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Assu she could find me I was chained up in a sewer The sleepwalkers hadn’t done that: they didn’t have the intelligence,manual dexterity They’d have rippeder that drove them Someone must have intervened; someone anted ht about it, the less I liked the idea of so me alive" It smacked of mad science, and I should know, since I’hter and all--or ood at the destruction thing--and mad science never ended well for the people oke up in chains If they were lucky it was the Island of Dr Moreau and they got to be wacky cat-people with claws and all If they were unlucky…

Yeah, I needed to get out of here "Hello?" My voice was incredibly loud in the sehich was neat: it told me that I was in a very enclosed space, probably no more than six feet to a side I’m not a bat, but I know stuff "Is there anyone there?"

Nothing answeredwater I scowled at the dark

"Hello?" I tried again "Look, I’ in yuck, and that’s a serious infection risk, so could you et ive o? I proht it was a very reasonable offer Whoever was holding ree, because there was still no answer I sighed

"Right Well, when you want to talk to h, that er you keep me here" I closedthe to centerto ain, I could turn the pain back on That would be nice At least then I’d knohat I orking with

The dark inside my eyes wasn’t like the dark outsidein its blackness This dark was co was going to be okay, and where it didn’t ed host We were all the same, down in the dark

I must have fallen asleep, because when I becaI grittedwhy I’d wanted this back Iin the dark wishing it would show up?

My fingers were all there I could feel theainst ht That hy It’s hard to do anything useful with your body when you can’t figure out where you left it, and pain was the first step toward doing so useful

I opened ain as the bright white light that had replaced the foul-sone, too: I realized that belatedly, as I waited for the tears to stop strea down my cheeks I hadn’t fallen asleep naturally I’d either passed out fro to filter through the re chemical and unfamiliar It was too hard to tell, but there was a faintly acrid taste in assed before whoever was holding me here had moved ht I forcedmy unbroken hand to ball into the fist that it instinctually wanted to be

"You don’t need to play that gah what I assumed was some kind of interco on notified ht I’d come down to have a little chat with you before you started throwing yourself against the walls And we have so "

I openedto try and keep theht flooded in I was in what looked like an operating theater, strapped to a narrow bed that sat at the exactthat could have provided e I still tried I bucked and writhed against that bed until every bruise I had was singing like Adam in the shower: loudly, discordantly, and without a bit of concern for how I felt about it Finally I stopped fighting and slu froood It’ll be better if you’re calm" There was another click, presumably as the interco my neck until it ached as I tried to find the door Finally, I spotted a faint discoloration in the wall toto happen

It wasn’t a long wait, which was good, since I’ inward, and a tall, well-groomed man with sandy hair and a patient expression stepped into the roo a pristine white lab coat and shiny black shoes, and I forgot about everything in theit, because it was so blandly corporate that it could have been stolen right off a mannequin at Banana Republic I stared at him I honestly didn’t knohat to say