Spider's head swam. He drifted in and out of consciousness, and wasn't quite sure whether he was alive or dead. Forcing his head to clear, he began to surface into consciousness...
Where am I? he thought. He was barely able to move, and, though his eyes were closed, he could feel a bright light shining down on him. Squinting his eyes, he opened them the tiniest slit, turning his head to the side to avoid the light. This place looks familiar... Ter familiar... He could see a workbench, sickeningly familiar, but he couldn't place it. Then he saw a Silvery Ovoid Shape hovering above the workbench, and the horrifying realisation dawned on him...
Screaming, he managed to force his malfunctioning muscles to lift his torso from the bed he was laid out on. Forcing his eyes open, he stared around his surroundings wildly. He recognised almost everything. For a terrifying moment he was back in the Labs where he was created...
He was strapped down tightly to a table. Myron was nearby, laughing at him.
"Why are yer doing this ter me!?" he cried, "I've done nutten ter yer!"
"Because...," Myron said with a cold smile, "You are my test subject, and nothing more. I do as I please to you.." Then Myron took out a syringe and approached him.
"No! Leave me alone!" he cried, tears in his eyes as he struggled to free himself from the straps. Myron then plunged the syringe into his side, and pain shot through his body...
"Spider! Spider!" A slightly familiar voice pierced his recollections. As his weak muscles surrendered to the pull of the bed, he was gripped, firmly but gently, by a strange warm glow around his body, which lowered him down. Looking up, he saw the slivery ovoid he had seen earlier , hovering over him, projecting an orange field around his body. Then Spider lost his battle with consciousness, and sank back into the icy clutches of sleep...
**************
"Are you okay?"
The voice raised Spider from the depths of his dreamless slumber once more. Opening his eyes, he saw that the light was gone, and much of the equipment he had seen before had also disappeared. Leaning over him was a figure he recognised as Olm, the village's Surgeon and General Doctor.
"How are you feeling?" Olm put his hands on Spiders shoulders to steady him.
Spider swallowed, his mouth dry. "Where... Where am I?"
Olm winced, then sighed. "You're underneath the Surgery. I had to take you here, our normal equipment couldn't take care of you." Spider attempted to sit up, but Olm restrained him. "No, no, take it easy; you've lost a lot of blood. I've managed to stitch up your wounds fairly well, but you'll feel weak for a long time after that, assuming that there was no infection in the scratches. There wasn't any that Jase recognised, anyway, but you can never be too careful." He looked Spider up and down. "What happened to you? I just saw a crowd of villagers, so I carried you back here, but I don't recognise the scratch-marks."
Spider cleared his throat and laid down again until the spots cleared from his eyes. He glanced around the room, then looked suspiciously at Olm. "What's with the freaky stuff? I don't like the look of this place..."
Olm looked down. "Well, sometimes forest medicine just isn't enough... You'd never have survived without this 'Freaky Stuff'."
Spider frowned. "Well, thanks for the help, doc, but I really have to be going..." He swung his tail off the bed, standing as lest he could on the floor.
"No, no, you can't leave, you'll never survive!" Olm reached forward to try and stop Spider, but even in his weakened state, Spider pushed Olm out of the way with little trouble. Unfortunately, the effort was too much for him, and he began to pitch forward. The orange field stretched out from the metal oval again, and caught Spider before he hit the ground, lifting him back onto the bed.
Spider regarded the Oval with something akin to distaste, and a certain amount of apprehension. "What's that?"
Olm hesitated, then shrugged. "Jase, this is Spider, Spider, this is Jase."
Spider's expression changed to one of horror. "Yer've got a Dron?! Do yer know how loyal them things are to the Cartel?"
"Not Jase. He's an early model, one of the first. Unlike the new ones, Jase has a mind of his own. And a conscience."
Spider wrinkled his snout. "Drones'll never have consciences. If you'd seen the side of 'em that I'd seen, yer wouldn't be believing it like that." He looked around, fear mounting. "How come I've never heard about this, this... this place before?"
Olm was silent for a moment. "No-one else knows."
"No-one? How d'yer treat people?"
"I normally keep them under sedation, but for some reason you're particularly resistant to sedatives..." Olm saw Spider's yawn, even though he tried to hide it. "You'll be tired, you should really be sleeping now. You'll recover faster." He laid Spider flat and covered him with a blanket. "You're safe here. This isn't the Labs, this is just a Surgery. You'll be okay."
As Spider drifted off, he heard the clink of the lock at the top af the stairs, just after the lights went out...
__________________
Guns don't kill people, People kill people! Using Guns.
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