Fictober Prompt 13: "The things you make me do..."
Trapped Like a Turtle in a Cage
It started with screams from the lab above her, but that had been typical. The doctor's new patients always screeched during their operations, but the footsteps pounding above her head told a different story. Sheegor flinched, emitting a squeal as something heavy clattered and shook the ceiling. She peered up, her mouth hanging open, and she turned away from the chairs she had pushed into position for General Oleander to deposit the bodies of the Psychonauts. He was supposed to have arrived by now. She hoped his targets defeated him with every fiber of her being.
The noise continued. Something metallic slammed to the ground and shook the floor. Dr. Loboto shrieked in pain, then roared with all the fury in his lungs. Sheegor covered her ears, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering for it all to go away.
"Sheegor!" Loboto bellowed, his voice bleeding through the ceiling. "Stop him, Sheegor! Now!"
She opened her eyes in time to catch a flash of orange, white, and blue. Another squeak escaped her as she hobbled to the doorframe, but the doctor's latest subject was already gone. She heard the elevator keen, then watched as the boy, his eyes wide, clung for dear life onto the bars as the elevator suddenly dropped.
She couldn't help but sigh in relief. One of the campers escaped.
But then, she gasped. One of the campers escaped.
"Oh, no," she moaned, her mittened hands covering her mouth.
His shadow covered her before she could react. The doctor hovered over her, his ebony lips twisted in a snarl. A trickle of blood slipped from his stitches, which he covered with a dirty cloth before tossing it to the wind. In his other hand, he held the arm of a little girl wearing a helmet, who rocked from side to side, brainless.
"You let that little mentalist go free before I could treat him?" Loboto hissed, shaking the girl. He threw her in front of Sheegor. She yelped and caught the child before she could slip under the railing and plummet to her doom. "That abomination of a boy broke free and hit me with the PSI lock! The PSI lock, Sheegor! Do you know how hard that device is? Do you know how much it smarts?"
"TV," the girl suddenly piped up as if to answer his question.
"No! No television for bad little girls who are the reason why equally bad little boys run from treatment!" Loboto snapped at her.
"TV," she huffed and glared at the lake below.
As Loboto growled, Sheegor sucked in a breath and cried, "D-Doctor! Doctor, I swear, I-! I was following your previous order! I mean, I mean, I was getting the other room prepped for the Psychonauts the general would bring at any time! I couldn't help, um, even if I wanted to help!"
Loboto advanced on Sheegor. She cradled the small girl to her shoulder, backing away on the creaking, uneven floorboards and shaking her head. His only fist shook, and his claw gleamed under the moonlight. Hints of pepper and cerebrospinal fluid clung to the metal.
"He made a fool out of me, Sheegor!" Loboto shouted, bashing his hand onto the rope railing. Sheegor jostled and tightened her grip on the girl. "No patient has ever escaped me before. No one! And I won't have a repeat patient flee from his check-up examination!" He lowered his voice, his lip curling. "Do you understand me, Sheegor? Or do I have to take your brain out as a substitution for the general's plan?"
She bobbed her head up and down as feverishly as she could. She said everything he wanted to hear. Yes, she'd chase after the child. Yes, she'd drag him back kicking and screaming. Yes, she'd use two PSI locks strapped around his head and chest this time.
Loboto barked out a cackle and straightened his spine. "As if you could run! You were already way too slow to grab him!" He laughed in her face, and she felt shame swelling within her. He sighed out his frustration and amusement, his lenses tilting in the direction of his lab. "Ah, well, I'll get the brat soon. I just need a little, hm, nourishment."
Sheegor's heart sank into her stomach.
"A little turtle soup would put me in a better mood. Delicious and nutritious turtle soup! Part of a good diet, not that you'd know about that, Sheegor," Loboto sneered, rubbing his stomach.
"You can't!" she screeched, snatching the hem of Loboto's dirtied smock. "Please, doctor! Don't punish Mr. Pokeylope! I'm the one who messed up by not running faster after that boy!"
Loboto ran his tongue across his chapped lips. His laughter naturally escaped him. "Oh, but Sheegor, you'd have me starve? I can't work on an empty stomach," he jeered, then scoffed and shook his head, "and don't offer me any of your rotten confections, either. I can't stand looking at your cavity-inducing chocolate cake. Either make me a good meal after you drop that little alien thing off with our ferry fish, or Mr. Pokeylope will become the chunks of meat in my broth."
He didn't wait to hear her answer. He turned his back on her just as he had done many times in the past. They both understood her obedience was guaranteed as long as Mr. Pokeylope remained in his care. Sheegor seethed, her eyes wet with tears as Loboto approached the other elevator. She wondered why he hadn't recalled the elevator the boy chose and verbalized her question.
Loboto blankly stared at her before a flash of devilish delight crossed his features. "Oh, simple-minded Sheegor. Always forgetting."
She swallowed, the girl swaying next to her. "What do you mean?" she asked, wishing she hadn't.
"Why, if the boy had chosen this elevator," Loboto said, pressing the red button, and Sheegor winced as the door rattled open, "then he would have had a direct flight to the asylum courtyard, but he chose wrong. Now, he gets to navigate through the twists and turns of the asylum. Hopefully, he won't drown in a pool of acid or choke on the fumes from those incorrigible rats." He paused, resting one foot in the doorway. "Well, if he does, it'll make the extraction a bit messier, but it's nothing that a dentist such as myself can't overcome." He smirked at her, the door wobbling as it shut. "I'm sure you can dispose of him properly if things go south, right, Sheegor? You know what's at stake, after all."
His laughter echoed as the elevator shot to the ground. It reverberated in her head like a siren, piercing through her eardrums and squeezing her brain. Sheegor sank to her knees, relinquishing her grip on the girl, who slowly shuffled away from her. A choked sob wracked her body, and she buried her face in her mittens, murmuring the name of her dear friend.
But he couldn't help her. Mr. Pokeylope was trapped in Loboto's possession. If she even tried to go near him, then Loboto would light the fire right in front of her. Mr. Pokeylope would have burned to a crisp, and her heart squeezed at the possibility.
"The things you make me do, Dr. Loboto," she crooned, tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes, "for the sake of letting Mr. Pokeylope live."
Her breath hitched. She staggered to her feet. She pressed her mitten over her eyes and dried them. Wasting another moment meant creating another thorn in Loboto's side, and she didn't want to give him any reason to hunger.
Turning to the little girl, Sheegor marched over and grabbed her hand before she could topple off the railing. In a hoarse voice, she murmured, "Let's get you back to the lungfish, and you can go home. Isn't that nice? You can leave here."
"Cygnus A?" Chloe blearily replied, her head lolling under her helmet.
Sheegor blinked, the location foreign to her, but she managed to smile. "Um, uh-huh, yeah. Cygnus A sounds a lot nicer than here."