Themes Used: Hunter; Predator, School, Names, Chains; Bonds
1.3 Education
"Major says he wants it."
"It isn't ready." The nervous man was scribbling on his tablet and having Butler perform some small tasks with his wires to test his dexterity. Butler stopped to look at the newcomer, a small person who looked like a child with strangely feline ears.
The nervous man spilled a large container of multicolored straws out onto the metal table and snapped his fingers for Butler's attention. "Sort them by color, using the wires."
While Butler began the task, sorting through the straws with a dexterity that was no less surprising to Butler than to his observers, the nervous man pulled the boy aside.
"Warrant Officer Schrödinger, go tell the Major that this is too delicate to just cobble together and expect it to be safe."
"No way!" Schrödinger wrinkled his nose and backed toward the door. "You want to tell him he can't have his toy on his birthday, Doc? You'd better get it topside before the Major sends someone taller and less talkative to come get it."
Before Doc could retort, Schrödinger ducked back out the door and scampered away, almost skipping on his way down the hall.
Butler was found the task set him so simple that he had no difficulty following the exchange between Doc and the Warrant Officer. Now those two had names and Butler filed them away just as he had everything since he had woken.
Doc grumbled angrily to himself, the words blending into an unbroken stream of syllables as he expressed his reservations about putting "it" into play so quickly. He slammed a door open and removed a black case, which he brought to the table where Butler was nearly finished with the sorting.
"Give me your right hand." He took Butler's hand, grumbling still. "I haven't finished the calibrations and he wants to play." He shook his head and pulled a braided cord out of the box. "I'll patch it together for now until I can do more." Tracing the underside of Butler's wrist with his fingertip, he jabbed a pair of metal leads through the skin, holding Butler's hand still with unexpected strength.
"Quiet," he muttered absently. Butler subsided, watching as his skin healed over the contacts, leaving a pair of protruding posts. Gesturing for the other hand, he repeated the process and picked up the cord. "This will stretch and won't impede your mobility. I can't have you useless. Not such a good tool." He snapped contacts on the end of the cords over the leads on one wrist and wrapped the cord behind Butler to clip the other end on the other wrist. "That will keep you leashed."
Butler had watched carefully for the entire process, trying to fit this odd procedure into what little he knew of his world. What he understood was that he was something that Doc feared, and that understanding roused predatory instincts in him.
Why couldn't he just kill this man and do whatever he wanted?
Doc glanced up and met his eyes. "I know what you're thinking." He shook his head and took what appeared to be a remote control out of the box that had held the cord and the contacts in Butler's wrist. His pressing one of the small buttons on the controller corresponded with Butler dropping to his knees shuddering with wracking pains throughout his body.
The pain stopped and Doc's order brought him back to his feet.
"You don't have thoughts of your own. You do as you're ordered. Remember that or those chips sitting on key nerve junctures will make you tear your flesh off your bones to try to make the pain stop."
Butler fought to stop the residual muscle spasms from whatever Doc had done and nodded his head fractionally at the man. He still had much to learn, but that was a lesson that would not be forgotten.