Shadowkill

1

Azram wrinkled his nose. “Achcha, Fray. You stink.”

Kinefray kicked at the door, yelled after the departing techs, “Bottoss! Jogin z’rafej!” He kicked the door again, shambled over, and dropped onto the plank bed beside his cousin. “What’s happening?”

Azram looked round the cell, scratched a claw through the scabby moss growing on the stone. “Gunk keeps growing.”

“Haven’t had you out?”

“Torture by boredom, that’s what it is. What’d z’rafej do to you this time?”

“Samples of every liquid I’ve got in my body. I’ve got more holes in my hide than a sandsponge. Rest and stress.” He yawned, stretched. “Wonder how come z’rafej they keep us together? I managed to get a word with… oh, ssst!”

“What?”

“Those bottoss z’rafej, they shit ticks every place we go.”

Azram extruded his claws, clicked them against the chains holding the bed to the wall. “Yeh? So what’s the prob, Fray? Anything you going to tell me, z’rafej already saw.”

“Oh. Yeh. Well, I got a word with Tolmant, z’rafej had him in for some the same tests I was getting, so he said I was the first of us he’d seen since the Hole, so I was just wondering, how come z’rafej keeping us together?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Any idea where we are or who’s got us?”

“Na. They wear those masks and stuff and they make sure we don’t get a look outside. None of us.”

“You and Tolmant had y’self quite a chat.”

“Yah. Set-up, you think?”

“It’s all a set-up here.”

“Yah.” Kinefray jumped to his feet, began prowling restlessly about. “Back and forth, all the time the same way. Nothing. Just walls. Stupid stone walls. Then the lab. Tube lights, cages, stress booths, tables. Like what we do, only this time it’s for people, not animals.”

Azram scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Animals,” he said. “That’s it, then. Getting ready to put the collar on us. Got to know the beast before you can control it. Or use it. Or hunt it.”