyanide overdose,” Helix explained innocently. “It’ll kill him instantly.”

“Who said we wanted to kill him?”

The room fell silent. “...w-what do you mean?” Helix said, uncomprehending.

“Nedd.” Vhern said. “We’re not going to kill him.”

“Are you insane?” Helix squawked, dropping the needle. It clinked against the floor but didn’t break. “This is Nedd we’re talking about! He’s a danger to the ship, the ship’s inhabitants, and us!”

“We’re not gonna kill him?” Brux murmured, a little slow on the times.

“Just think about it,” Vhern said, smiling with his straight teeth. “Hear me out.
For a long time we fought Nedd over the basement. Casualties were suffered, I know. But think about what this guy can do for the future of industry as a whole ”

“I don’t understand.” Helix said slowly.

“This man,” Vhern said, poking Nedd with a claw, “has lived three weeks on cylonite. He’s still sane. He’s still alive. If we can just discover what the cylonite does to him that it does to nobody else... imagine the possibilities! Genetically altered sligs and interns, capable of working twice the hours with the strength and speed that only cylonite can provide! Twice as much work for less the workers! And less feeding costs! Cylonite victims need very little to survive. Imagine all the money we could drag in just by altering our worker’s genetics! The cylonite could work wonders, if used correctly!”

“No!” Helix shrieked, picking up his needle and attempting once again to inject Nedd with it. Vhern swatted it aside quickly. “We can’t do this! He’s a monster! He HAS TO DIE!”

“Helix,” Vhern said calmly with his arms behind his back, “I don’t believe you run this establishment. This is not your decision to make.”

“Brux,” Helix pleaded, turning to his associate. Brux stiffened. “We have to kill him! Do something!”

“I-I-I...” Brux stuttered, torn between helping his friend and his boss. “What should I do? ”

“KILL HIM ”

“Don’t!" Vhern said, suddenly looking angry. “You can’t kill him! This is a once in a lifetime chance! He must survive!”

“No!” Helix screamed in complete hysterics. A little crowd of interns had now gathered in the doorway to watch him flip out. “WE HAVE TO KILL THE DAMN THING SO HE DOESN’T LIVE TO KILL US!”

“STOP SCREAMING OR YOU’RE FIRED!” Vhern shrieked.

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT MY ODDAMN JOB ANYMORE! I CARE ABOUT LIVING!”

Vhern snapped his fingers. One of his bodyguards grabbed Helix by the head and slammed his face into the metal operating table with a loud crack. Helix felt blood pool in his mouth. If he had a nose, it would’ve been broken. The slig jerked Helix back and lifted him into the air by his head, pressing the barrel of a shuzi against the back of his neck.

Vhern dusted his glasses and put them on calmly, looking up at the now-bleeding Helix. “This doesn’t have to be so difficult.” he said between Helix’s terrified whimpers. The guard let him go, but still held the snuzi against his neck.

“Helix!” Brux wailed. He was extremely sensitive to violence. “Just do whatever he wants!”

“Yes, that would be the smart thing to do.” Vhern smiled.

Helix spat out a mouthful of blood from his cut lip and chipped teeth. The outside of his left eye was a yellowish color- he was developing a black eye. “What do you want me to do?” He rasped, flashing his blood dipped teeth. He felt degraded. Brux sobbed harder.

“Simple.” Vhern said, slowly removing his sanitary gloves. “I want you to heal Nedd. Fix him up like you would any patient. We can’t do any tests on him if he’s half dead.”

Helix looked back at Nedd slowly. Even in his sleep, he was a scary sight to see. He had what looked like a bullet hole in his cheek, and one of his legs were wrapped in bloody gauze; it looked like a nasty injury.

“Well?” Vhern asked expectantly. “What would you do to heal him?”

Helix swallowed his pride remorsefully. “I would stitch his damaged eye shut first. There appears to be some of it left.”

“Why would you stitch it?” Vhern asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, the sensitive nerves in the back of the socket are still exposed.” Helix explained half-heartedly. “It would be best just to stitch it.”

“Than hurry up and do it.”
Helix’s threaded a needle from the cart and stared at Nedd’s face. He saw his eyelid twitch. His claws trembling violently, Helix slowly opened his damaged eye’s socket. The eye hadn’t been removed entirely; it still had its basic shape, but with deep grooves running across it. It was lightly pinkish and filmed over with a thin layer of skin. Helix stitched Nedd’s eyelids quickly just so he could be finished looking at it.

“And then...?” Vhern asked, letting his sentence trail off expectantly.

“I’d remove the bullet in his cheek. The skin can grow by itself, but not without a chunk of metal in the way.” Helix looked over at Brux. “Brux, stitch shut the minor bullet wounds around his ribs.”

Brux was as unwilling as Helix, but didn’t dare to disobey. Helix pulled out the bullet with what looked like tiny salad tongs whilst Brux did stitches, whimpering like a scared animal. Vhern watched in fascination. As soon as Helix and Brux had finished, Vhern was already giving them orders.

“Now uncut the gauze around his leg and do whatever you can for it. Don’t cut it off or anything.” Vhern looked up, suddenly realizing that the interns were still in the doorway. Unlike before they were huddled together in pure terror. “Well, get back to what you were doing!” Vhern demanded. The interns ran off hastily.

Helix cut the gauze and pulled it off, wincing as the scent of blood and cylonite hit him. The leg was gooey with pus and looked as though multiple layers of flesh had been skinned off, even down to the bone in places. To Helix’s surprise, however, the leg looked like it was already healing. He pulled the gauze back around it, claws shaking. “There’s nothing we can do now.” he said quietly. “We’ll just have to let it heal.”

“So thats it?” Vhern said happily. “Anything else?”

“Keep him on antibiotics for a few weeks.” Helix couldn’t believe what he was saying. “H-he’ll be as right as rain.”

“Good!” Vhern exclaimed, pulling the tarp back over Nedd’s body. He looked back over his shoulder. “One! Two! Come here.”
The bulky sligs walked over, the ground slamming under their feet. Vhern pointed at the wheeled stretcher. “Push this into the other room, would you?”

Without so much as a sound the sligs began pushing the stretcher down a ramp nearby. The interns in the other room moved aside quickly to let them through, staying in a group just for the comfort. Helix looked around through his rapidly swelling eye. The room was long and sterilized. In the way back Helix saw a huge cage made of wire as thick as his wrists; unlike the rest of the room, it was darkly shaded. The two sligs unlocked the massive padlocks that held the cage shut, letting them drop to the floor. They looked extremely heavy.

“You over there.” Vhern said, pointing at a random intern. The intern’s eyes widened. “Go to that cabinet over there and take out the muzzle and chains in the bottom drawer.” he looked over at the rest of the interns. “Would you be so kind as to give me a hand over here? These shackles won’t undo themselves.”

Normally, Helix would have found the intern’s reactions to be hysterical. They were terrified beyond terrified. But in this case he just found them depressing. The interns stepped over obediently, staring at the stretcher. Vhern jerked the tarp free, exposing Nedd chained down, and the interns suddenly fought a blackout.

“Undo those shackles.” He said, pointing to the metal bands that held Nedd down. The interns stared. Wouldn’t that release him?

Meanwhile another intern came over, lugging behind the muzzle and chains like Vhern had ordered. Vhern tossed them to Helix, who had to scramble to catch them without falling over. “You two lock that contraption over his face. I don’t want him biting anybody.”

All the bands had been removed. The interns resumed cowering. Hesitantly Helix lifted Nedd’s head, flinching when he heard him grunt in his sleep. He pried the aesthetic mask off his mouth and began locking the metal over his face, struggling to keep his claws from trembling. The ‘muzzle’, as Vhern called it, was a large metal box with a hole on one side so Nedd could see. There were six smaller holes in a row lower down that served as ventilation. Helix quickly locked it around Nedd’s head while Brux chained his hands together, still sniffling.

“Well, now that that’s all sorted out...” Vhern said in satisfaction. The pair of sligs grabbed Nedd by his neck and legs and threw him in the cage carelessly. Nedd smacked against the wall as limp as a fish before slumping to the floor. Helix nearly screamed when he saw Nedd shift on his own accord. He would wake up soon. The two sligs re-locked the cage before stepping behind Helix and Brux.

“Now,” Vhern said, turning to the vykkers, “I take it you won’t be telling anybody about this...” Helix felt the muzzle of a snuzi press against the back of his neck, “... correct?”
Helix nodded dumbly. Vhern smiled. “Good.” His face darkened. “Now get out. Everybody.”

Helix couldn’t wait to leave. The pair of vykkers and the group of interns left as quickly as they could, fighting their way through the door without any sense of politeness. Only Vhern and his bodyguards were left, staring at the cage. Vhern placed his claw against the metal wire.

“What will you do now?” He murmured. Nedd was lying so that he faced the wall; in the shadows all Vhern could see was his back, ridged with jutting scars. Vhern turned away, his bodyguards following, and turned off the lights. Then he slowly closed the door.

All that could be heard was the sound of breathing.