"At the Sharp End"
As I think "Uprising" will take me forever to write, I thought I'd post a bit of the other fic I have hanging around, the one with Enn-Esses in... I don't know what I was on when I came up with them things, they're damned scary, but anyway...
(Oh, and just un petit note for Drag - I've switched the order of some of my fics around, but it doesn't affect what happens particularly... Um... I'll explain better in 'Gabble', so...)
-----
Fenrik was fed up, not only by that damned soldier rebellion still rolling interminably on, but he’d just been pulled away from an important meeting by a vykker making demands again, and at the moment he wasn’t in the mood to have his brain filled with scientific jargon he’d most likely not be able to understand to save his own Odd-damned life…
The vykker, a certain Doctor Arryss, looked up as he paced in. “Ah, sir…” he smiled, ingratiatingly. “I’d hoped you’d make it.”
“This better be good,” Fenrik replied, coldly. “’Cause if you pulled me away from a meeting for nothing…”
“Oh, I think you’ll like it sir,” the vykker replied, and spread those long, clawfingered hands. “Initial results have been most promising…” he picked up the black glass jar that stood on the instrument trolley, unclipped and removed the lid, and thrust the micromanipulators inside…
The glukkon very nearly recoiled in horror at what was drawn out. It was small – the body was barely an inch long – but it was threshing wildly in the jaws of the forceps. Arryss held it by what appeared to be a “tail” – either that or an excessively long neck, as there was a similar one at the other end – and a forest of needle sharp “legs” waved futilely in the air…
“What… what the frack... is that?!” Fenrik demanded, taking an involuntary step backward.
Arryss held it at arms length, and stared critically at it. “A neural interface probe, nicknames the neural stunner, or Enn-Ess for short. Developed for the training and control of non-intelligent species, but we’ve had some unexpectedly pleasing results on the so-called ‘intelligent’ races as well…”
“Oh…?” Fenrik gave him a suspicious look. “Go on.”
“If I may borrow one of your ‘guests’, I could demonstrate…”
“Hm… I don’t see why not…” Fenrik turned to the two guards hovering in the doorway, two of the few sligs still totally loyal to the Cartel. “You two! Go fetch an, uh… volunteer… from cells. And look sharp!”
“Yes boss,” one saluted, and both vanished out the door…
…You could hear them return – honking and jeering, noisily, and the indignant tones of the prisoner they’d picked out as a test subject.
Fenrik watched impassively as the two guards gave the prisoner a savage push into the room and spilled him across the floor. The slig snarled and hauled himself back to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster, a snarl crimping his narrow face; the guards just jeered at him and pulled rude faces.
“Huh, old Fenrik, I oughtter have known…” he spat, hatefully, glowering at the glukkon.
Fenrik just glared down on the slig, who folded his arms and scowled belligerently back. “All right,” he snapped, at last. “Get to work, I don’t want to wait here all day… I got places to go, people to see…!”
The two guards hooted acknowledgement, and seized the unfortunate prisoner.
“Hey, ow! OW! Gerroff!” he struggled, trying to tear his arms free of those inexorable grips, and failing dismally. His two guards were stronger, in better condition – he hadn’t eaten well for a good few weeks – and weren’t finding it hard to keep hold of him.
In one graceful movement they heaved him onto the flat, slightly inclined tabletop; one pinned him while the other bound his arms secure to it with narrow leather band.
“Now what?” The taller guard asked, looking up and staring Arryss in the eye.
The vykker waved a hand. “It won’t need the pants or mask. Get rid of them.”
Fenrik, a little unsettled by the doctor referring to the hapless creature as an ‘it’, watched silently as the guards did as commanded, then looked up at Arryss and pulled ‘can-we-go-now-please?’ faces.
The vykker nodded, once. “The smaller one, you can go. You,” he pointed at the taller guard. “Get it muzzled,” he looked down at the unwilling test subject. “We don’t want our distinguished visitor getting worried…”
The tall glukkon looked distinctly worried, now. “Um…” he watched the guard slig scoot out the door, and heard the rattle of departing footsteps down the corridor.
Arryss was watching him, as though trying to gauge his reaction. The helpless slig watched, too, his eyes aglow with some odd mixture of belligerence and fear, tugging futilely on his pinioned arms…
“May I continue?” The doctor lifted the NS a little higher, watched it thresh wildly in the sharp forceps.
“Uh…” Fenrik mentally shook himself. “Yeah… yeah, go ahead…”
Arryss smiled a chilling smile, and nodded. “It’s a very simple procedure,” he said, advancing almost casually. “All we do is place the stunner here… like this…” he placed the writhing creature onto the fabric tabletop, alongside the low gap in the tabletop, level with the slig’s spine, and then stepped back. “And it does the rest itself.”
Fenrik watched with something akin to horror as the stunner touched one probe to the slig’s neck, in almost a caress. The slig already had his eyes crushed closed, and was trying not to shake, all his muscles tensed…
Then… he suddenly realised why Arryss had had the slig muzzled. The stunner abruptly braced itself against the back of the unfortunate creature’s neck, and then stabbed all those forest of wicked “legs” into the flesh, carving a savage path through to the vertebra, and then the probes were working their way between the vertebra, worming their way inside, the tips flowering into a fractal of hair-fine filaments, seeking out every tiny sensory nerve, and the slig was screaming his throat raw into the muzzle…
Fenrik had to restrain a sigh of relief when finally Arryss announced it was “done. The implant’s in.”
The slig was sobbing hard, shuddering, gulping in great racking gasps of air, and barely reacted when the vykker flipped the straps open, unpinioning his arms.
“There,” the vykker smiled again, that icy, chilling smile. “One new, loyal soldier.”
The glukkon narrowed his eyes. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked, warily.
“When it’s got its breath back…” Arryss bounced a control pad lightly in his claws. “I’ll demonstrate.”
It took a good ten minutes for the slig to stop wheezing and realise it didn’t hurt as much now… He pushed himself upright, weakly, swiped angrily at his eyes, and glared belligerently at the other two. “What the frack was that all ‘bout?” he demanded, shakingly.
Arryss chuckled, knowingly. “Oh, you’ll see. Now, I think our distinguished guest has a little task for you to do…”
“Distinguished my arse…” the slig muttered, and winced, rubbed the back of his neck, a little unsettled to find, apart from the lump, no other evidence of the implant – it had pulled the skin closed behind itself after finishing everything else. He didn’t make the distinction between his bad-tempered insult and the sudden flare of pain in his neck, just assumed it was the implant playing up…
Fenrik smiled, tightly. “A task? Oh, yes… well, I’ll explain in more detail later… but it entails taking the rebellion ringleaders prisoner, and bringing them back for interrogation and execution.”
The slig scowled again. “I wouldn’ do that if yer paid me…” he hissed.
“Brave word, my little slig…” Arryss said, softly, and touched the control pad lightly, twiddled it a fraction to the right…
The slig all but doubled up on the table, gasping, finding himself on the receiving end of a sensation like needles ramming into his spine, up into his brain, setting all his fingers on fire…
Arryss nodded, calmly, turned the dial back. “There. Now, I’ll ask again. You’re going to do a little task, aren’t you?”
The slig wheezed for breath, the blistering sensation gone for now, nothing but a phantom left, a hateful memory… “F**k you…” he managed.
The vykker laughed. “Now now, slig, less of that attitude…” he touched the dial again, doubled the unfortunate creature up again. “This is probably the last time I’ll ask you… You know the question…”
The slig managed to repeat the first word of his previous comment before Arryss laughed and twisted the dial a savage quarter-turn to the right…
Next second, and the slig couldn’t scream out his total agreement with everything Fenrik had said fast enough.
The vykker nodded, satisfied, and switched the implant off again, leaving the slig a crumpled, sobbing bundle on the table. “You see?” he turned to Fenrik. “Even the most rebellious little worm can be crushed, totally and easily.”
The glukkon nodded. “They could be useful…” he replied, gruffly.
Arryss nodded, placing the control pad carefully back onto the instrument trolley. “Absolutely. Their good points vastly outweigh the bad, if I may say so; they are nonlethal, can deliver a precise degree of ‘persuasion’, and they’re permanent.”
“Permanent?”
“Yes. Once they’re in, they’re tied with too many vital nerves to be removed. At least, we haven’t found a way of getting them out and keeping the host alive, not without severely crippling, or even killing.”
“And… the bad points…?”
“Ah, well…” Arryss nodded, wearily. “The implants… well, if the host is killed, it triggers a reaction. The probe removes itself, and goes to look for a new host. And if it doesn’t find one, it goes dormant until it does… We haven’t yet managed to stop it doing that – no doubt we’ll figure it out later, but so far it’s still causing problems.”
Fenrik smiled a chilling smile. “You know…” he said, thoughtfully. “Maybe these little toys would be good as a standard issue thing… just to avoid any more… nasty little rebellions…”
And this time it was the vykker’s turn to feel a chill down his spine.
-----
There... Hm. I got too many fics, and not enough finished. Ah well, c'est la vie, I suppose... Meh.
[ May 29, 2001: Message edited by: Teal ]
|
