Blind. It took me a moment to reorient my brain to visual nothingness.

I pushed off the floor with muscles atrophied from long imprisonment. A fist smashed me into the concrete again.

I rolled sideways, swept my jagged tail in the direction of the assailant. He made no noise, but I felt chitin digging into soft flesh, smelled blood.

A hand closed on my tail. I curled around and lunged, driving my claws into soft tissue.

The attacker uttered no sound.

My species does not frighten easily, but to face a thing which doesn't react to being wounded? I shivered.

I gripped a pair of shoulders. Above there would be a head, presumably.

I distended my jaw, lashing out with the fanged suaakudsi inside my mouth. A couple shots and I shattered a forehead, caught a brief taste of gray matter, but it evaporated like cotton candy, along with the victim's body.

I trembled in horror. What were these things?

Another fist struck me from the back. I lashed out with my tail, a spear-like stabbing motion.

Impaled, my foe continued striking me.

I whirled around, clawing a face. I smelled blood, but again they didn't react.

I pounced on the thing, shoving my fist through its rib cage. It took me a few punches to get through the bones. A head bite and it vaporized like the other one.

I paused to catch my breath. Out of shape. I'd really strained myself to kill those two.

As I panted, leaning up against a wall, a bullet tore through my exoskeleton. Then another.

I darted back around the corner, retreating into my cell.

I considered closing the door. The humans had done me a favor, keeping me in my impenetrable fortress.

I stationed myself by the threshold, immobilizing myself like a spider. If they followed me in, I'd have the advantage.

I flinched at the sound of bullets striking glass.

The window did not shatter. For once I felt grateful for the inability to smash through my prison.

The idiot kept firing, though. How long would that glass withstand the onslaught?

I caught a sudden flash of sight.

I didn't recognize the location, but the stuffed toy had landed on a concrete ledge, near a prison cell containing a single electric fan.

Tall, metal, motionless, illuminated in a most theatrical way.

What did this fan do to anyone? Why is it locked up like a common criminal? Had I been the subject of an elaborate practical joke? I had no answers.

Crack. A bullet chipped the concrete next to my head.

I took a breath and leapt through the open doorway. A bullet pierced me, but I caught the shooter with my claws.

Kevlar. The victim struggled against me, but I smashed through his skull.

When more bullets tore through me, I regretted dispatching him so soon. If he'd been an ordinary human, I could have used him and the Kevlar as a shield.

I retreated once more into my cell.

The steady popping of handguns followed me in, concrete chipping as bullets ricocheted.

Once more, the shells perforated my exoskeleton. I stood exhausted and bleeding.

With dwindling strength, I slammed the cell door on the gunman, ripped off the Kevlar and smashed him with the door until he vaporized like his comrades.

The latch hit the strike housing with a thunderous click. With no handle present, it seemed I had resigned myself once again to interminable imprisonment.

Bleeding from numerous places, I staggered, groaning, toward the right wall to recover my strength.

I bumped into a desk.

The odd sounds.

The lack of familiar smells.

It seemed that, out of panic, and unfamiliarity with my surroundings, as well as disuse of nonvisual senses, I had inadvertently locked myself in the wrong prison.

Like a blind man, I felt around the top of the desk.

Padded particle board booth. Computer tower. Monitor. Keyboard. Headphones. Some kind of telephone.

I picked up the low murmuring sounds I'd heard from the cell next door, but they'd teasingly decreased in volume. Where did it come from?

I bumped an office chair, which rolled away from me on noisy wheels. I sat on the desk, grabbed the headphones.

Again, the sound of a toilet tank refilling.

I pressed the headphones to the side of my head. The sound changed.

A tiny voice came in, a barely audible whisper like a mosquito trying to speak. "...Name is Sharon Newell, calling about my Global Telecom Internet bill...Account number 7164137101...payment...My Mastercard number is 5..." I don't remember the rest of the digits, but I could have used them if I knew how.

I snarled at the voice and they hung up. Unfortunately, it only caused another whispering shrew to speak. And another.

And another.

I rammed my fist through the computer monitor. The glass shattered, but the insect voices still continued to read me credit card numbers.

I growled, bashed the tower with my fist. Nothing changed.

I struck the phone.

Suddenly the whispers changed back to the toilet tank refilling sound.

A subaudible voice spoke to me through the gurgling, accompanied by a hallucinatory vision of a huge inverted black pyramid slowly rotating in a white void.

We have been waiting to speak to you. The director has not succeeded in eliminating Hiss from the Facility.

I let out a puzzled growl.

The voice didn't stop to explain, it just kept talking. ...Several Hiss targets, including the Hartman have been eliminated, but...building remains...unstable, roving entropic...continue to undermine structural integrity...Hiss resurfaces every time targets are destroyed...

"What is Hiss?" I asked. "I do not understand."

Instead of responding, I heard a dialtone.

A telephone receiver clicked.

"Director Faden," said a female voice.

That voice!

I'd heard it outside my cell, speaking to Langston about my release.

"Faden..." I groaned.

I could hear the alarm in her voice. "Who is this!"

"You...kill me."

"Good Lord!" she gasped. "You're, you're that thing!"

"Julie."

"Julie," she scoffed. "What do you want?"

"Bleeding. Hurt bad. You kill me."

I fell off the desk, collapsing on the floor.

I heard noises coming from the headset, but I'd lost a lot of blood, so the woman's voice became just another gurgling toilet sound as my consciousness faded.