5
Orion was having a terrible dream. This dream was so terrible,
it would make him wake up, screaming,
and his parents would rush in, his mother would pick him up into her
lap and rock him and tell him it was all
right. She would smooth his mane back, and maybe his father would
lay his strong hand on the boy's head and
assure him it was only a dream, that everything was okay...
The child opened his eyes. They widened in horror as they looked
at the bleak gray walls, the iron bars,
the cell across the narrow hallway where a Reptilian Mutant three times
Orion's age slept fitfully. He began
to cry as he realized he had not been dreaming. The cub's own
exhausted sleep had been uninterrupted by visions.
He felt the effects of the previous night's ordeal as he backed into
the corner, having strayed from it in
his sleep. But he did not stay there long, as he heard footsteps
coming down the hall. A few doors were
opened, and Orion heard shouts, the sound of someone being punched,
a few curses, sometimes he heard only
shuffling footsteps, or low growls. Even the young child realized
that that was hearing some prisoners
cooperating, and some fighting.
Finally the Mutants reached his cell, and the jackal he had already
begun to fear greatly was standing
there looking coldly into the cell. But there was the hint of
an unpleasant smile on his feral muzzle. He nodded
to the two others with him, both brown-hued jackals, and one opened
the door while the other dragged the child
out. Orion kicked one in the shin and he yelped indignantly,
holding the chained child away from him.
The jackal actually laughed out loud. "You show more spirit for
the four years old you are than most of
my adult prisoners," he said.
"I-I'm not four, I'm five," the cub protested.
The jackal smiled in a mockery of good manners. "My mistake.
Then I can be rougher on you What's
your name, cub?"
Orion scowled. "I'm not telling you."
The jackal smacked his already bruised face. The child cried out.
"I asked your name," he repeated,
narrowing his eyes threateningly at the boy as he raised his hand again.
Despite himself, Orion cringed away and grimaced, expecting to be hit. He was.
The jackal shook his head. "I am surprised by your endurance,
little feline," the jackal said almost
sadly. "But I have had simians that learn faster than you.
Tell me your name now." The hand came up once
more.
Crying once more, Orion stammered his name, hating the jackal for making
him do so. He bit his lip,
almost thinking he would be struck anyway, but the Mutant lowered his
hand.
"That's better. Orion? Hardly a Plundaarian name, that's
for sure. It should be easy to remember." He
smiled mildly at the small boy, and Orion thought he did not want to
be remembered. Not by this jackal.
"Are we taking this one down too, Blackmoor?" the guard holding Orion asked.
Blackmoor, so that was his name. Blackmoor nodded. "Yes.
Take him for the full week. Just make
sure they keep in mind his age and his size. I don't want him
injured." He considered a moment. "At least
not too badly."
These words frightened Orion very much as he stood, rigid with fear,
in the smaller jackal's grip. The
guard nodded. "Understood, boss," he said, and steered Orion down the
hallway. Letting go of his arms, he
shoved him in the direction of the door he had come through the night
before. Orion shook his head and
immediately backed up, intending to crawl back into the cell and curl
up in the corner. The guard grabbed him.
"Boy, you sure are a pain in the ass, brat," he said, and dragged him out the door.
Blackmoor unemotionally went about getting the other two that had arrived the day before "situated".
The boy would either begin to submit, or he would be kept in training
until he did., or until it killed him. New
arrivals always went through a week, usually no more than that, of
harsh "training", which amounted to beating
them into submission. It entailed pounding rules into their heads,
repeating over and over what was expected of
them, what was not expected of them, how they were to act and not act,
what would happen if they broke
these rules, what to expect if they tried to escape. Depending
on the prisoners' reactions to each of these
statements, they would receive positive or negative reinforcement.
The positive was usually a verbal
acknowledgment that they were doing as they were told, the negative
much more intense, more so depending on
how the subject reacted.
Although Blackmoor, when he was not busy, would probably conduct some
of the little Thunderian's
training himself. He was Thunderian, first of all, a race Blackmoor
hated, whom he considered lower than the
lowest Mutant on Plundaar; and second of all, he had shown more spirit
than many others in his place. Spirit
and will made for unrest and fear. He did not want to fear that
his slaves would rise up against him. And so he
crushed will and broke spirit. Third...the little bastard had
bitten him. He had not been on guard with the young boy, and as he
had caught him by surprise in front of his guards, he had a personal grudge
against the young feline. And woe to he who incited Blackmoor's
anger.
Little Orion was dragged through the large work yard, where the boy
saw people in chains, working, and
mean looking Mutants watching them here and there. In this area,
he could see no fences, but saw a tower a
good distance away that had a guard in it, although it was too far
away for the boy to see the man. The compound was vast, holding most
of the facilities that made the products Blackmoor dealt in.
He could see no felines yet. All were Mutants and a few were of races he had never seen before. Strange, smooth-skinned people that had the same shape as a Thunderian but only had fur on their heads. And they had little eyes.
After a long walk, during which the jackal kept his iron grip on the
cub's arms, they arrived at a
medium-sized stone building, that looked drab, gray, desolate in the
middle of the compound. His strong feline
instincts, intensified with his young age, sent him a feeling of deep
dread, and his stopped walking. The boy
locked his knees, dug his toe claws into the dirt, and refused to move.
When the jackal picked him up to sling
him over his shoulder, Orion started fighting, kicking his chained
legs, and striking the jackal with fists whose
wrists bore manacles. He screamed to be let go.
The jackal growled, and did just that. He shoved Orion over his shoulder, to land behind him.
Orion yelped as he landed, his hands thrown forward to break his fall,
and shook his head. But when he
scrambled up to run, the jackal grabbed the chain between his hands,
and viscously brought the boy's arms over
his head, jerking back to bring them behind him. The boy screamed
and kicked out at the Mutant, but now he
easily avoided it, slinging Orion over his shoulder once more.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" He was luckily flexible
enough, and the chain just long enough,
for him to avoid injury, but it still had hurt, and he was very scared.
Now with his hands behind him, and the
jackal holding his feet down as he walked into the building with the
cub over his shoulder, Orion was helpless.
"Oops!" the jackal said, deliberately letting the boy's head strike the doorway as he walked in.
"Owww!" Orion whined, as the heavy door slammed shut and sealed itself.
Anyone could walk in, but
to get out, the taskmaster's key was needed, and only one person in
the building at a time had it. He was
brought into a large central room that had a lot of different pieces
of furniture, it looked like to Orion. There
were chairs and tables and the like, but all of them had restraints
on them: straps or metal bands. And the other
furniture he could not identify, but looked horrifying. He closed
his eyes.
Around this large central room were eight metal doors and a small guards'
station. The doors led to
pitch black, soundproof rooms, and the station had a monitor/communications
console, and some chairs for
those who worked there to use. "Here's the last one," the jackal
said, setting Orion down roughly and shoving
him forward.
The only person there that Orion could see, a large-statured simian
Mutant, grabbed his arm and looked
him over. then he nodded. "Understood, hoo hoo."
Ignoring the boys protests, that were nothing he had not
heard many times before, he shoved him into one of the cells.
He locked him in and let the jackal out. He would be busy with the
other two, and would get to the boy the next day.
Orion was in darkness that not even his feline eyes could penetrate,
and the cell was chilly. He felt
around with his feet and found that it had only a metal rim around
a hole that smelled like antiseptic; the toilet.
He had to go but with his hands chained could not, so for now he lay
on the floor and held it. He cried
loudly, although in the little room no one heard him but him.
Some time later, the boy slept again and dreamed
of home.
Chapter 6
Table
of Contents
ThunderCat
Stories Page
Main
Page